Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure that slaughterhouse vets who are non-UK EU citizens can continue to work here after the UK leaves the EU.

Veterinarians play a vital role in safeguarding United Kingdom public health, maintaining animal health and welfare and enabling trade. We value their work, and we want to ensure that they can continue to make an important contribution. Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and officials at the Food Standards Agency have been talking to representatives of the profession to ensure that those who do such an essential job continue to feel valued and to play the important role they do in assuring the public of the very high standards of food hygiene.

The Food Standards Agency are working on a number of contingencies to ensure that we maintain the excellent standards of food safety that the UK currently enjoys, and maintain an effective workforce.