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Automotive Emissions

Richard Burden: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what emissions level has been established for the automotive sector in the UK National Allocation Plan; and what this represents as a proportion of actual emissions in 2002. [186275]

Mr. Morley: The UK National Allocation Plan, which was submitted to the European Commission on 30 April 2004 provided provisional sector-level
 
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allocations. Government have always made it clear that the allocations would be revisited in the light of updated emissions projections; verification of baseline data; and the inclusion of additional installations. The overall level of allowances to be set in the Final Allocation Decision will be reviewed in the light of these changes. In the April National Allocation Plan the automotive sector is included in the engineering and vehicles sector, which was given an indicative annual allocation of one million tonnes of CO ₂ . This figure is 100 per cent. of the actual emissions reported in 2002.

Government aim to publish a revised list of installation-level allocations later in the year. Following this there will be a period where industry will have the opportunity to correct any errors of fact prior to the final allocation decision.

Biodiesel

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what licences are needed by farmers producing biodiesel by processing used cooking oil. [190109]

Mr. Morley: A pollution prevention control permit is required for the esterification of used (waste) or virgin cooking oils in chemical plant to produce biodiesel. A waste management licence is required for the commercial filtering of waste vegetable oils to produce biodiesel.

Unless the used cooking oil was agricultural waste, a farmer would be subject to these controls.

Agricultural waste is currently excluded from the waste management licensing regime under section 75 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Agricultural waste is any substance or object from premises used for agriculture which the holder discards or intends to discard.

Bovine TB

Mr. Gray: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many cattle tested positive for tuberculosis in the last 12 months. [188489]

Mr. Bradshaw: 18,676 ¹ cattle were removed and slaughtered under TB control measures during the period 1 August 2003–31 July 2004.

¹ Provisional data, as downloaded from the State Veterinary Service database 16 September 2004. The figure includes animals which reacted to the tuberculin test and those which showed an inconclusive reaction to the test on three occasions.

British Cattle Movement Service

Mr. Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much the British Cattle Movement Service cost in each year since 2000. [189627]

Alun Michael: The costs of running the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) which runs the Cattle Tracing System, in each year since 2000 are set out in the following table.
 
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	£ million
2000–01	13.40
2001–02	14.24
2002–03	15.79
2003–04(28)	15.39
2004–05	(29)14.50

⁽²⁸⁾ The BCMS merged with the Rural Payments Agency on 1 April 2003.
⁽²⁹⁾ Projection to year end.

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many cattle passport (a) applications and (b) movement notifications were (i) received late, (ii) received late but accepted on compassionate or other grounds and (iii) received late and rejected in each of the last five years for which records are available. [189083]

Alun Michael: No cattle movement notification made to the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) have ever been rejected because they were late.

All calf birth registrations received by BCMS are now, and have always been, fully processed and the animals entered onto the national database, no matter how late they have arrived.

The total number of birth registrations received late in each of the last five years has been:

	Number
2000	177,862
2001	188,509
2002	212,998
2003	202,395
2004	22,415

The number of late birth registrations in respect of which full cattle passports were refused over the last five years were 13,448 animals between 1 January 1999 and 20 November 2003, and 25,746 animals between 20 November 2003 and 3 September 2004.

Of these cases, 7,616 and 4,998 animals respectively have had passports issued for them so far after appeals have been considered. These figures cannot be broken down into individual calendar years.

The BCMS merged with the Rural Payments Agency on 1 April 2003.

Mr. Redwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the operation of the cattle passport scheme. [189480]

Alun Michael: The cattle passport scheme is operated by the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) which became part of the Rural Payments Agency from the 1 April 2003. The cattle passport scheme has been in operation since 1996 and the national cattle database contains the details of the 9.9 million animals that make up the national herd.

The BCMS operates to ISO 9001:2000 standards, is registered with the British Standards Institute and its operating practices have received the Kite mark. In addition to paper reporting systems, BCMS have
 
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provided a call centre and online facilities via a website for cattle keepers to use. The BCMS is constantly striving to improve its service and efficiency.

BSE

Mr. Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what evidence she has collated that BSE exists in British cattle. [189620]

Mr. Bradshaw: BSE was identified in British cattle by the Central Veterinary Laboratory in November 1986. The disease is defined on the basis of its clinical history and the characteristic pathological changes that occur in the brain. Cases of the disease in Britain are confirmed by veterinary pathologists on brain tissue from suspect animals. Biochemical screening tests for the diagnosis of BSE from brain samples are also recognised within the EU and by the International Office for Animal Health.

The occurrence of BSE in British cattle has been rigorously monitored using these methods since 1987. The numbers of cases collated are recorded on a graph which will be made available in the Library of the House.

Further information on the disease and statistics in Britain can be found on the Defra website at: www. defra.gov.uk/animalhealth&welfare/BSE/statistics/BSE statistics www.defra.gov.uk/animalhealth&welfare/BSE/publications/progressreport

Mr. Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many BSE cases there were in 2003; and in cattle of what ages. [189621]

Mr. Bradshaw: For Great Britain there were 547 confirmed cases of BSE in 2003 in cattle of the following age groupings:

Age (months)	Total number of cases
<48	1
48–53	3
54–59	5
60–65	10
66–71	7
72–77	3
78–83	8
84–89	27
90–95	40
96–101	69
102–107	58
108–113	57
114–119	48
120–125	43
126–131	34
132–137	28
138–143	16
~144	90
Total 2003	547

Mr. Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many cattle born after (a) 1999, (b) 2000, (c) 2001, (d) 2002 and (e) 2003 have contracted BSE. [189622]

Mr. Bradshaw: In the UK there have been 12 confirmed cases of BSE in cattle born in 1999 and one case born in 2000. No cases have as yet been confirmed in cattle born after 2000.
 
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Mr. Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of whether the passport system has (a) prevented BSE and (b) been used to collect evidence of the age of cattle likely to be affected. [189623]

Alun Michael: The introduction of Cattle Passports improved our ability to check the movement of animals during their lives, which makes it possible to trace animals potentially exposed to a disease risk such as the offspring and cohorts of BSE cases, and to trace the potential sources of infection.

Cattle passports have played an important role in identifying cattle that are required to be tested under the EU's BSE surveillance programme. This programme has enabled us to gain a more detailed understanding of BSE epidemiology, notably its prevalence across various age groups. This has allowed the monitoring of the beneficial effects of the control measures applied and, most importantly, facilitated our submission to the European Commission for moderate risk status for the UK.

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