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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will take steps to make changes to the way data on antibiotic use in farming is collected so that data is broken down into more detail and not only measured by tonnage of the medicines used.

The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) collects and publishes detail of the antibiotic sales data in the Veterinary antibiotic Resistance and Sales Surveillance Report (VARSS) annually. Data are broken down by animal species indicated, antibiotic classes, and route of administration.

The VMD is working in partnership with key livestock sectors to develop, facilitate and coordinate antibiotic usage collection systems. Antibiotic usage data were presented for seven livestock sectors in 2017. The VARSS report can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/veterinary-antimicrobial-resistance-and-sales-surveillance-2016