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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 20 April 2022 to Question HL7651, if he will publish details of (a) how he expects the Animal Welfare Committee’s work to feed into the consultation on the welfare of game birds and (b) the expected duration of that part of the process.

Timing of the call for evidence is still to be determined and needs to be considered in light of the challenges the gamebird sector is currently facing, not least the ongoing Avian Influenza outbreak.

Responses to a public call for evidence would help to inform a review on gamebird welfare by the expert Animal Welfare Committee, whose recommendations may then form the basis of a public consultation on any proposed reforms. The timeframe of these stages could only be considered once the outcome of the call for evidence was known.

The Defra study AW1303 was commissioned under a previous administration in 2010. Details of the study, including its objectives, are available at: Defra Science AW1303 game birds