By Gary Ford, chief executive, British Egg Industry Council
At the time of writing the General Election is just over a week away but soon we will know which Party we will be dealing with over the next five years lobbying on behalf of the egg sector.
A number of policy areas have been put on ‘hold’ during the run up to the General Election – purdah as it is known – and we are looking forward to picking them up post-election. Arguably the main one that we want to get ‘over the line’ is legislation to remove the 16 week derogation period in the event of a Housing Order. Frustratingly there was insufficient time before the election was called but we do need this legislation in place ahead of the next AI ‘season’ later in the year.
One policy area that has continued despite purdah, is the Scottish cage consultation as production methods are a devolved matter. We have responded strongly to this consultation as we believe that legislation is not required, rather let the market/consumer decide. If colony egg production was banned in Scotland it would not prevent colony eggs being sold in Scottish retailers – if this was supplied by non-UK egg what have they achieved?
Still on North of the border, the Scottish government are about to launch a new poultry database (1 July) – Avian Registration Hub. This replaces and updates their current database. The major difference is that businesses will have access to their own information and all applications will be done online. https://www.ruralpayments.org/media/resources/ARH—Dear-Producer-letter—launch-of-ARH—30-April-2024.docx The Scottish government are about to write to all registered business in Scotland to make them aware of this change.
Changes will also be made in England and Wales in the Autumn (October) – all this in response to the poultry registration consultation and subsequent decision to require anyone keeping one or more birds to register with the APHA.
Whilst purdah has meant less meetings there is still plenty to keep us busy. The vegan activist attention around the RSPCA’s 200th Anniversary and the RSPCA’s new laying hen standards launched in November 2023 being good examples. On the former we have established a cross industry group to support producers as well as providing guidance around what can be done to reduce the risk and impact. These guidance documents will be available shortly. On the standards piece, meetings with the RSPCA Assured have just started after a short pause with the aim of exploring flexibility and hopefully a way forward based around these new standards.
All in all plenty going on.