Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the carcass balance of poultry meat is maintained as part of trade negotiations with China after the UK leaves the EU.

The UK is committed to working with China to improve market access and strengthen the trade relationship, including for trade of poultry meat. We recognise that there are clear potential benefits to carcass balance of poultry meat from trading with China. However, we are still unable to export live poultry, due to a ban which China imposed following outbreaks of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) that occurred in the UK in poultry from 2014-2017.

We have achieved a number of positive steps towards lifting the ban, and once the ban is lifted, we can progress to resuming live exports of poultry which was an open export market prior to the implementation of the ban.

Following re-opening of pre-existing trade, we can then undertake the longer process of opening a brand-new market for the poultry sector, namely poultry meat exports, which would add additionally opportunities for industry to benefit from carcass balance in the future.