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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of collecting, indefinitely storing and regenerating reproductive cells and cell lines from commercial (a) plant and (b) animal breeds.

Defra recognises that gene banking is an important tool for the conservation of genetic diversity for plant and animal breeds and engages with breeds societies on this issue.

Defra funds the management of three plant gene banks (the National Fruit Collection (Brogdale, Kent), the Vegetable Collection (University of Warwick) and the Pea Collection (John Innes Centre, Norwich) which conserve and provide access to a variety of plant genetic material. These collections store both wild and commercial varieties which are regularly regenerated where applicable, to ensure the collections remain viable for the future.

Animal gene bank collections currently present in the United Kingdom are the UK National Livestock Gene Bank, run by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST), and the Ovine Semen Archive, run jointly by RBST and the National Sheep Association (NSA). Many breed societies also hold private collections of genetic material. Defra collects and monitors data on animal cryogenic reserves as part of the annually published UK National Breed Inventory.