§ Sir R. Gowerasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food why farmers are not permitted to know the actual weights at which their beasts, sent to the collecting centres, kill out?
Major Lloyd GeorgeIt would not be practicable to furnish farmers with details of the actual weights at which their beasts sent to collecting centres kill out. There is no satisfactory method in every case of positively identifying individual animals and their carcases at the slaughterhouse. Individual lots of sheep are not separately marked at the collecting centres and the labels used for marking cattle frequently become detached, especially in wet weather, during the journey to the slaughterhouse. In order to supply farmers with the killing-out weights of their animals, it would be necessary to make elaborate arrangements for the definite identification of the individual animals and the carcases at all slaughterhouses; such arrangements would add considerably to the complexity and administrative costs of the livestock con- 1733W trol scheme. In this connection it should be remembered that it is frequently necessary to send animals received at one collecting centre to different slaughterhouses.