Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the (a) efficacy and (b) adequacy of the Over Thirty Months Scheme for cattle.

While cases of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in the UK are now rare, the confirmation of a new case in Scotland in May highlighted the continued importance of the robust BSE control measures we have in place that have greatly reduced the incidence of BSE in the UK. These controls include the Over Thirty Months (OTM) rule, which acts as a safeguard to both human and animal health. The OTM rule requires the removal at slaughter from cattle aged over thirty months old, tissues which are designated by the World Animal Health Organisation (WOAH) as Specified Risk Material (SRM), because they contain the highest level of potential BSE infectivity. The removal of SRM from cattle aged over thirty months is an internationally recognised requirement.

No assessment of the OTM rule is currently planned while we await the outcome of the recent application that England, Wales, and Scotland have made to WOAH to have our BSE risk status reduced from ‘controlled’ to ‘negligible’.