The Common Agricultural Policy’s Greening requirements, which include the crop diversification rule, were implemented in 2015.

As we prepare to leave the EU, we are looking at removing the rules that are unnecessarily burdensome, focusing instead on what works best for the UK. We want to free our farmers to grow more, sell more and export more British food, whilst upholding our high standards for the environment and animal health and welfare.

The Government will bring forward legislation in the next session that, when enacted, will repeal the European Communities Act 1972 and ensure a functioning statute book on the day we leave the EU. This ‘Great Repeal Bill’ will end the authority of EU law and return power to the UK.

All Government departments are currently reviewing the issues and opportunities arising from exit, including any requirements for legislation in addition to the Great Repeal Bill.

The Government will bring forward a White Paper on the Great Repeal Bill in due course that provides more detail about our approach. We will ensure it is published in time to allow Parliament sufficient time to digest its contents in advance of introduction of the Great Repeal Bill in the next session.

Once we have left the EU, maintaining the UK’s high standards of food safety will remain a priority.

Information about the socio-economic background of staff in my department is not held centrally and is therefore not available.

As at 31 December 2016, the proportion of Senior Civil Servants in the Department who are a) men, b) female, c) disabled & e) BAME, are as follows:

a) Men – 59%

b) Female – 41%

c) Disabled – ***

e) BAME – ***

This response covers only those officers who have declared their diversity and to protect the confidentiality of individual employees, percentages based on 5 or fewer individuals are not reported and shown as ***.

Diversity data is collected from Defra employees through voluntary self-declaration. However, for reasons of anonymity it is not possible to provide a breakdown in the answer as the numbers are too small to report.

Defra does not collect data on educational background or socio-economic status.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (of strain H5N8) has been circulating in Europe since the autumn of 2016. There have been 10 confirmed cases in poultry in the UK and several findings in wild birds.

As part of our Department’s continued measures to control and eradicate H5N8, a new Avian Influenza Prevention Zone was put in place on 28 February. This zone continues to require that all keepers of poultry and captive birds observe heightened biosecurity requirements regardless of their location. Subject to these measures being put in place, the majority of keepers will no longer be required to house their birds.

Within England, there are some areas that are at a higher risk of H5N8 due to their proximity to substantial inland or coastal bodies of water where wild waterfowl collect. The identification of these areas was based on expert advice in regards to the latest veterinary and ornithological data and has been reviewed by leading experts. In these Higher Risk Areas, which will cover around 25 per cent of poultry premises, mandatory housing or the full range netting of outside areas will be required. This may temporarily result in the loss of Free Range status for keepers in these areas unless they apply netting of range, rather than housing.

During this unprecedented period of high risk, the Secretary of State has taken a decision which is based on the best scientific and veterinary advice in order to control disease and protect our poultry industry. Effective disease control will always be Defra’s priority: disease outbreaks cause birds to suffer, damage businesses and cost the UK taxpayer millions. No significant disruption to the supply of Free Range eggs after 28 February is anticipated.

In terms of work arising from the UK’s vote to leave the EU, some 80% of Defra’s work is framed by EU legislation and a quarter of EU laws apply to Defra’s sectors.

The Department has set up an EU Exit Programme led by a Director General to identify and coordinate work stemming from EU Exit across the Defra group. EU exit work is currently undertaken in all policy directorates in the Department, and in some corporate services areas. It is not possible to give an accurate figure of FTE civil servants working on the programme, given its extensive impact, nor to give a discrete figure regarding budget allocations to EU Exit.

This government has a manifesto commitment to push for high animal welfare standards to be incorporated into international trade agreements.

The UK Government has made no specific assessment of the economic cost to the UK of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing either globally or in the West Indian Ocean. IUU poses a threat to the economic livelihood for many countries with consequences for the marine environment. The UK fulfils its IUU obligations to prevent trade in illegally caught fish by prohibiting the import of fish from countries, identified by the European Union, as not supporting sustainable fisheries.

In 2009, prior to the implementation of the regulation, the European Commission commissioned an evaluation report on the expected impacts of the EU IUU Regulation on third countries. This report aimed to help third countries and the EU access the training requirements to implement this measure successfully, and is available at

https://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/sites/fisheries/files/docs/body/iuu_consequences_2009_en.pdf.

When it leaves the EU, the UK will control access to fisheries in the UK’s Exclusive Economic Zone and will manage those waters in accordance with international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Anyone may bring forward a prosecution under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and the Government does not intend to change that position.

In the light of public criticisms of its role, the RSPCA set up the Wooler Review, which made 33 recommendations which the RSPCA have already assessed and considered for action. We believe that the RSPCA should be given the opportunity to implement the recommendations of the Wooler Review and demonstrate its commitment to responding to the concerns that have been raised.

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Associated British Foods is one of the great British-owned food companies. It is a world leader in sugar and it has driven competitiveness and investment in the industry. I believe that the sugar industry in this country has a great future.

My hon. Friend will be aware that the UK has taken a leading role in the work on antibiotic resistance, which we have pushed on to the agenda of the OECD, the G7 and the G20. We can adopt processes to reduce our reliance on antibiotics—for example, through the acidification of water in the pig sector. We can always do better, but some of these critical antibiotics have a role in agriculture, too.

As my hon. Friend will know, we already have in place an agri-tech strategy worth £160 million, which has supported more than 100 different projects to support science and technology transfer in food and farming. In addition, we have food information networks to try to create clusters of innovation in the food sector.

My hon. Friend makes an important point about an issue I championed while I was responsible for this part of the portfolio. The Government have recently published proposals for improving the laws on the breeding and selling of dogs, among which are proposals that anyone breeding and selling three litters in a 12-month period will need a licence and that no puppies will be sold under the age of eight weeks.

I do not accept what the hon. Lady says. The truth is that we have guaranteed payments up until 2020. We have ensured that the budget is still there, and we have made it clear that, well in advance of that date, we will be able to give farmers throughout the UK a very clear picture of what future support arrangements will look like.

I specifically discussed proposals along those lines with NFU Scotland at the beginning of this year. A consensus is emerging that there needs to be some kind of UK framework, within which we obviously want to ensure that the devolved Administrations can pursue the policies that are right for them. We will work closely with all the devolved Administrations to ensure that, after we leave the European Union, policy works for Scotland and other parts of the UK.

I reassure Scottish National party Members that I regularly promote Scottish salmon, most recently in the Gulf this week. Scottish salmon is one of our major exports, alongside Scottish whisky, and we champion it at every opportunity.