HL Deb 26 February 2003 vol 645 cc39-40WA
The Earl of Caithness

asked Her Majesty's Government:

How many transactions by the British Cattle Movement Service were recorded in 2002; and how many were queried by producers. [HL1722]

Lord Whitty

The British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) recorded 18.95 million transactions with its customers during 2002. During this year it received 386,000 phone calls, 97,000 letters and 18,000 e-mails from customers. Assuming that virtually all of these communications will have been, in one way or another, about transactions recorded it should be noted that at worst only 2.6 per cent of transactions were queried. Some will have been replies to queries raised by the BCMS and the remainder will have been spontaneous inquiries from customers. Any of these contacts could have given rise to a series of further queries being raised by either side. We cannot identify from within these totals the number of transactions spontaneously queried by keepers.

The Earl of Caithness

asked Her Majesty's Government:

How a producer is to know whether his cattle movement card has arrived and been satisfactorily registered by the British Cattle Movement Service.[HL1725]

Lord Whitty

Any registered cattle keeper can access their records on the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) cattle tracing scheme system through the BCMS website atwww.bcms.gov.uk. The website allows the keepers to check the data held by the national database and contains details of any queries the BCMS has about transactions. The service is free, available 24 hours a day and requires no special software to access other than a standard web-browser.

The Earl of Caithness

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether the British Cattle Movement Service has been approved by the European Commission. [HL1727]

Lord Whitty

Representatives of the EU Commission visited the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) in November 2001 to conduct an audit to confer fully operational status with effect from 1 April 2002. We still await the publication of this decision and understand there is some discussion within the Commission about the procedures that have been used by Commission officials in conducting these audits in the UK and other member states. My officials in the department are actively pursuing the issue with the Commission.