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The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)
It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Mundell. I join others in thanking the Petitions Committee, and in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for not only introducing the debate but bringing her usual thoughtfulness and passion to the subject. I also join others in thanking all who signed the petition, which meant that we were able to debate this important issue.
This is the third consecutive week that we have debated farm animal welfare issues, and that brings home just how much both the public and this House value how animals are treated. We are genuinely a nation of animal lovers. We are also a nation that needs to eat, so I thank all who are involved in the farming process and the food production sector, who help to keep us fed.
The issue of confinement and the use of cages in farming is a long-standing subject that has been brought to Members’ attention several times over recent years, and it is a topic that has consistently come across my desk since I became a Minister. As a nation, we are rightly proud of high welfare standards. On confinement, veal crates for calves were banned in 1990, sow stalls for pigs were banned in 1999 and barren battery cages for laying hens were banned in 2012.
I will reiterate what I said in the debate on animal welfare standards in farming on 3 June. We are determined to build on and maintain our world-leading record on animal health and welfare, and we are absolutely committed to ensuring that animals receive the care, respect and protection that they rightly deserve, in whatever farming system they are kept.
In addition to this e-petition, there have been a number of campaigns urging the Government to publish consultations on banning the use of enriched colony cages for laying hens and farrowing crates for pigs. I assure my hon. Friend that I am keen to act and certainly do not want to fall behind the EU countries that have already banned, or are in the process of banning, cages and crates. I am acutely aware that these are complex issues that need careful consideration, particularly with regard to food security and trade. I want to work closely with the sectors and bring them with us to improve animal welfare standards together while maintaining a thriving, sustainable and competitive industry.
The petition calls for a ban on cages for laying hens as soon as possible. Enriched colony cages are a significant welfare improvement on barren battery cages as they are required to have nest boxes, litters and perches, but they do not fully provide for the birds’ physical and behavioural needs. The colony cage system restricts the hen’s choice, preventing her from running, flapping her wings, dust bathing or foraging, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) has said in detailing the concerns raised by his constituents.
The UK laying hens sector has already made significant progress in moving away from enriched colony cages. The transition has been supported by the major supermarkets, which pledged in 2016 to stop selling shell eggs from caged hens by the end of 2025, with some retailers extending that pledge to products containing liquid or processed egg. I am pleased to say that the percentage of eggs from enriched colony cage systems continues to fall. The current level is just 18% of the total UK throughput in the first quarter of 2025, with free-range eggs now accounting for 70% of the total.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) detailed, the retailer pledge in response to consumer demand is to be welcomed, but not all supermarkets have committed to cage-free. I am afraid that real-world considerations around affordability for consumers are clearly at the fore in some of those decisions. Although the retailer pledge is significant, it does not raise welfare standards across the whole laying hen industry. While the retail element is the largest part of the market at 65%, the food service and egg processing elements are not insignificant, and they represent 18% and 17% of the market respectively. The focus needs to be on addressing the welfare of laying hens producing eggs for retailers that have not signed the pledge, and for the food service and egg processing markets.
To help the sector, the Government are providing financial assistance to laying hen and pullet farmers in England with flocks of 1,000 birds or more, with £22.5 million of allocated grant funding via the animal health and welfare pathway to refurbish or replace existing housing, including for those who are looking to make the transition from enriched colony cages to high welfare non-cage systems.
I turn to the pig sector. We already have a significant outdoor pig sector, as we have heard, with 50% of the national sow breeding herd giving birth freely on outdoor units with no confinement. But 50% of breeding sows are kept indoors, with approximately 42% of them confined in farrowing crates for around five days before they are due to give birth and until the piglets are weaned at approximately 28 days of age.
When the Farm Animal Welfare Committee, now known as the Animal Welfare Committee, reviewed the welfare of pigs in farrowing crates, it recommended that
“in considering which farrowing system to adopt or support, farmers, the pig industry as a whole and other stakeholders such as retailers should consider the welfare of both sows and piglets, and be aware that they are not necessarily benefitted by the same things.”
A range of hon. Members have made that point. The committee’s considerations included sow comfort and freedom to nest build; nest-building material being made available in the period before and after farrowing; the avoidance of sow injuries from interaction with the floor, pen, furniture or piglets; floor design being given more priority in the design of farrowing accommodation; the protection of piglet welfare, including prevention of injury or death; and an environment in which they can thrive, along with the promotion of hygiene and avoidance of disease in both sows and piglets.
There is consensus that farrowing crates restrict a sow’s movement, preventing her from turning around and performing normal behaviours such as nest building, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy) has pointed out. Animal welfare non-governmental organisations such as the RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming have campaigned for a long time for the Government to ban farrowing crates. I am also well aware that the British Veterinary Association and the Pig Veterinary Society have recently called for a gradual phase-out of farrowing crates, and for them to be replaced with a system that maximises sow and piglet welfare and ensures human safety. I welcome those organisations’ contribution to the ongoing debate. The National Pig Association has recognised that the direction of travel is moving away from farrowing crates, and it has done a lot of work in that area. Indeed, some producers have already made a move towards alternative farrowing systems.
