Over-thirty-month Scheme (Hansard, 19 April 2004)

HC Deb 19 April 2004 vol 420 c148W 148W

§ Mr. Drew
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what response she has made to the recent Food Standards Agency proposal to end the Over-Thirty-Month Scheme. [164466]

§ Mr. Bradshaw
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, has welcomed the recommendation by the Food Standards Agency that the Over Thirty Month (OTM) rule could be replaced with a system of testing OTM animals for the food chain. UK Rural Affairs Ministers have decided that animals born before August 1996 should not be allowed back into the food chain because of difficulties associated with tracing and culling the cohorts of cases born before this date.