Agriculture Minister Nick Brown told the Sunday Telegraph he was ready to lift the ban on beef-on-the-bone sales.
He said: "I am looking forward to eating a dinner of T-bone steak or beef ribs again because British beef is now among the safest in the world."
Mr Brown's predecessor at the ministry, Jack Cunningham, banned the sale of beef on the bone from 1 January because of the risk of people contracting the human equivalent of BSE, or mad cow disease, from eating it.
The Ministry of Agriculture would not be drawn on a detailed timetable for when the ban would be lifted.
But they said that, as a result of the cull introduced in August 1996 of cattle aged more than 30 months, all animals possibly affected with BSE would have been slaughtered by next March.
Mr Brown also re-affirmed his determination to see the ban on exporting British beef lifted by the New Year.
The European Union banned exports of British beef in March 1996 after the government admitted that there was a probable link between BSE and a variant of Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease (CJD), a fatal brainwasting condition in humans.
So far 27 people have died in Britain of CJD.
Mr Brown said: "On any scientific basis, the ban should be lifted now.
"We have done everything that has been asked of us."
Plight of farmers
Lifting the ban will bring much-needed relief to farmers who are facing what they claim is the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.
On Saturday Mr Brown acknowledged the plight of Britain's farmers.
He told the BBC he was taking "a very hard look" at what supermarkets were now charging for meat against a background of falling prices for farmers.
Meanwhile, The Sunday Times reported that the prime minister had shelved the proposed food standards agency after lobbying by supermarkets and manufacturers.
The bill to bring in the new independent safety watchdog will be omitted from next month's Queen's Speech, which sets out the legislative programme for the coming year, the paper said.
But a source close to Mr Brown said the report of the agency's demise was "speculation".
Meat Industry Insights News Service
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