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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with fox hunts about fallen stock in the last five years.

Local authorities have the statutory duty to prosecute for offences under the Animal Health Act 1981 and provide information of any successful prosecutions annually. It is presented in a parliamentary report which is available on gov.uk.

A summary of that data shows that the following number of prosecutions were made under the Animal By-Products (Enforcement) (England) Regulations 2013, although the data does not specify whether the prosecutions relate to fallen stock; such information would have to be sought from the local authorities themselves.

2016 – 22

2017 – 18

2018 – 30

2019 – 38

2020 – 15

2020 – Data not yet available

The Secretary of State has not recently met any organisations running hunts to discuss this issue.