§ Mr. Spearingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his estimate of the capacity of cold stores in the United Kingdom licensed by the EEC for storage of meat purchased by intervention buying; and how much of that capacity is available for beef storage expressed in tons.
§ Mr. BishopCold stores used for the storage of meat taken into intervention are approved to national standards by individual member States of the EEC The storage capacity of those which are on the Intervention Board's approver list was 300,950 tons on 31st October 1974.
The amount of storage capacity which is available for beef varies from day to day depending on the demand for storage of other commodities; but it is estimated that there is currently storage space for about 12,000 tons of bone-in beef.