§ Mr. PatersonTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has for introducing electronic tagging of sheep; and if she will make a statement. [161548]
§ Mr. BradshawElectronic identification of sheep becomes compulsory under EU law from 1 January 2008 and is currently being used as a component of the National Scrapie Plan. We are anticipating the widespread use of this technology and have recently launched a pilot project on a minimum of 50 commercial sheep farms to assess how industry can make best use of electronic identification and to identify any issues that may arise.