HL Deb 27 February 2003 vol 645 cc64-5WA
The Earl of Caithness

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they have any record of how many cattle movement cards were lost in 2002 by either the Post Office or the British Cattle Movement Service.[HL 1724]

Lord Whitty

The British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) scans, records and interprets all movement cards received immediately. This can be up to 45,000 cards per day. No loss of cards has been detected by the BCMS. 'The Post Office has informed us that its loss rate is one in 100,000 documents sent to the BCMS.

The Earl of Caithness

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Why the British Cattle Movement Service will not issue receipts for cattle movement orders. [HL1726]

Lord Whitty

Keepers who send movement information to the British Cattle Movement Service through its website can see that a transaction has been recorded by revisiting the site the next day. Those who send movement data through the bulk e-mail system will receive a file receipt notification from BCMS for every file they send.

The barrier to the issue of a receipt for each movement card received by the BCMS is cost. With up to 48,000 movement cards received in a single day last year the logistics of producing and despatching receipts for them all are daunting. With the waiver to industry bearing the full cost of the BCMS services due to expire on 31 March 2004, the cost of the production of receipts (manpower, materials and postage) would be passed directly to industry. The cost could be over £10,000 per day, just for receipts.