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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to progress trade opportunities with China in poultry meat and breeding stock.

China is a priority market for UK food and drink exports and Defra has been working closely with the UK poultry industry and the Department for International Trade, including with colleagues in Beijing, to identify and develop trade opportunities in the poultry sector.

We are currently unable to export poultry to China due to a ban which China imposed following outbreaks of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) that occurred in the UK in poultry from 2014-2017. We have achieved a number of positive steps towards lifting the ban, including the UK being recognised as officially free from HPAI by the World Organisation for Animal Health (the OIE) since September 2017. The UK also successfully hosted a Chinese inspection visit of Avian Influenza controls in the UK during September 2018.

Whilst the ban remains in place, the Chinese inspection report was positive with regards to the strength of our HPAI controls. We will continue to work across Government and with industry to enable the ban to be lifted.

Once the ban is lifted, we can progress to resuming live exports of poultry, which was an open export market prior to the implementation of the ban.

Following re-opening of pre-existing trade, we can then undertake the longer process of opening a brand new market for the poultry sector, namely poultry meat exports. We will look to build on the successful visit in September 2018 of the UK AI controls to aid in providing the reassurance to China to open this new market, which would extend the range of poultry products available for UK industry to export to China.