§ Lord Gainfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
What was the outcome of the State Veterinary Service's surveillance of the handling of Specified Bovine Offals in November and December 1995.
Lord LucasThe State Veterinary Service (SVS) continued to make unannounced visits to slaughterhouses, hunt kennels and knackeries in November and December 1995 to monitor their handling of Specified Bovine Offals (SB0s). The results of these visits were:
55WA
Slaughterhouses Hunt Kennels and Knackeries November 1995 Number visits 365 234 Number unsatisfactory visits 44 38 Percentage unsatisfactory 12 19 December 1995 Number visits 272 193 Number unsatisfactory visits 17 14 Percentage unsatisfactory 6 7 Many of the failings found were of a comparatively mild nature—for example, problems with staining SBOs or with record keeping. There were however some more serious cases, including incidents in which small pieces of spinal cord were left attached to carcases after dressing in slaughterhouses. Eight such instances were detected in November and two in December, the most recent on 14 December; there have been none so far in January 1996. A total of 21 instances in which spinal cord was left attached to carcases have now been detected since the SVS surveillance programme of slaughterhouses began in the summer.
The results of similar surveillance visits to rendering and incineration plants handling SBOs will be announced shortly.
We welcome these significant improvements in the handling of SBOs by slaughterhouses, hunt kennels and knackeries. We expect those that have attained a satisfactory level of performance to maintain the standards they are now achieving, and would expect that those plants which have failed to do so will work harder to ensure they do fully comply with the controls. The SVS will continue its unannounced surveillance visits to plants handling SBOs.