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

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the Delegated Legislation Committee on 31 March (HC Deb col 7), what assessment they have made of the potential impact of the precision breeding of animals and birds on (1) animal welfare, (2) disease risk management and (3) the risk to consumers if precision bred animals are sold commercially.

The regulatory measures in the Precision Breeding Act are designed to safeguard animal welfare and ensure that the health and welfare of relevant animals (defined as vertebrates) will not be adversely affected by any trait that results from precision breeding. We are considering the requirements for this regulatory framework and have commissioned three research projects from Scotland's Rural College to support this.

The scientific advice is that precision bred organisms pose no greater risk to the environment or health than traditionally bred organisms. This advice is consistent across scientific sources and is supported by expert advisory committees and institutions, such as the European Food Safety Authority.

There are provisions in the Precision Breeding Act to introduce regulations to ensure that food and feed from precision bred organisms is safe.