Asked by: Lord Dodds of Duncairn (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what are the current requirements regarding the re-tagging of livestock born in Great Britain and being moved to Northern Ireland.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Following work with the livestock sector, an easement negotiated by the Government with the European Commission means that cattle, sheep, or goats that already have UK tags that are moving to Northern Ireland from Great Britain do not now need to be reidentified in Great Britain with either a new pair of ‘GB’ tags or have a third ‘GB’ export tag added. Farmers are now able to move them with their existing 'UK' tags. DAERA website guidance advising keepers that these animals had to be identified with GB tags before they are moved to NI has been removed.
Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many people and organisations have registered online for the sheep electronic identification database.
Answered by George Eustice
As at 6 February 2015 (10.30 am) the following registrations to use the new Animal Reporting and Movement Service (ARAMS) for England have been made:
Assembly Centre Portal | 1 |
Animal and Plant Health Agency | 10 |
Abattoir Portal | 134 |
Abattoir Third Party | 11 |
ARAMS Bureau Admin | 17 |
ARAMS Bureau Operator | 73 |
Collection Centre Portal | 17 |
Collection Centre Third Party | 2 |
DEFRA | 13 |
Farmer Portal | 7456 |
Farmer Third Party | 455 |
Local Authority Super User | 282 |
Market Portal | 2 |
Market Third Party | 78 |
Rural Payments Agency | 55 |
Show Portal | 9 |
Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many sheep farmers in the UK have the ability to read sheep electronic identification tags.
Answered by George Eustice
There are a range of options available to sheep keepers to manage individual recording. Electronic tags can be read by eye (manually recording the visible individual animal number) or electronically using an electronic reader. Keepers may also choose for electronically identified sheep, which must be individually recorded, to be read on their behalf at central point recording centres (CPRCs).
It is not possible to say how many sheep farmers in England have the ability to read electronic sheep tags electronically as this is dependent on the number of keepers that have purchased EID readers. Defra does not hold this information.