As mentioned by the hon. Member for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst), who spoke as usual with great knowledge and sensitivity about these issues, industry estimates that around 8% of the British indoor pig herd are now flexibly farrowed, where the sow can be confined on a temporary basis and for a limited period to protect her piglets in those crucial early days of their lives. Flexible farrowing, also termed temporary crating or adaptive farrowing, is where the sow is confined without the ability to turn around on only a temporary basis—for a few days around farrowing in the initial suckling phase—before movable restraining bars are opened to give the sow the space to turn around.
The other alternative to farrowing crates is a move directly to free farrowing systems, where there is no confinement of the sow when in farrowing and lactation accommodation, allowing the sow to freely turn around and have the opportunity to more fully perform nest-building activities. A significant part of our consideration around alternative systems is the evidence around sow and piglet welfare and stockperson welfare, and I was very struck by the point made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) about the dangers facing stockpeople.
We recognise that moving away from farrowing crates requires a fundamental change for producers and, as we have heard, significant investment. On that note, it is encouraging to see the investment commitment some retailers have made to improve the farrowing experience for pigs.
The shadow Minister asked how we would go forward on this. As the Government bring forward proposals, we will subject them to a full consultation. We absolutely recognise that the industry will need time to adapt. Farrowing accommodation will need to be considerably adapted, and potentially rebuilt and extended to allow for a larger pen footprint, and that will clearly impose significant costs on the indoor pig sector. It will also require communities to recognise that the planning system will have to accommodate changes to allow better welfare, so we need to get specifications right. Training will also be essential for stockpeople to adapt to a brand new system and ensure both human and pig welfare.
Members have mentioned trade, and I am mindful of what happened in 1999 when the UK unilaterally banned sow stalls. Although it was the right thing to do in animal welfare terms, it did, as has been said, contribute to a reported 40% decline in the pig breeding herd in the following decade, sadly opening the door to more pig meat imports from countries still using sow stalls. It is therefore essential that we carefully evaluate the implications of potential cage and crate bans on trade. We need to carefully consider the potential for unintentionally replacing UK production with lower welfare production overseas.
We know that the European Commission is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) mentioned, considering proposals to ban cages and crates. It has said that the first legislative proposals on cage reforms will be announced in 2026. We do not yet know what phase-out periods it will propose or how long it will take it to get agreement among member states. We are acutely aware of and concerned about imports produced using methods that are not permitted in the UK, and I can reassure the shadow Minister that we will use our trade strategy to promote the highest food production standards and protect farmers from being undercut by low welfare and low standards in trade deals.
Charlie Dewhirst
Is it the Minister’s ambition to align as closely as possible with the European Union’s plans to phase out cages, and farrowing crates in particular, given the symbiotic trading relationship—especially on products such as pig meat—between the EU and the UK, so that we do not have a similar situation to that involving sow stalls in 1999, where we ban something that the European Union is still using?
Daniel Zeichner
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Clearly, having made the observation about what happened in 1999, we do not want to return to that situation.
Let me turn to labelling. Considerable work has been done recently to consider the merits of method of production labelling. That, too, was raised by the hon. Member for Epping Forest, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), who has talked about it repeatedly in this place.
As we have heard, last year the previous Government undertook a consultation seeking views on proposals to improve and extend existing mandatory method of production labelling. I am pleased to say that, as the hon. Member for Epping Forest noticed, we have now published the Government’s response, which is available on gov.uk.
In looking at that, we recognised the strong support of members of the public and many other stakeholders for the provision of clearer information for consumers on the welfare standards of their food. We also heard and understood the views expressed on the detail of the consultation proposals by the many interested parties who responded. I assure the hon. Gentleman and other Members that we are carefully considering the potential role of reform of method of production labelling as part of the Government’s wider animal welfare and food strategies. As he will have appreciated, the Prime Minister has announced that we will announce an animal welfare strategy by the end of the year.
Finally, I turn to game birds. Approximately 40 million of them—30 million to 35 million pheasants and 5 million to 10 million partridges—are estimated to be released each year in Great Britain. Game birds bred and reared for sporting purposes are not subject to the same legislative requirements on welfare as farmed poultry, because they are not regarded as farmed animals. They are, however, protected by the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which makes it an offence to cause any animal under the control of humans unnecessary suffering, or to fail to provide for the welfare needs of the animal.
DEFRA’s statutory code of practice for the welfare of gamebirds reared for sporting purposes provides keepers with guidance on how to meet the welfare needs of their game birds, as required by the Animal Welfare Act. The code recommends that barren cages for breeding pheasants and small barren cages for breeding partridges should not be used, and that any system should be appropriately enriched.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran for opening this debate, and I reassure Members that the issue of confinement is one that I take seriously. The Government were elected on a mandate to introduce the most ambitious plans in a generation to improve animal welfare, and that is exactly what we will do. The Department has initiated a series of meetings with key stakeholders as part of the development of an overarching approach to animal welfare. As I said, the Prime Minister committed to publishing an animal welfare strategy later this year. That is exactly what we will do, and I look forward to being able to outline more detail in due course.