§ Mr. Stubbsasked the Minister of Agriculture if he can furnish the number of foreign birds imported into the country during 1948; the number found to be suffering from disease; and what evidence he has of any disease from the egg packing cases of imported eggs.
Mr. T. WilliamsExcept for scientific and zoological collections there was practically no importation of live birds into Great Britain from outside the British Isles during 1948. Records of the
152Wminers during the period in question have been as follow:
number of poultry carcases imported are not compiled but 24,271 tons of poultry, representing about 11 million carcases, were imported into the United Kingdom last year. The only inspection of carcases for purposes of detecting disease is that carried out by the public health authorities but, so far as is known, no carcase was condemned by these authorities on account of its being affected with disease. I have no evidence that any disease has been introduced into Great Britain by the cases in which imported eggs have been packed.