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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether beef from hormone-implanted cattle can be identified if there are higher levels of such hormones present in bull beef than beef from hormone-implanted steers.

There are prototype analytical methods that give a good indication of whether a substance is naturally occurring. However, these need further refinement before they can be considered suitably robust and reliable for regulatory use.

Furthermore, the UK has transposed EU Council Directive 96/22/EC (as amended) into national law ‘Animals and Animal Products (Examination for Residues and Maximum Residue Limits) (England and Scotland) Regulations 2015', with similar legislation for Wales and Northern Ireland. This legislation prohibits the use of artificial growth hormones in both domestic production and imported products as well as provides for the monitoring of residues of substances. This protection will continue now we have left the EU.