§ Sir Richard BodyTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the risks to health posed by British beef exported in breach of the beef export ban. [10013]
§ Mr. RookerHealth and identification marks have been partly or wholly removed from beef which has been seized in another country on suspicion that it has been illegally exported from the UK. Without those marks, it is not possible to confirm either that it met hygiene standards at the time of slaughter or its origin. Standards for the production of beef in the UK are, nevertheless, as high as anywhere in Europe. There are stringent safeguards to ensure that carcases from BSE suspects cannot enter the human food chain and UK controls to prevent specified bovine material from entering the human food chain are the toughest in Europe.