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 impact of avian influenza on food (a) prices and (b) availability.

The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain which has coped well in responding to the unprecedented challenges the industry has faced in the past few years.

The UK egg and poultry industries operate in an open market. The value of poultry products and egg commodities is established by those in the supply chain. The impact of avian influenza on the price of food products has been limited with the increases experienced recently by these sectors related to a range of other factors, primarily due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In the UK, there have been 186 cases of Avian Influenza (AI) since 1 October 2022. 155 of these have been in England and all have been of the HPAI H5N1 strain. Since 1 October 2022, 5.3 million birds have died or been culled and disposed of for disease control purposes. With approximately, 20 million birds slaughtered every week for human consumption, the impact on the availability of poultry and eggs due to AI has therefore been limited.

We continue to keep the market situation under close review, including through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group and our on-going and regular engagement with sector stakeholders.