Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government when they expect to have the new system for ageing lambs to be in place.

At this present time, lambs presented for slaughter will continue to be subject to existing domestic legislative arrangements. This means there is no change to current systems. Sheep aged over 12 months or with 1 permanent incisor erupted in the gum will be split and Specified Risk Material (SRM) removed.

We have been discussing an alternative process put forward by the industry. Under this process, all lambs evidenced as born the previous year and presented for slaughter would not routinely be tooth-checked. This would enable the industry to take advantage of last year’s amendment to the EU TSE Regulation that enables Member States to approve a different method for estimating whether a lamb is aged over twelve months for the purpose of removing the skull and spinal cord.

Key steps for us to introduce such a change would be:

• an amendment to our domestic legislation to protect the food business operator from unwittingly acting unlawfully in breach of the requirements set out in Schedule 7 of the TSE statutory instruments;
• an agreed and enforceable protocol for use at the slaughterhouse to meet the needs of our official controls; and
• a public consultation to offer the opportunity for all relevant parties to comment, including consumers, retailers, food processors, slaughterhouse operators and farmers.

We have carefully and thoroughly looked at all possibilities to fast-track this work. Given legislative processes and the need to agree the protocol and carry out a public consultation, and to ensure that all relevant stakeholders are sufficiently informed and prepared for implementation, it will not be feasible to deliver the change in time for this year’s proposed cut-off date of 30 June 2019.

Officials will work with stakeholders on introduction, bearing in mind the terms of the UK’s exit from the EU.