§ Mr. MorleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the current situation regarding additional or alternative cattle tuberculosis tests in Northern Ireland; and what steps he has taken to secure derogation powers under EC directives to use such tests.
§ Mr. AncramThe Department of Agriculture is currently seeking to develop a blood test suitable to detect bovine tuberculosis. A pilot trial was carried out in 1990–91 with encouraging results and a larger scale field trial is now under way.
This trial will be completed later this year and until the results of the trial have been fully analysed it will not be possible to seek EC agreement to the use of a blood test to detect TB.
§ Mr. MorleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many cattle were slaughtered in each of the last five years as reactors to tuberculosis testing; and if he will show how many of these were subsequently shown to actually have tuberculosis.
§ Mr. AncramThe information is as follows:
Year Number of reactor cattle slaughtered Number of cattle confirmed to have tuberculosis1 1988 1,470 731 1989 2,493 1,337 1990 3,124 1,409 1991 4,108 1,586 1992 4,601 1,653 1 Post-mortem findings and/or laboratory examination. While all the slaughtered cattle were given a post-mortem examination, only visible lesions indicating 17W an advanced stage of TB can be detected in this way. The presence of TB is more readily detected in live animals by the tuberculin test.
§ Mr. MorleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what significance is given to badgers as a factor in the epidemiology of cattle tuberculosis in Northern Ireland.
§ Mr. AncramBadgers are not believed to be a significant source of TB infection in cattle in Northern Ireland.