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 adequacy of animal welfare enforcement in commercial pig farms; and what steps she is taking to ensure that audit and inspection processes lead to (a) timely investigation, (b) transparency and (c) meaningful sanctions where breaches are identified.

All farm animals are protected by comprehensive and robust animal health and welfare legislation, and potential breaches of the law are taken very seriously. We are actively working with enforcement authorities to reform the way they collect and publish data of on-farm enforcement activities and the actions they take to support compliance and act on non-compliance. We will also explore whether the current enforcement tools used by our enforcement bodies are effective, proportionate and transparent.