HC Deb 19 December 1929 vol 233 c1651W
Lieut.-Colonel GAULT

asked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether the Empire Marketing Board will consider making a grant for testing the varying efficacy of the present tests employed in connection with tuberculosis in dairy cattle; whether he has any reports from different parts of the Empire overseas as to the methods of testing milk adopted in Great Britain; whether there is any colonial evidence to show that the milk from certain types of cow condemned as tuberculous is capable of transmitting tuberculosis to human beings; and whether the Empire Marketing Board will take the initiative in forming a new Empire-wide commission of inquiry to investigate scientifically the conflicting data on the whole matter?

Mr. LUNN

The Empire Marketing Board is guided in such matters as those raised by the hon. and gallant Member by the advice received from the Departments for Agriculture and Health in Great Britain, and I understand that all important reports on this question whether originating in this country or overseas are available to those Departments. Hence it would be for the Departments in question, rather than for the Board, to take the initiative as regards the institution of any such inquiry as is suggested.