§ Mr. Michael Lathamasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT a table showing the number of slaughterings of fat steers for each month since January 1973.
§ Mr. BuchanThe information requested is given below. It should be noted that slaughterings of fat steers were unusually low in 1973, being approximately 100,000 head less during the period January-May than in the corresponding period in 1970, 1971 and 1972.
UK HOME-KILLED SLAUGHTERINGS OF FAT STEERS 1973 1974 January … 141,654 194,019 February … 132,499 158,156 March … 152,172 166,709 April … 195,374 201,846* May … 147,583 145,841*† June … 134,622 — July … 162,828 — August … 138,762 — September … 152,574 — October … 195,880 — November … 157,526 — December … 145,738 — *Provisional figures. †No slaughterings in NI for 2 weeks. Source: MAFF.
§ Mr. Michael Lathamasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT 204W a table showing the number of slaughterings of dairy cattle for each month since January 1973.
§ Mr. BuchanFigures are not available to show the numbers of dairy cattle slaughtered, or the numbers of dairy cows. The nearest equivalent series is that for cows and bulls, although these figures include cows and bulls from the beef breed herd. The monthly statistics since January 1973 are as follows:—
UK HOME-FED SLAUGHTERINGS OF COWS AND BULLS 1973 1974 '000 head January … 77.1 101.3 February … 64.1 85.9 March … 55.1 80.5 April … 55.7 70.0* May … 42.7 54.2* June … 41.6 — July … 52.7 — August … 49.4 — September … 63.3 — October … 91.2 — November … 83.9 — December … 67.7 — *Provisional.