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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of (a) trends in the population levels of horseflies in the UK and (b) the impact of these levels on (i) rural communities and (ii) livestock.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) does not do any systematic surveillance on horseflies in the UK or the impact they have and is not aware of any organisation that does.

Horseflies are mainly considered a biting nuisance rather than a biological vector of disease such as mosquitoes and ticks.

Defra has recently funded the Vector Borne Diseases Group at APHA to investigate potential arthropod vectors of disease such as horseflies with the Pirbright Institute that will involve field sampling so that we can start to address these questions as awareness of the threat of arthropod vectors increases.

All livestock are protected by comprehensive and robust animal health and welfare legislation with the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Farmers have a duty to care for the animals they keep which includes protecting them from pain, injury, suffering and disease, which includes taking appropriate precautions to prevent their animals from being irritated by flies during procedures such as ear-tagging. Suppliers of ear tags must provide instructions on insertion and best tagging practice.