To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the answer of 5 June 2008, Official Report, column 1070W, on bovine tuberculosis, in how many of the parishes in (a) England and (b) Wales where incidents of bovine tuberculosis took place in each year since 1997 had no cases of bovine tuberculosis been confirmed in the preceding four years. (210829)

Animal Health only hold data for the seven years prior to an exercise carried out in 2004. Consequently, they do not hold bovine tuberculosis data prior to 1997.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what measures are used to calculate the value of cattle with bovine tuberculosis in England; and what information he holds on measures used in Wales. (210943)

In England compensation for TB affected cattle has, since February 2006, been determined primarily through table valuations. Within this system 47 cattle ‘categories’ are used. These categories are based on the age, gender, type (dairy or beef) and status (pedigree or non-pedigree) of animals. Table values are a true average of contemporaneous prices achieved for same category, but healthy, animals at a large number and wide range of cattle sales. If insufficient sales data are collected for a particular category, compensation is determined either by using a previously determined sales average or through individual valuation.

Responsibility for bovine TB in Wales is a matter for the Welsh Assembly. A system of individual valuations is used in Wales.