To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the storage of slaughtered cattle. [13114]

To speed up clearance of the backlog of cattle that were awaiting slaughter under the over-30-months scheme, some 69,000 tonnes of cattle remains, excluding specified bovine material, were placed in cold storage pending the availability of rendering capacity. In addition, dry storage is being used for scheme material that has already been rendered pending its destruction.

Who is paying the £250,000 weekly cost of that storage? Less than 4 per cent. of the cattle have been disposed of properly by incineration. What is the Minister doing to reduce that cost, and to allay the anxiety that meat from those carcases—thousands of carcases kept in cold storage—could find its way into butchers' shops?

It is helpful to remember that any cattle that exhibit clinical signs of BSE are disposed of immediately by direct incineration, and that specified bovine material is removed from all scheme cattle and sent direct for rendering, so no specified bovine material has been placed in cold storage. The use of cold storage was necessary to clear the backlog of OTMS cattle as quickly as possible and to maximise the use of a limited rendering capacity. Speed was of the essence to avoid potential animal welfare problems on farms as winter drew near, and to pave the way for a start to selective culling. The backlog is now cleared; no more material is being put into cold store, and clearly we shall get rid of the material in cold storage and get it rendered as speedily as is humanly possible.

The use of dry storage for rendered material was unavoidable pending a valuation of the best option for the destruction of that material. In deciding on the best option, full regard will obviously be given to protecting human health and the environment.

Is there sufficient storage for, or the capacity to dispose of, any cattle slaughtered under the accelerated slaughter scheme?

Yes. I do not see the accelerated slaughter scheme in any way making more difficult our disposal problems with the over-30-months scheme.