Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Food Standards Agency achieved its target of halving the incidence of campylobacter food poisoning in 2015.

Although progress continues to be made, the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) agreed target with industry to reduce the numbers of the most contaminated birds at the end of slaughter to less than 10% by 2015 was not met. However, given the interventions expected to come on stream within industry, the FSA Board agreed to roll the target to 2016, when it is expected that the target will be met. If the target is met, then a decrease of around 50% in the number of human cases of campylobacteriosis would be expected.