Animal Feed (Hansard, 16 May 1990)

§ Dr. David Clark
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list, for each of the last five years, how many imports of animal feed have been contaminated; and, in each case, if he will list the port concerned, the type of feed, the contaminant involved and whether the feed was(a) allowed into the United Kingdom for normal distribution, (b) returned to the country concerned or (c) dispersed in the United Kingdom.

§ Mr. Gummer
Since enforcement of the relevant provisions is a local authority responsibility, the information sought is not available centrally and could be produced only at disproportionate cost.
The extent of the import trade is considerable-more than 4 million tonnes a year. The commercial companies involved therefore have a strong interest in maintaining their own monitoring of supplies quite apart from that of the enforcement agencies.

§ Mr. Ron Davies
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will require the manufacturers of all animal feeding stuffs to label their products indicating the nature and origin of their contents.

§ Mr. Maclean
Manufacturers will be obliged by a recently agreed European Community directive to declare the origin and the contents of animal feeds. The contents must be declared either by listing specific ingredients or categories of similar ingredients.
This directive will come into force in all member states on 22 January 1992.

§ Mr. Ron Davies
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now ban the use of sheep and cattle-derived protein from all animal feeding stuffs.

§ Mr. Maclean
This material is already banned from use in feedstuffs for ruminant animals. There is no evidence of a scrapie-like disease occurring naturally or under laboratory conditions in pigs and poultry and therefore no reason to ban the use of ruminant protein in their feedstuffs.

§ Mr. Ron Davies
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now ban the use of those offals specified in the Bovine Offals Order for consumption by domestic animals.
466W

§ Mr. Maclean
No. Although inquiries will continue, there is no evidence that the spongiform encephalopathy recently found in a cat is either transmissible or connected with other spongiform encephalopathies.

§ Dr. David Clark
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish the results of the analysis of the Spanish cargo of animal feed which was investigated at Goole, giving details of which organisation carried out the tests, where the contaminants came from and how the cargo came to be contaminated.

§ Mr. Gummer
Enforcement of the Feedingstuffs Regulations 1988, as amended, and the Agriculture Act 1970 is the responsibility of local authorities. My officials alerted local authorities and port health authorities on Friday 5 May of the possibility of a contaminated cargo of animal feed disembarking at Goole. In this particular case, the port health authorities took appropriate action and cleared the suspect cargo on Tuesday 8 May.