Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs written question – answered at on 15 June 2023.
Kerry McCarthy
Shadow Minister (Climate Change and Net Zero)
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on banning the use of antibiotics in healthy farm animals.
Mark Spencer
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Secretary of State has regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on a wide range of issues.
The Government takes a ‘One Health’ approach to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as set out in the UK National Action Plan on AMR. Officials from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Defra and the Veterinary Medicines Directorate meet regularly to consider appropriate actions to address AMR across the human and animal health sectors. This has included discussion on the use of antibiotics to prevent disease in farm animals.
Defra is a co-signatory with DHSC of the UK's AMR five-year National Action Plan (2019-2024) and the UK's 20-year Vision to Contain and Control AMR by 2040. Defra leads on the animal, plant and environment elements of the National Action Plan. A key ambition of these strategies is the appropriate use of antibiotics in humans and animals so that they continue to be an effective tool to treat infections when needed. The Government is committed to reducing unnecessary use of antibiotics in animals while safeguarding animal welfare. It has been our position for many years that we do not support the routine or predictable use of antibiotics, including where antibiotics are used to compensate for inadequate farming practices.
To date in the UK, collaborative working between the Government, the veterinary profession and the agriculture sectors to focus on these issues has resulted in our national sales of veterinary antibiotics reducing by 55% since 2014, and in 2021 we recorded the lowest antibiotic use to date. The UK is one of the lowest users of veterinary antibiotics across Europe, with only seven other European countries having sold fewer antibiotics in 2021 (Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia). Changes to the law on veterinary medicines represent one tool which can be used to help effect reductions in antibiotic prescribing in animals. The Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2013 are currently under review, and the feedback from the recently closed consultation public consultation will be analysed and considered.
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
