To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment he has made of the merits of implementing the European Commission's proposal for a voluntary community animal welfare label for the purposes of standardising labelling of food with animal welfare information. (308292)

The EC has outlined a number of options for animal welfare labelling in a recently published report ‘Options for animal welfare labelling and the establishment of a European network of Reference Centres for the protection and welfare of animals’. Our approach to welfare labelling will be guided by general principles which we are developing with the EC.