asked the Minister of Agriculture why his regulations require a farmer delivering pigs to a Government slaughterhouse in a foot-and-mouth area to obtain a licence from the police of the area in which the slaughterhouse is situated and not in that of the farm.

The requirement that licences should be obtained from the police of the area in which the slaughterhouse is situated enables the number of pigs sent forward for slaughtering to be regulated according to the capacity of the slaughterhouse and prevents the undesirable accumulation at the slaughterhouse of animals which could not be slaughtered at once.