Mr. Dale Crammond:

As far as I know, no one in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is talking about a forced cull. As I said, we have set out a series of measures in the climate action plan and we need to implement them fast. As for your point, Chair, about earlier slaughter, that is exactly the sort of issue we need to bottom out and look at. A lot of Aberdeen Angus cattle are being finished at 22 and 23 months off grass in the second summer. We need to look at that and to see how the genetics of those animals that can be finished at two years are allowing for them to be killed at those weights. With earlier slaughter, moving from 27 months to 24 months, there is potentially between 0.7 of a megatonne and 1 megatonne of emissions abatement that will have a real, meaningful impact on reducing methane emissions. That is exactly the sort of measure we need to look at.