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Written question asked by Bill Wiggin (Conservative) on Friday, 14 October 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 18 October 2005. It was answered by Lord Knight of Weymouth (Labour) on Tuesday, 25 October 2005 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Cattle Passports

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many applications for cattle passports were rejected for being out of time in each year since 2000.
Answer

The 27 day deadline for submitting a cattle passport application is a requirement of the Cattle Identification Regulations 1998. It has been strictly enforced since 21 November 2003. Before that date, a less rigorous approach was taken.Applications received after the deadline are rejected. However the animals are registered on the Cattle Tracing System and are fully traceable.In the period from 28 September 1998 to 20 November 2003, a total of 5,832 passport applications were rejected because they were not received within the legal time limits and the identity and traceability of the animal could not be established. These figures cannot be broken down into years.The number of applications rejected since 21 November 2003 is as follows:

Rejected
2003 3,552
2004 20,869
2005 10,058
(1) These figures do not include applications which were late but also failed validation for various other reasons. For example dam calf validation problems, for instance calved too soon, or lack of mandatory info e.g. breed or sex.
(2) Up to 16 October 2005.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
19427; 438 c195W;438 c195W
Session
2005-06
Subjects
Cattle Transport Cattle tracing system British Cattle Movement Service
Contains statistics
Yes