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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the presence of antibiotic resistant bacteria in waterways.

Defra has been working with the Environment Agency, the UK Health Security Agency, and others, to trial methods for detecting and quantifying antibiotic resistant bacteria in 3 river catchments in England as part of the PATHSAFE programme. The work involved sampling river waters at sites along the length of each river and subject to different land uses and potential sources of resistant bacteria. This work is still in progress, although the Environment Agency has already published some of the preparatory aspects and will publish further reports in the coming months.