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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of pressures on the sheep shearing workforce on (a) farm businesses and (b) the sheep industry.

With a national sheep flock of around 30m sheep, Defra recognises the good work that British Wool does in delivering training for domestic sheep shearers, the importance that shearing sheep plays in managing the health and welfare of the UK flock, and the continued challenges that both individual farm business and the wider industry face each year in sourcing sufficient numbers of trained shearers.

We continue to work closely with the industry in addressing these challenges.