Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy Regulations

The debate has a rather long-winded title on the Order Paper which was necessary to comply with our friends in the Table Office. It is about the future of Harriet the cow. She is a pet cow owned by my constituents Mr. and Mrs. Price, who live near Newent. Harriet is a nine-year-old Jersey cow, who was born on a farm in Oxfordshire and is not kept for diary or meat production, but is actually a family pet. Her future is threatened by the transmissible spongiform encephalopathy regulations and the way that they are being implemented by the Department. The essential point is rather straightforward. Harriet was born on a farm in Oxfordshire as a winter calf and earlier that year another calf was born on the same farm which later became infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Under European and national regulations, all cohort animals must be slaughtered and, at the moment, the Department is including Harriet within that description. She has been valued at £1,049 and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wants to have her slaughtered by the end of the month. TSE regulations are sensible and appropriate for animals that are intended to enter the food chain. There is no disagreement about that as the link with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is well established and there is a clear need to ensure that bovine spongiform encephalopathy-infected meat does not enter the food chain for human health reasons and for the sake of our farming industry. I am not arguing that any suspect animal should have the opportunity to enter the food chain. However, the European regulations concerned clearly state:"““These rules should apply to the production and placing on the market of live animals and products of animal origin””." They go on specifically to state that the regulations should not"““apply to products of animal origin which do not pose a risk to animal or human health since they are intended for purposes other than the production of food, feed or fertiliser””." As Harriet is a pet cow, it is clearly the case that she is not intended for any of those purposes. Indeed, her owners wish her to live out her natural life on their farm, in a field near Newent. The cohort regulations identify a cohort as"““a group of bovine animals which were either born in the same herd as, and within 12 months preceding or following the birth of, the affected cattle or reared together with the affected animal at any time during the first year of their life and which may have consumed the same feed as that which the affected animal consumed during the first year of its life””." There are two parts to that definition. Regarding the first part, Harriet has been identified as a cohort animal because she has the same holding number as the cow that was infected with BSE, and that is because they were owned by the same farmer. However, the farmer kept the two herds separately: they were managed in a completely separate way and in different buildings that were a mile apart, although on the same farm. The second part of the cohort definition refers to rearing and feeding regimes, and it relates to whether Harriet has consumed the same feed as that which the infected animal consumed during the first year of its life. The original breeder of Harriet and the vet have, to be fair to the Department, relatively recently confirmed some details and put together documentary evidence to be supplied to the Department, which I know it has been considering. A letter I have received from Harriet’s breeder confirms that she had ““completely different feed”” from the animal with BSE, that food was bought in small batches and that as the cows were born a considerable distance apart, they did not share the same feed and, indeed, were separated at either end of the farm by about a mile. The owner confirms that"““these animals would never have been fed from the same silage bales, bought in bagged feed or ruminvite blocks””." The vet who looked after Harriet and the farm has confirmed that they were managed as completely separate groups with different feeding regimes and in different buildings. He also confirmed that calf food was purchased in small batches, so the batch eaten by the older summer-born calf—the infected calf—would not have been consumed by Harriet the younger winter-born calf. The vet also confirmed the facts stated by the owner. My contention is that Harriet does not fall within the definition of a cohort as set out by the regulations.