To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the answer of 13 January 2010, Official Report, column 963W, on agriculture: waste disposal, what provision of the EU Animal By-Products Regulations 1774/2002 prohibits the disposal of fallen stock by means of anaerobic digestion; and if he will make a statement. (312566)

Fallen stock are categorised as high risk material under the animal Regulation 1774/2002, articles 4 and 5 of which require such material to be disposed of by rendering or incineration only (with limited exceptions—for example feeding of certain material to dogs in hunt kennels). Only these disposal routes are approved because they have been shown to be effective in destruction of TSEs—transmissible spongiform encephalopathies—and other serious diseases, whereas anaerobic digestion has to date only been shown to be effective against a more limited range of pathogens.