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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential harm to animal welfare as a result of the export of live animals to countries with poor animal welfare records.

The Government recognises the long-standing public concern with live animals being exported for slaughter and fattening, in particular, the concern that these journeys are unnecessary and that is why The Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill will ban exports of livestock and equines for slaughter and fattening from, or transiting through, Great Britain to anywhere outside the British Islands.

The Government remains committed to promoting high animal welfare standards nationally and internationally. We will continue to work with the World Organisation for Animal Health to raise international standards more generally and will use our independent seat at the World Trade Organisation to advance the issue of animal welfare standards globally.