§ Baroness Byfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Answer by the Lord Whitty on 19 April (H.L. Deb., col. 701) concerning the proposed waste incineration directive, whether the lack of European Union support for a derogation for farmers is because the rest of the European Union is not constrained by the United Kingdom's BSE regulations; and whether United Kingdom farmers are at a commercial disadvantage in the European Union. [HL2213]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Lord Whitty)The Government arrange and pay for the disposal, by incineration, of animals in the UK suspected of being affected by BSE or excluded from the food chain under the Over Thirty Month Slaughter Scheme. The cost of disposal of other animal waste material falls on the industry. The EU-wide ban on feeding of mammalian protein to ruminants has been extended in the UK to an additional ban on the feeding of mammalian meat and bone meal (MBM) to any farmed livestock, and this may have resulted in more small-scale incineration being used. The UK livestock industry therefore inevitably has higher waste disposal costs. Against the background of a very much higher incidence of BSE in the UK, the additional ban is considered to be necessary in order to eradicate the disease. We understand that the practice of small-scale animal carcass incineration is less widespread in other member states.