Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make representations to her US counterpart on the potential merits of granting whiskey from Northern Ireland the same level of distinctive product protection as afforded to Scotch whisky in that country.

The UK Government fully recognises the importance of Irish Whiskey to the Northern Ireland economy, and we welcome the recent rise in exports of Irish Whiskey to the United States. We are fully supportive of attempts by the industry to strengthen the protection of Irish Whiskey in US federal law and will ask the US Government to pursue this to align with protection afforded already to Scotch Whisky.