To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when his Department expects to be able to provide a surveillance system to identify bovine spongiform encephalopathies and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies in slaughtered cattle and fallen stock. (233427)

DEFRA tested over 394,000 cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Great Britain in 2007, including all suspected BSE cases, all fallen stock aged over-24-months and all healthy slaughtered cattle aged over-30-months. This testing identified 53 BSE cases, at a cost of over £55 million. DEFRA has produced a report on BSE surveillance for the Food Standards Agency. The report will be published on the DEFRA website.