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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to ban the sale of eggs produced from caged hens.

The Government is examining the future use of cages for all laying hens and I welcome the commitment from our major retailers, with positive support from our egg producers, to stop retailing eggs from enriched colony cage production systems by 2025. I am pleased to state that the UK already has a much larger free-range sector by far than any EU country, with over 50% of our hens kept in free range systems.

The UK is rightly proud of the high animal welfare standards we expect of our farmers. In examining the future use of cages, we will consider the most appropriate tools available to ensure our animal welfare objectives are achieved.