§ Baroness Byfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the total number of animals killed during the foot and mouth disease outbreak, excluding cattle slaughtered in the over thirty months scheme. [HL2485]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty)As at 24 January 2002, some 4 million animals have been slaughtered for disease control 59WA purposes during the foot and mouth outbreak. This includes animals slaughtered from infected premises, dangerous contacts premises and slaughter on suspicion premises. This figure has been extracted from DEFRA's disease control system database (DCS) and may be subject to revision as more information becomes available. A quality assurance exercise of the data within DCS is currently being carried out.
A further two and a half million animals have been slaughtered as a result of eligible applications received under the livestock welfare disposal scheme and the light lambs disposal scheme. These schemes were introduced to deal with those animals whose welfare was threatened by the movement restrictions which had to be imposed as a result of foot and mouth disease and the surplus of lambs which, had an export ban not been in place, would otherwise have been exported.
60WABreakdowns of these figures continue to be available on DEFRA's website at www.DEFRA.gov.uk and are updated daily.