HC Deb 03 July 2002 vol 388 cc375-6W
Mr. Drew

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the(a) minimum, (b) maximum and (c) average lengths of time it has taken to remove TB infected reactors from each county that has had a breakdown over the last year. [65010]

Mr. Morley

[holding answer 27 June 2002]: The data requested are given in the table.

The(a) minimum, (b) maximum and (c) average lengths of time it has taken to remove TB-infected reactors from farms in each county that has had a breakdown, between 21 June 2001 and 20 June 2002
Time2(days)
Region1 and county Number of observations Minimum Maximum Average
West
Avon 33 13 3251 68.1
Cornwall 226 6 48 20.9
Devon 259 4 3320 16.2
Dorset 18 8 26 15.4
Gloucestershire 102 14 3174 53.6
Hereford and Worcester 189 1 3188 25.9
Shropshire 20 6 53 20.0
Somerset 61 6 3186 20.5
Wiltshire 60 5 3181 33.0
East
East Sussex 11 10 26 13.1
Leicestershire 5 12 12 12.0
Northamptonshire 4 5 8 7.2
Oxfordshire 1 20 20 20.0
North
Cumbria 1 10 10 10.0
Derbyshire 13 5 13 8.2
North Yorkshire 4 6 15 8.5
Northumberland 13 10 10 10.0
Staffordshire 61 4 25 11.9
Wales
Clwyd 1 13 13 13.0
Dyfed 188 5 49 20.0
Gwent 64 2 3107 19.4
Gwynedd 3 26 27 26.7
Powys 103 1 3121 21.9
West Glamorgan 2 25 90 57.5
Scotland
Aberdeenshire 2 6 6 6.0
Ayrshire 1 13 13 13.0
Fife 1 5 5 5.0
Inverness-shire 1 7 7 7.0
Kirkcudbright 2 6 8 7.0
Wigtown 7 3 25 17.7
1Geographical boundaries are as used for bovine TB control.
2Time between date of reading the tuberculin test and date of slaughter.
3These figures represent cases where animals became reactors in the month before the disruption of normal TB control procedures caused by foot and mouth disease.

Notes:

The TB-infected reactors reported are animals with a reaction to the tuberculin test that were compulsorily slaughtered and had samples submitted to VLA for microbiology. Provided that they (a) had lesions of TB visible at the slaughterhouse, and/or (b) VLA found the TB organism in the sample. The time reported represents the number of days between reading the skin test and removing an animal from the farm. During this time, animals are valued and arrangements are made for transport, slaughter at an abattoir, etc.