I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Sheep Carcase (Classification and Price Reporting) (England) Regulations 2025.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 2 June 2025.
I draw the Committee’s attention to a correction slip that was issued on 5 June in relation to the draft statutory instrument. It corrected a typographical error on page 20, in schedule 2, in the heading to the second table, “Table 1”, which should read, “Table 2”. That does not affect the substance or intent of the legislation. Copies of the correction slip have been made available to Members.
For years, the industry has called for mandatory sheep carcase classification and price reporting. The draft instrument will bring the sheep industry in line with the beef and pork sectors, where mandatory carcase classification and price reporting has been in place for many years. The instrument mandates sheep carcase classification and the price reporting of sheep carcases for larger slaughterhouses, which are those that slaughter at least 2,000 sheep a week. Smaller slaughterhouses, which slaughter at least 1,000 sheep a week, can voluntarily decide that the regulations will apply to them. The legislation will provide a process for the introduction of a system for the authorisation of automated sheep-grading methods for slaughterhouses that wish to use automated carcase classification.
We are introducing the legislation because slaughter-houses can set their own standards for preparing and presenting sheep carcases for classification and weighing. As a result, carcase weights across the sector lack consistency due to variations in the way that the carcase is prepared, trimmed and presented. That inconsistency leads to a lack of transparency across the industry, with non-comparable prices being quoted or recorded. Consequently, farmers often struggle to achieve the best payment for the quality of their sheep carcases when they sell their stock.
We want a more transparent, productive and efficient sheep market. By addressing that long-running supply chain fairness issue, we will encourage farmers to improve their productivity and ensure that they are paid a fair price based on the quality of their sheep. Producers can also then rear lambs that will better fit the market’s specifications and consumer demand.
The legislation will also introduce a consistent and robust mechanism for the evaluation of the carcases of sheep aged less than 12 months at the time of slaughter. That encapsulates the prime lamb market. The draft instrument requires the use of the EUROP grid, as it is commonly known, to assess conformation—that is, shape and the degree of fat cover. The meat industry is familiar with that carcase classification scale through the mandatory schemes for pig and beef carcases. Several abattoirs have already been using it when voluntarily classifying sheep carcases.
The new system will require operators to ensure that sheep carcases are presented in a consistent way post slaughter, at the point of weighing and classification. Regulated slaughterhouses will have to use one of two specified carcase presentations at that point. The regulated slaughterhouses will be required to report the weight of the carcase and its classification details, along with the price being paid for sheep sold, on a dead-weight basis—that is, when payment for the sheep is dependent on the classification and weight of its carcase. The carcase and pricing details must be reported to the supplier of the sheep, and to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, which will process the information under contract to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as it does already for beef and pork.
The draft instrument will apply a licensing regime to classifiers and to automated classification methods. The Rural Payments Agency, which will monitor and enforce the regulations, will assess and license carcase classifiers. That means that both manual classifiers and automated classifying technology in regulated slaughterhouses will need to be licensed for sheep classification.
Provision is made for automated classification methods to be first subjected to an authorisation testing process, which must be passed before the automated equipment using that method can be put forward for licensing in regulated slaughterhouses. That will ensure that the method being used for automated classification can repeatedly and accurately classify carcases. The Rural Payments Agency will be given the powers to inspect the regulated slaughterhouses and to take enforcement action when there are breaches of the regulatory requirements.
The sheep industry, including farmers and meat processors, has been pressing us to create a mandatory carcase classification and price reporting system for sheep carcases, which the draft instrument delivers. I commend it to the Committee.