§ Mr. HeppellTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the(a) recorded and (b) calculated level of specified bovine offal in each year since 1989. [26432]
§ Mrs BrowningBefore the introduction of the Specified Bovine Offal Order 1995, all SBOs had to be dealt with in accordance with the Bovine Offal (Prohibition) Regulations 1989, as amended. Enforcement of these regulations lay with the local authorities up until 1 April 1995, when the Meat Hygiene Service took over this responsibility in premises licensed under the Fresh Meat (Hygiene and Inspection) Regulations 1995. The bovine offal regulations required all consignments of SBO to be accompanied by a movement permit, detailing amongst other things the quantity being moved. Once the SBO had reached its intended destination, the completed permit had to be returned to the originating local authority, which then had to keep it for a period of two years. No central records were kept.
Since the introduction of the Specified Bovine Offal Order in August 1995, which was replaced by the Specified Bovine Material Order 1996 in March, movement permits for SBO are no longer required, in view of tighter controls which have been introduced on approval and record keeping. Persons consigning SBO to an approved premises are required to keep a record of all consigned SBO material for a period of two years. The programme of state veterinary service audits of records kept under the legislation has not yet been running for a full year, so annual data from this source are not yet available. Our best estimates based on returns from the rendering industry show that just over 78,000 tonnes of SBM was handled by it in the 12 months to March 1996. In addition, a small amount will have been destroyed by incineration.
428WIt is not possible to calculate an exact figure for the weight of SBM that would be generated by the slaughter of a given number of animals. This is because the weight generated per animal is dependent on the dressing procedures in the slaughterhouse concerned. The effects of, for example, whether the guts are sent off full or empty, or whether head meat was removed, when that was permitted, can result in a weight of SBM generated per animal that can vary by a factor of two or more. Based on date extrapolated from the MLC kill figures for the period August 1995 to March 1996, the figure of 78,000 tonnes above lies well within the range of the maximum of about 130,000 tonnes and the minimum of about 57,000 tonnes of SBM that we would expect to have been produced.