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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to support businesses impacted by outbreaks of avian influenza.

The UK poultry sector is highly resilient, adaptable and continues to supply healthy and affordable products in spite of the many challenges it has faced in recent years including the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and Avian Influenza outbreaks.

In autumn 2024 Defra announced a package of measures to help farmers to deal with the impact of any future avian influenza outbreaks and to provide certainty and stability to farmers in the UK’s poultry and egg sectors. These included:

- The introduction of legislation to allow free-range eggs to continue to be labelled as such for the duration of mandatory housing measures, reducing costs on producers and enabling them to continue to trade fairly with imported eggs. This came into force on 23 January 2025.

- A consultation on introducing similar measures for the labelling of free-range poultry meat during mandatory housing measures. The consultation closed on 16 December 2024. Responses are currently being analysed and a summary of responses will be published in due course.

We continue to work closely with the poultry and egg sectors and to monitor these markets for any supply issues that may arise as a result of avian influenza outbreaks.