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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he has taken to help ensure that the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill is compatible with the provisions of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022.

Precision breeding technologies, such as gene editing, have the potential to improve the health and welfare of animals through enabling new traits to be developed more precisely and more efficiently than traditional breeding. We want to enable responsible innovation through these new measures, and we recognise that there is a need to safeguard animal welfare. That is why we are introducing proportionate regulatory measures to ensure that the health and welfare of animals that have been produced through these technologies is protected, in line with existing animal welfare legislation. In particular, the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill would require developers intending to market a precision bred vertebrate animal to provide a declaration confirming that they do not expect the health and welfare of the animal (and its offspring) to be adversely affected by any trait resulting from precision breeding.

Defra’s Secretary of State will need to be satisfied with the declaration before issuing a precision bred animal marketing authorisation, which will be required before the animal can be marketed. This process will also involve an independent scientific assessment by an expert committee of the declaration and supporting evidence provided by the developer.

The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 supports Ministerial accountability to Parliament in relation to all central government policy decisions that might affect the welfare of animals, including those set out in the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill.