§ 87. Sir A. Hurdasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, in view of the criticism expressed by farmers in Berkshire and other English counties of his decision to allow the admission of Irish cattle that have passed a single tuberculin test for a period of five years after the whole of Great Britain has become attested, he will give an assurance that these proposals involve no significant risk of bovine tuberculosis spreading afresh in districts which have been cleared of the disease; and which districts of Great Britain would be adversely affected if none but attested cattle were allowed to be imported after 1960.
§ Mr. John HareAs my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary explained in reply to a Question by my hon. Friend on 23rd March, I am advised that under the conditions that will apply to the importation of once-tested cattle from the Irish Republic after Great Britain is declared free of bovine tuberculosis, there will not he any significant risk of reintroducing the disease into our own herds. The ideal is to import only cattle of attested standard, and we intend to reach that ideal as soon as we can. But it would not be practicable to restrict the trade to attested animals by the end of 1960 because it is clear that by then there will be too few of them to satisfy the demand in this country for stores for fattening and for home-produced beef. The main fattening areas concerned are situated in the Midland and North-Eastern Counties of England and in the Scottish counties of Stirling, Angus, Perth. the Lothians and Fife, which rely very extensively on imports of stores from the Republic.