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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the change in EU rules to allow the use of (a) processed animal protein from mammals in the feed for poultry and pigs and (b) gelatine and collagen from sheep and cattle being fed to other farm animals; and whether he plans to ban those products from entering the food chain in the UK.

The current EU rules for the production of animal feed are more stringent than those of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).

The EU’s forthcoming changes are in line with the OIE and with the EU TSE Roadmaps. The Roadmaps are a programme of stepwise relaxations in line with the latest scientific advice which the UK, an EU Member State at the time, supported. They would permit the feeding of porcine Processed Animal Protein (PAP) to poultry and poultry PAP to pigs, and ruminant gelatine and collagen and protein derived from insects to pigs and poultry.

Now that we have left the EU, the restrictions on feeding of livestock in the UK will not be altered by EU legislation and they apply whether the feed is imported or produced here.

The UK does not ban the imports of animals or products of animal origin from countries where the feed rules comply with the OIE requirements. This means that imports of animals or products of animal origin from the EU or Northern Ireland will continue to be accepted into Great Britain.

The Government is in the process of assessing the implications of these changes for the UK and will use the latest scientific evidence to decide if any policy changes should be made in England.