The Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (Scotland) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 2008

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (“the principal Regulations”) which enforce Regulation (EC) No. 999/2001 of European Parliament and of the Council laying down rules for the prevention, control and eradication of certain transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (O.J. No L 164, 26.6.07, p.7), as amended (“the Community TSE Regulation”).

Regulation 5 (the Schedules) of the principal Regulations is amended to refer to the new title of Schedule 7.

Schedule 2 (monitoring for TSE and contents of a RMOP) of the principal Regulations is replaced.

The substituted Schedule 2 provides at paragraphs 2 and 9 for bovine animals that die or are killed to be delivered to an approved sampling centre as defined in paragraph 13, unless the animals dies or is killed at a slaughterhouse, or in an Islands area as defined in paragraph 12.

The substituted Schedule 2 also–

(a) gives effect in Scotland to Commission Decision 2008/908/EC (O.J. No L 327, 5.12.2008, p.24), which authorises certain Member States (including the UK) to revise the annual monitoring programmes provided for by Article 6 of the Community TSE Regulation, by providing in paragraph 5 for the testing at slaughterhouses of brain stems that must be tested in accordance with the Community TSE Regulation as read with that Decision; and

(b) making consequential changes to the provisions carried forward from the replaced Schedule 2, including changes to the Required Method of Operations provided for by paragraph 6 and Part 2 of the substituted Schedule.

Failure to comply with these provisions is an offence.

Schedule 2 is also amended to create new offences of failing to notify the Scottish Ministers of the death of an animal that must be delivered to an approved sampling centre, failing to deliver the body of such an animal to the centre, destroying the body before it has been sampled, and failing to retain the body at the centre until a negative test result has been obtained.

Schedule 7 (restrictions on placing on the market and export) of the principal Regulations is replaced.

The substituted Schedule 7 makes it an offence to place on the market and export live bovine animals and products derived from them to other Member States and to third countries, and provides that paragraphs [1 and 3] of the Schedule shall be enforced by the Food Standards Agency.

Amendments are also made to the definition of “inspector” and regulations 12 and 20 of the principal Regulations in relation to the enforcement by the Food Standards Agency.

Offences are punishable in accordance with regulation 18 of the principal Regulations by–

(a) on summary conviction, a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or imprisonment for a term of three months or both, or

(b) on conviction on indictment, a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both.

Regulation 3 provides for a consequential amendment to the Animal By-Products (Identification) Regulations 1995.

Regulation 4 of these Regulations saves the effect of paragraph 1 of the replaced Schedule 2 of the principal Regulations so far as they related to bovine animals that die or are killed other than at a slaughterhouse until 12th January 2009.

A Regulatory Impact Assessment has not been produced for this instrument but the impact assessment for the March 2008 Responsibility and cost sharing consultation will be updated to reflect the proposed increase in the testing ages for cattle.