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 consider reclassifying insects from the farmed livestock classification under Regulation (EC) No 1069/2009, Article 3(6), to enable insect bioconversion for waste treatment.

There are no plans to review Article 3(6) of Regulation (EC) No 1069/2009 that defines insects as farmed animals and therefore restricts their use in insect bioconversion for waste treatment. This is because catering waste cannot be fed to farmed animals. This position is set out in Defra’s animal by-products policy guidance: Supplying and using animal by-products as farm animal feed - GOV.UK.