Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Buckingham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many reviews of Special Protection Areas and Special Areas of Conservation and the 500m buffer zone around those sites in respect of consents for gamebird releasing have (a) been completed, (b) are in progress and (c) are planned but have yet to be commenced.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Natural England’s review of historical SSSI consents relating to Special Protection Areas and Special Areas of Conservation is ongoing.
Natural England’s SSSI consenting regime provided by section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 only extends to land which is designated under this provision; it does not extend to the adjacent 500-metre buffer zone around the site.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Buckingham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what additional resources (a) his Department has provided to Natural England or (b) have been allocated within that organisation to review the consents on Special Protection Areas and Special Areas of Conversation and the 500m buffer zone around those sites for the release of gamebirds.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra provided Natural England with additional funding in 2021 to support their review of historical SSSI consents relating to gamebird releasing on sites designated as Special Protection Areas and Special Areas of Conservation.
Natural England’s SSSI consenting regime provided by section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 only extends to land which is designated under this provision; it does not extend to the adjacent 500-metre buffer zone around the site.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Buckingham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what Natural England's timeframe is for completing its review of consents relating to Special Protection Areas and Special Areas of Conservation and the 500m buffer zone around those sites for the releasing of gamebirds.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Natural England’s review of historical SSSI consents relating to gamebird releasing on sites designated as Special Protection Areas and Special Areas of Conservation is scheduled to be completed by the end of March 2022.
Natural England’s SSSI consenting regime provided by section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 only extends to land which is designated under this provision; it does not extend to the adjacent 500-metre buffer zone around the site.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Buckingham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how his Department defines a cage for (a) pets, (b) poultry farming, (c) livestock farming and (d) game farming.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is delivering a series of ambitious reforms, as outlined in the Action Plan for Animal Welfare (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/action-plan-for-animal-welfare). One of the ways we wish to improve the welfare of farm animals is strengthening protections against animal confinement. We are actively exploring options to phase out the use of cages in farming, including the use of enriched cages for laying hens, farrowing crates for pigs and cages for breeding pheasants and partridges. Ending the use of cages would have a significant impact on some sectors of the farming industry and so we would need to undergo a public consultation.
For pets, the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations, introduced in 2018, require businesses that carry out activities involving animals to obtain a valid licence from their local authority. Licences must meet strict statutory minimum welfare standards which are enforced by local authorities who have powers to issue, refuse or revoke licences. The 2018 Regulations are supported by statutory guidance which provides specific information about the conditions for each activity. This includes guidance on the size of cages that should be sold in the course of selling animals as pets:
Current requirements on how farmed livestock should be kept, including detailed provisions on accommodation, are set down in The Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations 2007 with further guidance provided in Defra’s species-specific farm animal welfare codes.
For gamebirds, the Statutory Code of Practice for the Welfare of Gamebirds Reared for Sporting Purposes provides keepers with guidance on how to meet the welfare needs of their gamebirds as required by the Animal Welfare Act 2006. It recommends that barren cages for breeding pheasants and small barren cages for breeding partridges should not be used and that any system should be appropriately enriched.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Buckingham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the Government’s policy is on the use of cages in respect of (a) pets, (b) poultry farming, (c) livestock farming and (d) game farming.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is delivering a series of ambitious reforms, as outlined in the Action Plan for Animal Welfare (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/action-plan-for-animal-welfare). One of the ways we wish to improve the welfare of farm animals is strengthening protections against animal confinement. We are actively exploring options to phase out the use of cages in farming, including the use of enriched cages for laying hens, farrowing crates for pigs and cages for breeding pheasants and partridges. Ending the use of cages would have a significant impact on some sectors of the farming industry and so we would need to undergo a public consultation.
For pets, the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations, introduced in 2018, require businesses that carry out activities involving animals to obtain a valid licence from their local authority. Licences must meet strict statutory minimum welfare standards which are enforced by local authorities who have powers to issue, refuse or revoke licences. The 2018 Regulations are supported by statutory guidance which provides specific information about the conditions for each activity. This includes guidance on the size of cages that should be sold in the course of selling animals as pets:
Current requirements on how farmed livestock should be kept, including detailed provisions on accommodation, are set down in The Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations 2007 with further guidance provided in Defra’s species-specific farm animal welfare codes.
