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To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they or the Food Standards Agency require samples of beef products to continue to be subject to DNA testing; and, if so, who is paying for it.[HL655]

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

18 June 2013

Reference

HL655; 746 c35WA

House

House of Lords

Food: Beef

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether local authorities continue to collect samples of beef products on sale at retail and catering outlets on behalf of the Food Standards Agency; and, if so, whether the Food Standards Agency is recompensing them for the cost involved.[HL654]

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

17 June 2013

Reference

HL654; 746 c9WA

House

House of Lords

Alpacas and Llamas

To ask Her Majesty's Government which anatomical part of llamas and alpacas is used for testing for bovine tuberculosis.

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

29 October 2009

Reference

5933; 713 c172WA

House

House of Lords

Animal Welfare: Infectious Diseases

Lords question for short debate on what improvements have been made in the management of infectious animal diseases.

Lead member

Baroness Byford

Answering member

Lord Rooker

Department

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Type

Questions for short debate

Date

10 March 2008

Reference

699 c1370-90

House

House of Lords

Agriculture: Foot and Mouth Disease

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether the pigswill feed identified at the start of the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak has been tested for that virus.

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

10 March 2008

Reference

2195; 699 c193-4WA

House

House of Lords

Badgers

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether there has been a comparison made of blood from badgers in areas affected by bovine tuberculosis with blood from badgers unaffected by it.

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

28 January 2008

Reference

1483; 698 c77WA

House

House of Lords

Agriculture: BSE

asked Her Majesty's Government:What has been the cost to date of testing cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy infection over each of the past 10 years; and whether the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is considering moving from the regular testing of cattle over 24 months to a random...

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Answered on

16 April 2007

The cost of testing cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Britain under the EU active surveillance programme, which was introduced in 2001, is shown in the table below.

Year	Number tested*	Costs £ million **
2001	80,444	19
2002	333,073	31
2003	394,712	32
2004	515,507	31
2005	547,386	41
2006	598,755	***60
Total	2,469,877	214
* Numbers tested per calendar year
** Costs per financial year
*** Latest forecast

These figures include laboratory costs, the costs of Meat Hygiene Service controls in abattoirs and Rural Payments Agency expenditure on the collection, brainstem sampling and disposal of cattle that have died or been killed on farm or in transit (fallen cattle). The costs of testing cattle with clinical signs of BSE are excluded. The EU Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) Regulation (999/2001) requires the UK to test all fallen cattle aged over 24 months. An amending regulation (1923/2006), which came into force on 19 January 2007, provides for the European Commission and member states to agree either to raise the age limit for testing fallen cattle throughout the EU, or to accept an individual member state’s application to implement an alternative surveillance programme. The latter is dependent on several factors, including the agreement of harmonised criteria against which a proposal from a member state would be assessed. Defra has asked the European Commission to raise the EU age limit for testing fallen cattle from 24 months. We are also considering how best to present an application for an alternative testing programme for fallen cattle, subject to the UK fulfilling the criteria when they are agreed. No change to the age limit for testing cattle slaughtered for human consumption (from 30 months) is envisaged at this stage.

Date

16 April 2007

Reference

2577; 691 c1WA

House

House of Lords

Avian Flu

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether the new European Union accession countries have as rigorous a wild bird population testing regime as the United Kingdom; and, if not, whether they will propose that a uniform European Union standard is put in place.

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

7 March 2007

Reference

2208; 690 c48WA

House

House of Lords

Avian Flu

asked Her Majesty's Government:Following the avian flu outbreak in Suffolk, whether they will increase the number of tests carried out on wild fowl in Norfolk and Suffolk; and

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

20 February 2007

Reference

689 c213-4WA; 1937

House

House of Lords

Avian Flu

Whether wild bird droppings in East Anglia have been tested over the past 12 months to ascertain whether there could be a link with a possible outbreak of H5N1; and, if not, whether such research will be undertaken.

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

20 February 2007

Reference

689 c213-4WA; 1939

House

House of Lords

Foot and Mouth Disease

Whether testing of second samples from sheep slaughtered in the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak was carried out; if so, how many sheep were involved; what was the outcome; and what was the regional variance.

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

13 October 2006

Reference

7485; 685 c169-70WA

House

House of Lords

Bovine Tuberculosis

Further to the Written Answer by the Lord Bach on 22 March (WA 53), whether, in the light of the 2005 results from single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin tests, they plan a rapid move to the use of polymerase chain reaction tests.

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

17 May 2006

Reference

5427; 682 c36-7WA

House

House of Lords

Bovine Tuberculosis

Further to the Written Answer by the Lord Bach on 22 March (WA 53), whether the specificity and the sensitivity of single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin tests are continuously monitored; and, if so, what is their response to the demonstrable signs of tuberculosis found in 33.6 per cent. of skin test reactors...

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Answered on

17 May 2006

The performance of the single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin (SICCT) test under GB field conditions is continuously monitored using a number of TB epidemiological parameters. Quoted sensitivity and specificity ranges for diagnostic tests are established from research studies and published in the scientific literature. For bovine TB, the most sensitive tests for diagnosis of infection depend on the identification of the immune response mounted by an animal in response to being exposed to the causative organism, as detected through tuberculin skin testing or gamma interferon blood testing. Historically, between 30 and 40 per cent. of SICCT test reactors have demonstrable evidence of infection when slaughtered. The primary purpose of post mortem and bacteriological culture of test reactors is not to establish the presence or absence of disease, but rather to identify the severity and strain of infection—this is useful for epidemiological purposes and supports subsequent disease control efforts. TB skin test reactors that fail to disclose disease in the slaughterhouse or laboratory should not be considered as being uninfected. In essence, post mortem examination and microbiological culture are not the gold standards for diagnosis of M. bovis infections as both methods are less sensitive than immunological tests such as the SICCT test. Moreover, these tests are used in different cattle populations. The SICCT is primarily used as a screening test for cattle showing no clinical signs of disease, whereas post mortem and culture are used as tests on a subpopulation of cattle selected on the basis of positive results to a screening test. The different nature of these populations will affect the performance of any tests used on them. A direct comparison of the performance of tests that ignores these differences in populations is, therefore, not valid.

