Volume 5: Animal Health, 1989-96
4a. Implementation, enforcement and monitoring of the animal SBO ban
Scope of the legislation
Errors identified in the Order

Errors identified in the Order

4.46 On 9 October 1990, Mr Sadler of the United Kingdom Renderers Association (UKRA) wrote to Mr Gummer asking for clarification regarding specified bovine offal from knackery animals. He noted that the new Order was explicit 'that only Specified Offals from bovine animals over 6 months of age which have been slaughtered in the United Kingdom [were] covered by the order'. He noted that UKRA's Council advice to members was that knackery material was exempt from the Order. ¹

4.47 On 11 October 1990, about two weeks after the animal SBO ban was introduced, Mr John Maslin, Head of the Animal Health Division, Branch A (Notifiable Diseases), wrote to Miss Gillian Richmond of MAFF's Legal Division. His minute, copied to Mr Meldrum, Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO), and others, ² stated that, 'not surprisingly, in view of the haste and secrecy in which it was prepared,' two errors in the Order had been identified. On the first error, Mr Maslin said:

It was our intention simply to re-enact the ban on ruminant proteins to ruminants in the amendment order. Unfortunately the change to the definition of animal means that the definition of animal protein is wider than just ruminant protein. In practice this has had no effect since no rendering plant produces any animal protein from, say, just pig material. Nevertheless, we should put it right. Could I suggest something on the lines of adding 'derived from ruminants' after 'animal protein' in 8 (1) and 8 (2) of the BSE Order. ³

4.48 The second error identified by Mr Maslin was the definition of 'specified bovine offal'. As worded, it only referred to offal from animals slaughtered in the UK. This did not cover fallen stock, and MAFF had received unconfirmed reports that renderers were taking advantage of this by using fallen animals in processed feed. Mr Maslin asked Miss Richmond to produce a draft Order to rectify these deficiencies as soon as possible. ⁴

4.49 Mr Robert Lowson, Head of Animal Health Division, replied on behalf of the Minister to Mr Sadler's earlier letter on 17 October 1990 to inform him that:

The Government's clear intention is to ensure that no specified bovine offal from animals over 6 months of age or animal protein derived from it can be incorporated into feed rations for animals, birds or poultry. This includes specified bovine offal obtained from knackers and hunt kennels. Any other material from these establishments can be processed and incorporated into feed rations except that, if it is derived from ruminants, it can only be used in non-ruminant rations. ⁵

4.50 He noted that the Legal Department had been instructed to prepare urgent legislation to amend the Order if they considered it necessary to make the legal position absolutely clear.

4.51 At a meeting on 9 November 1990, Mr Meldrum expressed concern that the animal SBO ban still allowed SBO from fallen animals to go into meat and bone meal (MBM) for animal feed. He asked that 'an amendment be made quickly'. Mr Lowson agreed to discuss 'hold ups in the Legal Department with Mrs Attridge'. ⁶

4.52 Fallen animals would generally be handled by knackers or, in some instances, by hunt kennels which would collect and feed carcasses to their hounds. It is unclear whether, and if so to what extent, advantage was taken of this loophole in the Order by knackers and hunt kennels. However, on 9 January 1991, Mr Durnfold, Senior Public Health Inspector of Wiltshire County Council, wrote to Mr Maslin regarding the definition of 'specified bovine offal' in the Order. He noted that the definition did not extend to fallen animals: 'therefore their brains, spinal cord, spleen, thymus, tonsils and intestines are not legally specified bovine offal, and therefore do not have to be kept separate in the offal bins at Knacker's yards and Hunt Kennels'. He stated that this material 'can, and is being collected by the Renderers as if it was not specified bovine offal', and could then 'be quite legally incorporated into animal and poultry feed'. ⁷

