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 help farmers affected by the outbreak of avian flu.

Following the detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in poultry and other captive birds in the UK, Defra and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) together with the Devolved Governments and their delivery agencies have stood up their well-established outbreak structures to control and eradicate disease, restore normal trade, and assist local communities’ recovery.

Defra’s avian influenza disease control measures aim to minimise the economic burden of the outbreak on the food and farming sectors, bird keepers and the wider economy. As part of this approach, Defra introduced legislation in January this year which allows 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. We will be introducing similar legislation covering free-range poultry later this year.

The Department works closely with both the poultry industry and wider bird keeping stakeholders and the impacts of the avian influenza outbreak are being monitored closely. Where avian influenza is confirmed on a premises, the producer receives compensation for any healthy birds culled for disease control purposes. Compensation is not available for sick birds or those that have died, or for consequential losses e.g. lost sales opportunities.