Written question asked by Lord Laird (Ulster Unionist Party), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Conservative) on Thursday, 24 November 2011.

Agriculture: Eggs

Question: To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Henley on 24 November 2010 (WA 327), which 11 member states are unlikely to have complied with the European Union welfare of laying hens directive ban on battery cages by 1 January 2012; what is the current annual level of egg and egg product imports from those states; and how they will implement their intention of prohibiting egg and egg product from hens in such cages from entering the United Kingdom.

Answer

All member states were recently asked by the Commission to provide the level of conversion as at 27 September 2011. Likely levels of non-compliance were discussed at a recent meeting in Brussels; to date, the Commission has not published this information. However, at a European Parliament debate in October, the Commission acknowledged for the first time that Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Poland, Portugal and Romania did not expect to be fully compliant. Another five member states had failed to provide any data to the Commission. Discussions on finding a practical solution to the large-scale non-compliance from 1 January 2012 are ongoing in Brussels and we are working hard to ensure that any solution is as tight as possible to protect UK producers. In parallel, we are working with the egg industry, food manufacturers, the food service industry and retailers to look at what we in the UK can do to protect our compliant producers. Data on shell egg and egg products imported into the UK from each EU member state are provided in the below table below:

			Year 2010		Year 2011 (Jan-Sep)
Flow	Monthly report description	EU Country	(Tonnes)	(£000s)	(Tonnes)	(£000s)
EU Total Imports
	Shell eggs for consumption
		Austria			18	19
		Belgium	353	556	118	148
		Denmark	312	394	159	166
		France	4,037	6,391	2,136	2,929
		Germany	3,360	1,923	4,834	5,195
		Greece			0	13
		Irish Republic	4,053	3,000	4,184	2,999
		Italy	222	541	36	137
		Netherlands	11,228	17,530	3,471	5,065
		Poland	881	845	598	541
		Portugal	104	112	69	82
		Spain	9,284	12,032	6,260	8,704
		Sweden			0	42
		Finland	167	146
	Shell eggs for consumption Total		34,001	43,470	21,883	26,040
	Egg Products for human consumption
		Austria	165	842	303	619
		Belgium	3,118	4,629	2,069	2,772
		Cyprus			234	34
		Czech Republic	2	8
		Denmark	1,166	7,144	1,135	7,142
		France	3,659	12,871	2,563	9,932
		Germany	1,479	4,735	1,349	3,993
		Greece			1	7
		Hungary			3	36
		Irish Republic	60	115	55	103
		Italy	1,098	5,292	754	3,430
		Luxembourg	84	339	48	194
		Netherlands	19,119	30,785	12,049	19,932
		Poland	140	648	61	252
		Portugal	0	1
		Spain	6,051	4,824	3,136	2,682
		Sweden	466	1,580	23	154
	Egg Products for human consumption Total		36,607	73,813	23,783	51,282
Total Imports		EU Total	70,608	117,283	45,666	77,322

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 13437; 732 c271-3WA
Session: 2010-12
Related items: Agriculture: Eggs
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Written questions
House of Lords; Agriculture: Eggs
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Written questions
House of Lords
Subjects: Animal housing Animal welfare EU countries EU law Eggs Imports Poultry
Contains statistics: Yes
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk

Agriculture: Eggs

Secondary information

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