4.53 These errors were not rectified until 6 November 1991, when the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Order 1991 came into force (see paragraphs 4.191 below). ⁸ A submission in September 1991, seeking the Minister's approval of this further Order, noted that the two errors had 'crept in' due to the speed with which the animal SBO ban had been introduced. The submission stated that neither of the drafting errors had 'had any effect in practice'. ⁹

Coverage of knacker's yards and hunt kennels

4.54 Whilst knacker's yards and hunt kennels were not included in the ban on SBO in human food, because meat from such sources was by definition unfit for human consumption, they remained a potential source of material that went into animal feed and, apart from slaughterhouses, the primary source of SBO. Historically, knackers provided approximately 10 per cent of material going to renderers. ¹⁰ As described above, the animal SBO ban did not apply to SBO from 'fallen stock' until the amendments in 1991 were introduced.

4.55 After the introduction of the human SBO ban in November 1989, the major animal feed manufacturers took steps to exclude fallen stock from incorporation in their feed. ¹¹ Mr Paul Foxcroft of Prosper De Mulder (PDM), a large renderer, recalls that:

All the major feed companies in the UK (BOCMS, Dalgety, Bibby and Pauls), accounting for a large proportion of animal feed production had all required SBO-free MBM since the end of 1989 and free from fallen stock since March 1990. ¹²

4.56 Dr Brian Cooke of Dalgety Agriculture Limited, a large feed compounder, stated that in 1990:

We got the undertakings that [renderers] would take out fallen animals and the specified bovine offals and we instigated this inspection to ensure that that was taking place. ¹³

4.57 The United Kingdom Agriculture Supply and Trade Association (UKASTA), in addition to its policy of excluding SBO from feed adopted in November 1989, ¹⁴ adopted the further policy of excluding fallen animals from their materials in October 1990. ¹⁵ Their Feed Circular 488 strongly advised their members to make the exclusion of fallen animals, as well as SBO, a condition of contract for purchase of all meat and bone meal. ¹⁶ UKASTA communicated this decision to UKRA on 26 October 1990. ¹⁷

4.58 However, there was no legal restriction on the inclusion of any material emanating from fallen stock in animal feed. In such circumstances, it remained possible that some of this material would continue to be used for this purpose, including offals that in slaughtered animals constituted SBO.

4.59 Mr Iain Crawford, former Director of the Veterinary Field Service, suggested to the Inquiry that separation of SBO by knackers was not necessary:

I believe that the renderers said anything coming from knackers would be SBO, the whole lot would be regarded as SBO. They could not separate it, or at least they did not want to separate it. It was worthless material, all of it. ¹⁸

4.60 Dr Danny Matthews, an SVO in Notifiable Diseases Veterinary Section, expressed a similar view at a meeting with UKASTA's Scientific Committee on 14 November 1990:

Dr Matthews reported that the Ministry did not see any problems with the exclusion of fallen stock from meat and bone meal. This was because the major renderers were treating all knackery material in the same way as specified bovine offals in view of the problems of separation. ¹⁹

4.61 However, it appears that some knackers were able to convince renderers that they could adequately separate SBO from non-SBO material. Summaries of SVS visits to knackers indicated that by June 1991 knackers were being charged more for the disposal of SBO than other non-SBO waste. ²⁰ Mr Crawford also qualified his evidence on this point, saying that renderers were treating all material from knackers as SBO 'unless the knackers committed themselves to separating in separate receptacles'. ²¹ This was consistent with Mr Lawrence's summary of the position in his minute dated 23 November 1990:

For practical purposes renderers regard all material collected from knackers and hunt kennels as being specified bovine offal, unless [these suppliers] can effectively separate specified bovine offal from other material. This may be possible, particularly where there are few cattle in the knackers' catchment area. ²²

4.62 Whilst some renderers may have been preventing SBO from fallen stock from reaching the animal feed chain, the position remained that SBO from fallen stock could still be legally fed to hounds and passed on for pet food until it was rectified by the 1991 BSE Order (see paragraph 4.191 below).

