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

To ask His Majesty's Government what is their procurement policy regarding priority for British produced chicken in food and catering contracts.

The Government is open to considering all lawful means of achieving its ambition that half of all food purchased across the public sector should be locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards.

The Government wants British farmers and producers to be well‑placed to bid for a fair share of the £5 billion spent each year on public sector food and catering contracts.

The Government has already published a new national procurement policy statement.

It sets expectations for Government contracts to favour products certified to high environmental standards that we think high-quality British producers are well-placed to meet.

Given the limited information on the origin and sustainability of food in the public sector supply chain, Defra has begun collecting new data to understand how far public sector settings are serving food, including chicken, from local and sustainable sources and what further action is needed.