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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to ban the use of cages for (a) pheasants and (b) partridges for breeding.

We remain firmly committed to maintaining and improving animal welfare and want to work closely with the farming sector to deliver high standards.

The use of cages and other close confinement systems for farmed animals, including for gamebirds, is an issue which we are currently considering very carefully.

Defra’s Code of Practice for the Welfare of Gamebirds Reared for Sporting Purposes provides keepers with guidance on how to meet the welfare needs of their gamebirds as required by the Animal Welfare Act 2006. It recommends that barren cages for breeding pheasants and small barren cages for breeding partridges should not be used, and that any system should be appropriately enriched.