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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of retaining the legal framework of the Precision Breeding Act as part of any future Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement.

This Government introduced the Precision Breeding Regulations to realise the benefits of precision breeding, and Defra remain committed to implementing the Precision Breeding Act. These Regulations are subject to ongoing negotiations between the UK and the EU as part of the SPS agreement. The EU has accepted there will need to be some areas where we retain our own rules.