For gamebirds, the Statutory Code of Practice for the Welfare of Gamebirds Reared for Sporting Purposes provides keepers with guidance on how to meet the welfare needs of their gamebirds as required by the Animal Welfare Act 2006. It recommends that barren cages for breeding pheasants and small barren cages for breeding partridges should not be used and that any system should be appropriately enriched.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Buckingham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will publish the number of (a) negative or (b) inconclusive Bovine Tuberculosis first culture tests on pigs that have subsequently returned a positive test result on the second culture in each of the last three years.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Bovine tuberculosis (TB) is a chronic, infectious and primarily respiratory disease caused by the slow-growing bacterium Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis). It is mainly a disease of cattle and other bovines, but it can affect a wide range of mammal species, including pigs.
TB is a notifiable disease in pigs and other non-bovine farmed animals. This means that suspected lesions of TB detected in the carcases of those animals during veterinary post-mortem examination or routine post-mortem meat inspection in the slaughterhouse must be reported to the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) without delay. APHA will place the affected herd under precautionary movement restrictions pending completion of bacteriological culture and whole-genome sequencing to try to identify the bovine TB bacterium from those lesions in the laboratory.
On certain occasions it becomes necessary to repeat an initial negative culture and, because M. bovis is a slow-growing bacterium, this will substantially increase the turnaround time for the final laboratory results.
The numbers of primary cultures and re-cultures are shown in the table below, along with the results thereof.
| 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
Primary culture | 112 | 171 | 245 | 122 | 115 | 131 |
Re-cultures | 66 | 90 | 128 | 55 | 89 | 122 |
Percentage re-culture | 59% | 53% | 52% | 45% | 77% | 93% |
Primary culture | ||||||
Negative | 85 | 140 | 214 | 101 | 92 | 32 |
M. bovis detected | 25 | 21 | 25 | 13 | 6 | 1 |
M. microti detected | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
Other | 0 | 10 | 6 | 7 | 15 | 97 |
| 112 | 171 | 245 | 122 | 115 | 131 |
Re-cultures | ||||||
Negative | 63 | 85 | 123 | 52 | 74 | 32 |
M. bovis detected | 1 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
M. microti detected | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Other | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 12 | 89 |
| 66 | 90 | 128 | 55 | 89 | 122 |
The higher percentage of re-cultures in 2020 and 2021 are due in part to a decision that all pig samples sent from the bovine TB Low Risk Area of England and all of Scotland should be subject to primary culture and secondary culture, conducted simultaneously (in parallel) in order to minimise the time the affected herd is under precautionary movement restrictions. The large number of ‘other’ results in 2021 is due to a large proportion of cultures that had not yet completed the full incubation time at the time the data were extracted.
APHA has validated a new polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test that can detect the bovine TB bacterium directly from tissue samples collected at post-mortem meat inspection, without the need for bacteriological culture. The major advantage of this new method is that it will typically take only three weeks to report a result from the day the sample reaches the laboratory, compared with 6-22 weeks for bacteriological culture. It is hoped that this new PCR test for TB will enter routine use at APHA for tissue samples from pigs and other non-bovine animals early in 2022.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Buckingham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
What steps he is taking to support food and drink exporters.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
We want people at home and abroad to be lining up to Buy British. We have announced an export package to support food and drink producers, and will be establishing an Export Council. This will bring together industry and Government to drive export growth. We are also expanding our agri-food counsellor network to make sure that our sectors can take advantage of export opportunities.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Buckingham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many (a) licences and (b) consents have been issued for (a) game bird release, (b) outdoor sports and (c) leisure and recreation activities on European protected sites under the interim licencing scheme for 2021.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is preparing to introduce an interim licensing regime for the 2021 releases of common pheasant and red-legged partridge within European protected sites and within a 500m buffer zone around the sites. A consultation will be launched shortly proposing a general licence to cover the majority of European Protected Sites. It will not cover consents or include other activities beyond gamebird release.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Buckingham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to review the effect of (a) sport and leisure and (b) other activities on European protected sites; and what other activities will be covered by the interim licencing scheme for release of game birds in 2021.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Natural England, and other competent authorities, have a duty to review consents for activities on areas subsequently designated as European sites, within a reasonable timeframe.
We plan to shortly consult on our proposals for the interim licensing of game bird releasing. We are committed to achieving an interim licensing regime which is both effective and workable for users.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Buckingham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure Natural England has adequate resources to assess applications to the interim licensing regime for the 2021 to release game birds on or near European protected sites.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is working closely with Natural England to ensure that they have the capacity and capability to assess individual applications for the forthcoming interim licensing regime for pheasants and red-legged partridges on and near European Protected Sites. We will be launching a public consultation on the interim licencing regime shortly.
Natural England is very aware of the timeframes involved and the need for decisions to be made promptly to align with the shooting industry's annual calendar of activity.