Oral Answers to Questions

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

We have not cancelled culling licences, but it is the case that the intensive four-year culls in many parts of the country have run their course and have therefore ended. To answer my hon. Friend’s question, we are running field trials at the moment on that DIVA test, and we plan to have that vaccine in 2025.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

Shortages of workers in warehouses and food- processing centres across the UK are having a real impact on packaging food for supermarket shelves, with Tesco bosses warning that every week 48 tonnes of food is wasted. This is exacerbated by an estimated 100,000 shortage of HGV drivers. What interventions will the Secretary of State make to address this shocking state of affairs?

[George Eustice]

The Department for Transport has already announced some plans to increase the speed of driver testing and to deal with some of those logistics issues. Secondly, we are working across Government to ensure that where isolation is needed we protect particularly important strategic infrastructure.