Avian Flu Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Trees
Main Page: Lord Trees (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Trees's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy noble friend is absolutely right to raise the importance of an international response to this. I assure him that there is almost daily collaboration across the devolved Governments and through international fora such as the ones I just mentioned. We are also consulting our European colleagues in the European Food Safety Authority closely; we have two officials on the panel working on this. This requires an international response. The impact it is having on our wild bird population and on domestic birds in poultry farming and other settings is tragic. We are working really hard, with a sense of real emergency, to try to find solutions, but it is a very difficult one to solve as it is now endemic in the wild bird population.
My Lords, as we have heard, avian flu is causing devastating disease in wild birds but also in our domestic fowl population. Is the Minister aware of recent research using gene-edited chicken cells in culture, which has created cells that can resist avian influenza? Does he agree that gene editing offers great hope that in future we can control the disease, at least in domesticated birds?
I do agree. On Monday we will debate the Second Reading of the precision breeding Bill. It will take a number of years for the measures in that Bill to become effective, but it will undoubtedly have an impact on this kind of disease, to which we will be able to improve resistance in plant and animal species.