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

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce deforestation and other environmental impacts of commercial supply chains in the light of evidence indicating that they result in (1) the spread of infectious disease, and (2) the proliferation of antimicrobial resistance.

The Government has introduced world-leading due diligence legislation through the Environment Act to help tackle illegal deforestation in UK supply chains. We ran a consultation from 3 December 2021 to 11 March 2022 to seek views on the details of regulations that will implement the Environment Act provisions, to ensure that these are designed effectively. The Government published a summary of responses to this consultation on 1 June 2022 and is committed to implementing due diligence provisions at the earliest opportunity through secondary legislation.

The Government has funded the development of the Global Environmental Impacts of Consumption indicator, to better understand the deforestation and other environmental impacts of supply chains. This does not include impacts related directly to infectious disease and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), but does cover biodiversity loss, water stress and a range of other impact types.

The UK is leading the way in the world’s fight against antimicrobial resistance, both at home and abroad. Our five-year national action plan for AMR, published in 2019, sets out our comprehensive One Health approach, acting across humans, animals, food and the environment. We are currently developing the next five-year national action plan on AMR, which is expected to be published in 2024 and run until 2029.