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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what advice his Department gives to gamekeepers to reduce the use of antibiotics on game birds.

The Veterinary Medicines Directorate has been working closely with the Game Farmers Association (GFA) to raise awareness and foster good stewardship of antibiotics in the sector. The GFA and other sector representatives are committed to bringing down antibiotic use, while ensuring bird health and welfare are preserved. A comprehensive voluntary exercise to measure the use of antibiotics throughout the game sector is being carried out, and antibiotic reduction targets will be announced by the end of 2017.