§ Mr. LuffTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) on how many infected premises slaughter was completed within 24 hours of a clinical diagnosis of the disease during the foot and mouth epidemic; [47605]
(2) on average how long after a clinical diagnosis of the disease slaughter was completed on the contiguous farms during the foot and mouth epidemic. [47602]
§ Mr. MorleyInformation regarding the time taken to slaughter on infected premises is presented in two charts, copies of which have been placed in the Library.
When looking at the charts the following should be taken into consideration:
The charts show the percentage of infected premises culled out, on a weekly basis, within the 24-hour target and the number of infected premises culled out, on a weekly basis, within the 24-hour target.The 24-hour target policy was based upon the time from which suspicion of disease was first communicated to DEFRA offices, not the time and date of clinical diagnosis. The time to slaughter has been calculated as the difference between this time and date and the time and date by which all animals on each premises had been slaughtered.Premises which presently have missing dates, negative times to slaughter and times to slaughter greater than 500 hours have been excluded. The charts have been created from the data within DEFRA's Disease Control System Database and they may be subject to change as the data cleansing exercise is carried out.The charts are based on a majority of data held on DCS and give a representative picture of the times taken to slaughter.Although a total of 2,026 infected premises (IPs) were reported in the UK, the "time to slaughter" charts do not include IPs that were previously Dangerous contacts or slaughter on suspicion cases. These premises have not been included since, at the time, it would not have been identified that a 24-hour target was to be 930W worked towards. The charts are based on around 1,500 premises, the final difference being down to missing dates and negative times to slaughter.The percentage target hit, on its own, does not reflect the number of premises that were having to be dealt with——a 50 per cent. hit may be representing a figure of two cases or 200.The charts do not give context to the underlying data. They obviously do not give any information regarding the reasons why culls may have taken longer than 24–48 hours, and cannot describe the practical difficulties faced by regional offices attempting to slaughter premises quickly in often extremely difficult circumstances. The count of premises slaughtered does not take into account the number of animals involved (size or herd) or the species.
§ Mr. Liddell-GraingerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make representations to the European Parliament inquiry into foot and mouth to include Somerset in their programme of visits. [49038]
§ Mr. MorleyIt is a matter for the European Parliament Temporary Committee to decide their programme of visits.