4.63 A survey conducted by the SVS in mid-1990 had indicated that no knacker's yards were selling specified bovine offals for pet food. At the same time 25 per cent of kennels were found to be feeding specified bovine offal to their hounds. ²³ The same survey also recorded that 107 of 126 identified knacker's yards were selling fallen stock for pet food. ²⁴

4.64 The lack of legal obligations on knackers in relation to SBO handling was brought to MAFF's attention by local authorities. Mr Penny explained MAFF's Meat Hygiene Division's handling of this issue:

Legal advice in 1994 was that knacker's yards were outwith the scope of the [SBO Regulations] because the 'premises' referred to in Regulation 12 were those in Regulation 7, which specifically excluded knacker's yards. . . In 1995 changes were made both to re-specify the stain which could be used to denature SBOs and to remove the requirement for a movement permit for by-products of SBOs. In considering these changes Local Authorities realised that technically the [SBO Regulations] did not apply to knacker's yards. Subsequent correspondence with Local Authorities accepted that the [SBO Regulations] were unclear in their applicability but made the point that, bearing in mind the Government's policy for the control of BSE, it was clear that the handling of SBO at knacker's yards should be covered by the legislation. It was understood that the situation would be resolved with the introduction of the [1995] SBO Order, which would combine all the controls on SBO in all premises. In the meantime, I believed that as a matter of good practice, the Local Authorities would continue to apply the requirements of the [SBO Regulations] to knacker's yards. ²⁵

4.65 The application of the SBO regulations to hunt kennels was similarly questioned by local authorities with regard to movement permits in 1994. ²⁶ However, MAFF's Legal Division was of the opinion, at the time, that the regulations did apply to hunt kennels by virtue of Regulation 7 of the human SBO regulations which applied to 'any place' other than a slaughterhouse or knacker's yard. ²⁷ What was not appreciated by MAFF's Legal Division was that the definition of SBO under the 1989 Regulations still did not apply to SBO from 'fallen stock'. Although the SBO definition had been amended to include SBO from 'fallen stock' in the animal SBO legislation, the same amendment was not made in the human SBO legislation until November 1994.

4.66 Mr Crockett, a Senior Environmental Health Officer with Carmarthen District Council, wrote to Mr Penny at MAFF in April 1995 pointing out a number of problems with the coverage of hunt kennels and knacker's yards by the existing legislation. He noted:

We have never been contacted by MAFF for failure to enforce the existing S.B.O. requirements at hunt kennels. ²⁸

Coverage of collection centres

4.67 SBO was frequently moved from slaughterhouses to rendering plants via intermediate collection centres, which were commonly attached to rendering plants that chose not to process SBO material. SBO was collected from slaughterhouses and transferred by lorry to these collection centres for onward passage to other renderers. Mr Andrew Fleetwood, a Veterinary Investigation Officer at the time, explained that:

Most of the rendering companies removing specified offals in particular will service a number of abattoirs with what they call a round robin service. The smaller abattoirs would put the SBO in larger 80 gallon drums and the lorry that arrived would look like a rigid container lorry containing a large quantity of rigid drums. Some of the larger slaughterhouses operate skips. ²⁹

4.68 That SBO should be separated and remain separated from non-SBO material, from its removal at the slaughterhouses through its journey via collection centres and on to renderers, was imperative to the success of the animal SBO ban. However, collection centres were under no legal obligation to ensure separation of SBO from non-SBO at that time.

4.69 Mr Meldrum informed the Inquiry that:

In many cases I was advised that the vehicles collecting ordinary waste for processing - ordinary unfit material was held in the body of the vehicle, and they had a separate container on that same vehicle for the SBOs. So that they did go to a rendering plant separated at that stage. ³⁰

4.70 The problem was eventually rectified by the introduction of Specified Bovine Offal Order 1995 which came into force on 15 August 1995 (see paragraph 4.526 below), which ensured the separation of SBO at collection centres.