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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will request that the UK is able to diverge from the EU in relation to animal welfare standards in the dynamic alignment requirement of the EU-UK Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement.

The agreement will cover SPS standards and controls and also wider agrifood rules related to food labelling, organics, and key marketing standards and compositional standards.

The EU has accepted there will need to be a number of areas where we need to retain our own rules. The details of these are subject to negotiation, but we have been clear about the importance of being able to set high animal welfare standards, support public health, and support the use of new and innovative technologies.

The Prime Minister announced that we will be publishing an animal welfare strategy later this year.