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Game: Licensing

Volume 479: debated on Monday 21 July 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many full-time equivalent staff are employed by the Food Standards Agency in the licensing of establishments processing wild game; (220258)

(2) how many (a) wild game processors and (b) catering butchers dealing in wild game were licensed in (i) 2006, (ii) 2007 and (iii) 2008;

(3) what steps his Department has taken to identify the location of premises of unlicensed (a) wild game processors and (b) catering butchers processing wild game;

(4) what estimate he has made of the proportion of (a) licensed and (b) unlicensed (i) wild game processors and (ii) catering butchers dealing in wild game which operate in compliance with EU regulations.

We have been advised by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) that there are 6.5 veterinary meat hygiene advisers employed in Great Britain to undertake visits to premises handling wild game to assess whether those premises meet the requirements for approval as set out in European Union Hygiene Regulations.

In 2006, there were 55 game handling establishments approved to process wild game. In 2007, there were 74 such establishments and at the end of May 2008 there were also 74. The FSA is unable to provide information as to how many catering butchers deal in wild game. There are currently 139 catering butchers under local authority control and which the FSA is in the process of assessing for approval as cutting plants under the Hygiene Regulations. Those that meet the necessary requirements will be approved by the FSA for cutting meat and for processing game if any carry out such processes and they will then fall under the control of the Meat Hygiene Service (MHS).

When the new Hygiene Regulations came into force the FSA asked local authorities to identify those premises processing wild game so that they could be identified as premises that would require FSA approval. This was not straightforward as there are a number of exemptions from approval that apply for businesses supplying the local market with small quantities directly to consumers.

The FSA has made no estimate of the proportion of businesses that process wild game or catering butchers which process wild game that are compliant with the EU Hygiene Regulations, whether they require approval or not. All premises processing wild game are subject to hygiene controls carried out by either the MHS in approved premises, or by local authorities in non-approved premises.