Live Animals: Export Ban Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
Main Page: Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberThe passage of elite animals for competition and for breeding is absolutely open, and will continue—it has a very high welfare standard. There are issues about the cost and bureaucracy involved, but that requires both sides of the channel to be in co-operation. It is a very important industry in this country, and we will support it.
My Lords, this was a manifesto promise by the Government years ago, yet for some reason they have consistently put it off—they have announced new powers and then put it off again. It was said that it was Brexit that was stopping it from being enacted. Brexit is done and dusted, so why has it not happened? Either Brexit has not happened, or the Government are just rubbish.
It is certainly not the latter. You have a manifesto commitment, which you deliver over the course of a Parliament—that is what we are going to do. But the noble Baroness can sleep easy, because not one single animal is being exported. There is one vessel, the “Jolene”, which operates out of Ramsgate, which has not exported a single animal for fattening or slaughter. The concern that people have is that animals are going to be exported to other parts of Europe that have lower welfare standards in their slaughterhouses than we do in ours. That is a legitimate concern—and something that the Government want to make sure will not recur.