BSE (Hansard, 8 January 2002)

§ Mr. Dalyell
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her oral answer of 15 November 2001,Official Report, column 961, on BSE, what peer reviews the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee has used of the research work of Professor Ebringer on BSE. [23268]

§ Mr. Morley
[holding answer 17 December 2001]The Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee has invited Professor Ebringer to attend its next meeting in February 2002. The Committee, which comprises independent and eminent scientists in the field, will then review Professor Ebringer's work. Generally, research is not peer reviewed specifically for the purposes of aiding SEAC's deliberations. On this occasion, however, an independent scientist has been approached to review the work prior to SEAC's discussion.

§ Malcolm Bruce
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what is(a) the target reduction of annual incidence of BSE for 2001 and (b) the actual figure for 2001. [24378]

§ Mr. Morley
The Department has a Public Service Agreement (PSA) target for this area; that is to reduce the annual incidence of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) to less than 650 cases by 2001 and by 2004 be on track for fewer than 30 cases by 2006, a 99 per cent. reduction compared with 1997 when there were 4,312 cases.
The actual figure for 2001 is likely to be around 750 confirmed BSE cases in cattle presented as clinical suspects. Progress against the PSA target has been affected by movement restrictions introduced to deal with the foot and mouth disease outbreak. This has disrupted the slaughter of older cattle under the over-30-months scheme (OTMS) because available rendering capacity has been used to dispose of the carcases of animals arising from the control of foot and mouth disease. This, in turn, has increased the mean age of the cattle population and resulted in more cases than previously anticipated. Nevertheless, the outturn for 2001 still represents a reduction of more than 40 per cent. compared to 2000 (1,311 cases in cattle presented as clinical suspects), so that the epidemic continues rapidly to decline. There is no particular concern at present in relation to the 2004 and 2006 targets.