Volume 6: Human Health, 1989-96
Annex 1 to Chapter 4: Unfit meat and human food
The Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Order 1991

4.903 The Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Order 1991 was made on 1 October 1991 and came into force on 6 November 1991. ¹ The 1991 Order replaced the BSE (No. 2) Order 1988 and the BSE (No. 2) Order 1990, and, in so doing, consolidated into one order the provisions governing notification, the ruminant feed ban and the animal SBO ban.

4.904 The 1991 Order effected two changes which are of particular note in the present context. First, the definition of SBO was amended to mean the brain, spinal cord, spleen, thymus, tonsils and intestines of a bovine animal over 6 months of age which has died or has been slaughtered in the UK. ² This had the effect of applying the animal SBO provisions to fallen animals as well as to slaughtered animals, and thus to the stock-in-trade of knacker's yards and to the animals collected by hunt kennels. Notwithstanding this, the 1991 Order did not substitute or amend the regime of movement permits which was laid down in the Bovine Offal (Prohibition) Regulations 1989, and so it continued to be the case that knacker's yards and hunt kennels were simply subject to the requirements for movement permits in respect of all unsterilised material imposed by the 1982 MSSR.

4.905 Second, the 1991 Order introduced a prohibition on the removal by any person from any premises of any protein which is derived from any SBO, except under the authority of a licence issued by an officer of the appropriate Minister and in accordance with any conditions subject to which the licence is issued. ³ The person in charge of the protein being so moved was required to carry the licence during the authorised movement and was required, upon demand by an inspector or a member of the police force, to produce the licence, allow a copy or extract to be taken, and furnish his name and address. ⁴ It was an offence, without lawful authority or excuse, to remove protein derived from any SBO other than under the authority of a licence, to fail to produce a licence on demand, or to fail to comply with a condition of a licence. ⁵ Consequently, in contrast to the position before the 1991 Order, rendered protein derived from any SBO was no longer free to be removed from the premises of a renderer without restriction, despite having been sterilised for the purposes of the Bovine Offal (Prohibition) Regulations 1989.