Question
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. He is probably aware that I will ask him about Harriet, the Jersey cow. For noble Lords who do not know, Harriet was born about nine years ago on a holding in Oxford where another cow, born six months later, suffered from BSE and has been slaughtered. Harriet never ate any of the food that the previous cow ate. In fact, she never even shared any of the accommodation. Harriet is now a pet cow whose owners have given the department an assurance that she will never go into the food chain. In any case, she would not be able to because Defra holds her passport. Would the Minister consider asking his right honourable friend the Prime Minister to give Harriet the same treatment that he gave Phoenix, the calf who was saved from foot and mouth slaughter?
Answer
My Lords, with respect, those cases are not in any way comparable. The question of Harriet the cow has been looked at on several occasions and has been the subject of a special debate in the other place. All the evidence points to the fact that Harriet is a cohort. In the first year of her life, she was involved in eating the feed that a subsequent animal, designated as having BSE, ate. We have protected our beef chain through rigorous enforcement of BSE rules. We are now exporting 1,000 tonnes of beef a week because of that rigorous enforcement and confidence in our beef. That has been part of the process. There is no definition of pet cattle or a pet cow. If Harriet has been designated as a cohort by all the available evidence, which has been looked at on more than one occasion, she will have to go to slaughter.