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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she plans to apply lessons learned from the use of mandated CCTV footage in slaughterhouses to the enforcement of animal welfare standards on farms.

There are key differences between farms and slaughterhouses in terms of numbers and this affects the type of inspections that are practical.

All slaughterhouses in England have Official Veterinarians from the Food Standards Agency present on-site when operating to monitor and enforce animal welfare legislation. Since 2018 it has been mandatory for all 180 operational slaughterhouses in England to have CCTV and to provide access to it. Official Veterinarians carry out a daily review of CCTV footage.

There are around 60,000 commercial livestock holdings in England. Monitoring and enforcement of animal welfare on farm is carried out on a risk basis by inspectors of the Animal and Plant Health Agency and local authorities. We continue to explore ways to strengthen compliance with animal welfare regulations.