Date

17 May 2006

Reference

5426; 682 c35-6WA

House

House of Lords

Foot and Mouth Disease

In relation to Clause 7(c) of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease (Control of Vaccination) (England) Regulations 2006, what work has been done to check use-before dates recommended by manufacturers; and how those dates will be monitored in the future.

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

15 May 2006

Reference

5119; 682 c7WA

House

House of Lords

Bovine Tuberculosis

Further to the Written Answer by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Mr Ben Bradshaw, on 9 February (Official Report, House of Commons, col. 1348W), what monitoring takes place to ensure that the tuberculin skin test for bovine tuberculosis continues to be effective; how the...

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Answered on

22 March 2006

The single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin (SICCT) test, commonly known as the tuberculin skin test, is a well-established screening test for TB in cattle. It is a test approved and recognised by the EU Commission and the International Animal Health Organisation (OIE) as a primary, effective tool for the diagnosis of TB in cattle and other species, by virtue of its overall accuracy, robustness and relative simplicity (as demonstrated in several field evaluations conducted throughout the world).The accuracy of any test is measured in terms of its specificity (proportion of uninfected animals identified as negative) and its sensitivity (proportion of infected animals detected as positive). The specificity for a correctly performed SICCT is above 99 per cent. Its sensitivity is between 77 per cent. and 95 per cent.The effectiveness of the tuberculin test depends on a host of controllable and uncontrollable variables such as the quality of the test reagent (tuberculins) employed, the operator performing the test, the animal/herd being tested, criteria for interpretation and the epidemiological situation. All batches of tuberculin undergo quality assurance testing at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency before release and their performance in the field is also monitored by epidemiological analyses. The quality of tuberculin testing work by approved local veterinary inspectors (LVIs) is assured by annual veterinary practice audits conducted by the State Veterinary Service (SVS), which ensure that LVIs are working to the most up to date operating procedures. The test certificates submitted by LVIs to the SVS are also audited for consistency with professional expectations. All concerns raised by farmers regarding the administration of the test are investigated by the SVS. A number of key TB epidemiological parameters (e.g. rate of reactors per 10,000 tests, disease confirmation rate in individual reactors, slaughterhouse case numbers, etc.) are also centrally monitored as indirect indicators of the effectiveness of the tuberculin testing programme.Provisional statistics indicate that 33.6 per cent¹ of all skin test reactors slaughtered in 2005 had demonstrable signs of TB (visible lesions on post mortem examination or a positive culture result for mycobacterium bovis). The purpose of post mortem examination and bacteriological culture of tuberculin test reactors is not so much the validation of skin test results on individual animals, but rather to determine for epidemiological purposes, (a) the severity of disease in infected animals and (b) the strain of mycobacterium bovis organism involved. Failure to find evidence of the disease by these means in a test reactor does not mean that the animal was not infected. In the early stages of infection, it is not always possible to see TB lesions with the naked eye, and, due to the fastidious nature of the organism, it is not possible to culture it from samples in every case."¹ Provisional data downloaded from the State Veterinary Service database on 7 March 2006. Subject to change as more data become available."

Date

22 March 2006

Reference

4610; 680 c53-4WA

House

House of Lords

Cattle Compensation (England) Order 2006

Cattle Compensation (England) Order 2006 (SI 2006/168). Lords debate on a motion that an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the order be annulled. Motion withdrawn

Lead member

Baroness Byford

Answering member

Lord Bach

Department

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Type

Debates on delegated legislation

Date

10 February 2006

Reference

678 c956-66

House

House of Lords

Eurofreeze (Ireland) Ltd

Whether they have tested Eurofreeze products to ensure that they meet health standards; and, if so, what was the result.

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

8 December 2005

Reference

2718; 676 c117WA

House

House of Lords

Bovine Tuberculosis

Whether, under European Union Regulation 64/432, an authorised person conducting a test for tuberculosis is required to be a veterinary surgeon in order for the test to be recognised for the purposes of international trade; and, if so, what is the status of those animals tested by lay persons.

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

29 November 2005

Reference

2513; 676 c17-8WA

House

House of Lords

Bovine Tuberculosis

Further to the Explanatory Memorandum on the Veterinary Surgery (Testing for Tuberculosis in Bovines) Order 2005 (S.I. 2005/2015), in which areas the backlog of 1,750 outstanding tuberculosis tests is concentrated; whether the 12-month pilot will concentrate on these areas; and whether the interim report, scheduled under Point 8.3 of the...

Asked by

Baroness Byford (Conservative)

Type

Written questions

Status

Answered

Date

29 November 2005

Reference

2512; 676 c17WA

House

House of Lords

Veterinary Surgery (Testing for Tuberculosis in Bovines) Order 2005

Veterinary Surgery (Testing for Tuberculosis in Bovines) Order 2005 (SI 2005/2015). Lords debate on motion that an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the order be annulled. Motion withdrawn

Lead member

Baroness Byford

Answering member

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton

Department

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Type

Debates on delegated legislation

Date

18 November 2005

Reference

675 c1354-61

House

House of Lords

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