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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps she has taken to ensure that imported meat products are slaughtered to animal welfare standards equivalent to those in the UK.

The Government encourages the highest standards of animal welfare at slaughter. Under existing legislation, imports of meat must meet standards at least equivalent to welfare at slaughter requirements set out in assimilated Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing.