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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment the Government has made of the percentage of palm-derived ingredients used for animal feed in the UK that originate from sustainable palm oil.

The Government has not made this assessment. However, the Government is committed to supporting the sustainable production, import and use of commodities, including palm oil. The Government established the UK Roundtable on Sourcing Sustainable Palm Oil in 2012, bringing together British businesses and supporting them to shift to sustainable palm oil supply chains. In 2021, 72% of all palm and palm kernel oil imports into the UK were certified sustainable, up from 16% in 2010.

Wanting to go further, the UK Government has introduced world-leading due diligence legislation through the Environment Act to help tackle illegal deforestation in UK supply chains. This new law will make it illegal for larger businesses operating in the United Kingdom to use key forest risk commodities produced on land illegally occupied or used. We ran a consultation from 3 December 2021 to 11 March 2022 to seek views on the details of regulations that will implement the Environment Act provisions, to ensure that these are designed effectively. The Government published a summary of responses to this consultation on 1 June 2022 and is committed to implementing due diligence provisions at the earliest opportunity through secondary legislation.

The Government will continue to work in partnership with countries which produce palm oil and other stakeholders, to incentivise sustainable palm oil production.