§ Mr. BoswellTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether the ban on feeding certain animal protein to cattle will continue beyond 31 December.
§ Mr. GummerI recently made the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (No. 2) Order 1989 (S.I. 1989/2326) which will extend indefinitely the ban on the use of animal protein derived from ruminants in feed for cattle and other ruminants.
The current prohibition, which was due to expire on 31 December this year, was introduced to prevent this practice which is considered to be the probable cause of BSE. It was made clear when the original ban came into effect that it would be continued unless processing methods sufficient to destroy the causal agent were identified and were widely available. At present no such method of processing has been indentified and further research is needed on the time-temperature combinations necessary to destroy the BSE agent.