§ Mr. LevittTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will assess the advantages of moving sheep head counts for EU purposes from spring to autumn to minimise the risk of ewes becoming separated from their lambs by the process. [44445]
§ Mr. RookerHock counts are needed for a minimum 10 per cent. of claims under the Sheep Annual Premium (SAP) scheme and the Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances (HLCA) scheme. At present, these counts must all be carried out during the scheme retention period, which for SAP and HLCA has been combined and fixed at 4 February to 15 May in consultation with the industry. The scope for changing these arrangements is currently limited. In particular, EU rules do not permit an autumn retention period for SAP.
They do allow for a proportion of flock inspections to be undertaken outside the retention period, if the general standard of on-farm record keeping is satisfactory. Unfortunately this is not yet the case in the UK. It is recognised that a spring retention period is not ideal from the welfare point of view but in practice it has not led to major difficulties. In carrying out their duties, the field staff are sensitive to potential welfare concerns and every effort is made to schedule inspections to minimise the disruption that may be caused to normal flock management.