Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: Further to the Written Answer by Lord Rooker on 20 May (WA 113), if the risk of transmission of BSE from sheep is near zero and scrapie is non-transmissible to humans, why it is necessary to bury sheep carcasses when any residual prions are more likely to be widely dispersed into the ground by live sheep when lambing.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: Whether the estimated £10 billion-worth of uranium and recovered plutonium stockpiled in the United Kingdom will be used for electrical generating purposes rather than being consigned to waste.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: Further to the Written Answer by Lord Darzi of Denham on 21 April (WA 214), saying that spines removed by vacuum are randomly checked, why all United Kingdom sheep over the age of 12 months have their spinal columns split and are individually checked.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: What influence they expect to have on any decisions of the European Union on the registration and traceability of sheep, in view of the United Kingdom having the largest sheep flock in the European Union.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: (a) what measurable improvements in traceability and disease control would result from the introduction of identification of sheep through electronic implants; (b) to what extent this would improve traceability beyond the existing double-tagging regime; and (c) to what extent this would assist the elimination of the disease in light of the fact that the main...
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: Whether they have ruled out reprocessing nuclear waste for use in nuclear power stations; and whether they have considered how much carbon dioxide-free electrical power could be produced from that waste.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: Over the past year (a) how much money has been raised by the climate change levy; (b) what the cost of this levy has been per individual household; and (c) what the cost has been of the promotion, development and subsidy of renewable energy.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: Whether, in the light of the fuel costs of incinerating dead sheep and the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee report that the likelihood of BSE in sheep is near zero, they will press the European Union to consider the findings of the Scientific Steering Committee meeting of 16 January 2003 with a view to obtaining a derogation to enable fallen sheep...
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: Further to the Written Answer by Lord Malloch-Brown on 10 March (WA 200), whether they can give 10 further examples of the incorporation into European Union legislation of a recommendation of the European Union Scrutiny Committee of either House.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: What additional safeguards against the transfer of foot and mouth disease through vectors such as wind, wild animals and humans would be provided by the electronic implant tagging of sheep, above those offered by double tagging and comprehensive movement records.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: Whether they will authorise the extraction of spinal columns from sheep by vacuum, as approved by the European Union, and in the light of the Food Standards Agency placing no restrictions on the import of sheep meat so processed from France and the finding of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee that the likelihood of BSE in sheep is near zero.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: Now that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has identified a commercial opportunity through the sale of its assets at some 18 sites in Britain, when they will produce a revised estimate of the cost of nuclear decommissioning taking into account the fact that the re-use of existing nuclear sites for nuclear purposes eliminates the need to return the site to...
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: What was the load factor of the installed and working capacity of the United Kingdom's wind turbine generators during January and February 2008; and whether the load factor was affected by the anti-cyclones during that period.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: How many of the wind turbines so far installed in the United Kingdom are covered by decommissioning agreements to take effect at the end of their working lives, requiring their dismantling and the restoration of the land by the removal of concrete bases and access roads.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: What benefits, additional to those of the existing double ear-tagging of sheep, would be brought by electronic implant tagging.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: Whether, in view of the fact that after 10 years' research no discernible trace of BSE has been discovered in sheep, they will seek from the European Union a derogation exempting the United Kingdom sheep flock from additional tracing costs arising from the proposed electronic tagging.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: Further to the Written Answer by Lord Rooker on 25 February (WA 97), whether they will carry out full-scale trials before implementation of the directive requiring the electronic tagging of sheep by 2009.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: How the identification of sheep carcasses by electronic implants is possible once the head holding that implant is removed from the body.
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: In view of the conclusion of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee in December 2006 that the prevalence of BSE in the United Kingdom sheep population was likely to be zero and that the precautionary measure of splitting sheep to remove the spinal cord was unnecessary, when they will adopt the European Union-approved process of vacuum removal, as...
Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government: Further to the Written Answer by Lord Malloch-Brown on 19 February (WA 38), whether they can give any example of the incorporation into European Union legislation of a recommendation of the European Union Scrutiny Committee of either House.