Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what biosecurity guidance they provide to those working closely with poultry for their safety and their protection from avian flu.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Great Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety; this includes workplace health and safety risks created in agriculture, including poultry farming.

The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH) is the main piece of health and safety legislation that sets out what dutyholders must do to control exposure to substances in the workplace that can cause ill health; including zoonotic diseases such as avian flu. General guidance on how to comply with legal duties under COSHH is freely available on HSE’s website at https://www.hse.gov.uk/coshh/.

More specific guidance for dutyholders, specifically on measures that they should consider when deciding how to best control workplace risk from avian flu, is also freely available on HSE’s website. The guidance (below) covers information on avian flu, how it is transmitted, the precautions to keep people safe and well, as well as links to information and guidance from other organisations such as the UK Health Security Agency and the National Health Service:

• https://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/zoonoses-data-sheets/avian-influenza.htm
• https://www.hse.gov.uk/biosafety/diseases/avianflu.htm
• https://www.hse.gov.uk/biosafety/assets/docs/aisuspected.pdf

HSE also produce guidance which sets out biosecurity measures to be taken by its staff who may in the course of their work be required to visit farms, including poultry farms. The guidance is also freely available from HSE’s website:

• https://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/sims/ag_food/1_10_02/index.htm.