§ Mr. Silvesterasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his estimate of the total capacity of those abattoirs listed in the Official Report, in reply to the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington on 29th November, columns 129–32.
§ Mr. StrangI regret that I have no information on the maximum capacity of these abattoirs. However, their combined throughput for the domestic and export markets for the year ended 31st December 1976 was 2,428,260 cattle units. One cattle unit is equivalent to one adult bovine, three calves, five sheep or two pigs. The figures do not include horses since no central record is kept of the number of horses slaughtered.