§ Mr. WallaceTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on how many occasions in June 1997 the Intervention Board made arrangements for blood from cattle culled in Orkney to be transported to the Scottish mainland for disposal; what was the volume of blood involved in each case and what was the capacity of the vehicle used to transport the blood; and what was the total cost to public funds. [6976]
§ Mr. RookerCommission Regulation 716/96, under which the Over Thirty Month Scheme (OTMS), operates, requires the remains of cattle slaughtered under the scheme to be incinerated, or rendered and destroyed. This requirement covers the whole of the animal, other than the hide, and the Intervention Board have instigated a system of collecting OTMS blood from scheme abattoirs by means of tanker round. The blood is taken to one of two rendering plants in Great Britain for processing, prior to destruction.
Orkney Islands Council (OIC) have a contract with the intervention board to slaughter OTMS cattle offered to the scheme on Orkney, and to destroy the remains, including the blood, in a newly developed gasification facility. Because of difficulties with the chill facilities at the OIC plant in the first few weeks of June, the Intervention Board arranged for the remains of the OTMS animals slaughtered at the plant, including the blood, to be delivered to the renderer at Kintore in Aberdeenshire for processing.
508WA total of 4.2 tonnes of OTMS blood was collected from the Orkney cull abattoir on three separate occasions in June by the special tanker used to collect OTMS blood from the other participating abattoirs in scotland. This vehicle has a capacity of around 22 tonnes. All the invoices for this work have not yet been received, but it is estimated that the collection service, including ferry crossing, and rendering will cost in the order of £5,000.
I am pleased to say that the difficulties with the chills have now been resolved, that the integrated slaughter and gasification process in Orkney is now fully operational again and that the blood from the OTMS animals slaughtered on Orkney is now processed on the island.