HL Deb 04 July 1996 vol 573 cc110-1WA
Lord Willougby de Broke

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether ignorance of the contents of animal compound feeds would be a defence if a farmer were to be charged with possessing or feeding prohibited matter.

Lord Lucas

The Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Amendment) Order 1996 makes it an offence for anyone to feed livestock with feedingstuff in which they know or have reason to suspect mammalian meat and bone meal (MBM) has been incorporated.

The draft legislation issued for comment on 10th June proposes to make it an offence for anyone to keep in any premises where farmed animals are housed or fed, or where feedingstuff for such animals is prepared or stored, any feedingstuff which they knew or should have known contained MBM. Farmers in any doubt as to the contents of any feedingstuff they are using have been told that they should contact their supplier for clarification.

As currently drafted, the proposed legislation requires the prosecutor to show that the farmer who kept or fed to his animals feedingstuff contaminated with MBM knew or should have known that the feed was contaminated. Since all farmers using compound feeds have been advised where in doubt to contact their supplier to determine whether the feed contains MBM, it would be difficult in practice for a farmer to deny that he should have known what the feed contained.

Interested organisations are now being consulted about the proposed legislation and it would be possible to change the burden of proof explicitly, by making the offence simply to feed/keep MBM feeds, but introducing a defence of "not knowing that the feed contained MBM, in circumstances where it was not reasonable for the farmer to be expected to know".

This would protect the farmer in a case where MBM was contained in a feed where no one would expect to find it (perhaps by contamination), while ensuring that there is no let-out for the careless or lazy.