Free-Range Poultrymeat Marketing Standards (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2025

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, this is the 10th annual Back British Farming Day—a moment to celebrate our farmers and the vital contribution they make to our economy, countryside and food security. I thank the Minister for giving us the opportunity to discuss this important statutory instrument with significant implications for producers and consumers who value high food standards.

We welcome this proposal, which, after consultation, seeks to resolve a persistent challenge balancing disease protection with honest and transparent labelling. This amendment rightly removes the 12-week limit for how long poultry can be kept indoors under mandatory housing measures while retaining the free-range label. The change, as I understand it, has the greatest effect on turkey, duck and goose producers, as chickens are generally slaughtered before the time limit expires.

On this day dedicated to British farming, it is fitting to recognise the immense pressures faced by our producers, especially after the impacts of avian influenza, and the need for legislation that is fair and practical. Mass culls, supply-chain issues and uncertainty have taken their toll on our rural communities, and that is why the priority must be a regulatory system that protects producers from circumstances that are often beyond their control, without undermining their hard-won reputations, of which so many of our UK food producers can be rightly proud.

The Liberal Democrats have consistently championed high animal welfare standards. When in government, we introduced the all-out ban on caged hens. Consumers expect clarity and integrity in their food labelling, and the free-range label stands for quality, welfare and trust, and it is important that those values must not be diluted or diminished.

Support for producers should never mean weaker animal welfare or compromised consumer trust, so I urge the Minister to confirm, or respond with reassurances, that the statutory instrument will not do any of the following. First, will she confirm that it will not exclude British free-range eggs or poultry from EU markets due to regulatory divergence, risking essential exports? After the trading challenges of bad post-Brexit deals, this is a pressure that our farming communities cannot continue to bear. Secondly, will she confirm that it will not dilute the high welfare expectations associated with the “free range” label, which our producers and customers depend on?

Finally, will the Minister confirm that the statutory instrument will not lead to confusion or reduce confidence in what “free range” genuinely means—I note the examples from the polling that the Minister used in her introductory remarks—for so many of our consumers who today wish, in increasing numbers, to make ethical choices? Meeting public expectations and reflecting farm realities requires transparency. The reputation of “free range” must remain as a guarantee of higher welfare, not merely a technicality. Also, how will the Government audit compliance, ensure that labelling reflects actual living standards and work with producers and consumer groups to uphold these robust standards?

We support these regulations; we are looking at the small print, but we are very much in support of this statutory instrument when it comes to providing detailed reassurances on animal welfare and consumer confidence. On Back British Farming Day, we stand with our farmers while demanding the highest standards for animals, rural communities and our food security system. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by saying how delighted I am—indeed, the whole Committee will be delighted—that the noble Baroness is still in her place as a Defra Minister. We have continuity Defra, and that needs to be said.

But may I also say how sad I was to see that Daniel Zeichner has been brutally chopped? He was a good Minister doing a good job. He had been shadow Minister since 2020 and was a Minister for a year, and then was chopped for no good reason. One idiotic report in the press said that he had been chopped because of the tax on farmers. I think they got the wrong target there, since the Secretary of State’s replacement was in the Treasury, which imposed the tax. The reports said that the Secretary of State had been “promoted” away from Defra, diminishing its importance. What does Defra do? It is the only the department that looks after our food, farming, fishing and trees, and looks after the quality of our water, rivers, streams and the air we breathe. Yet the media regard that as less important than going to a department that cannot build houses unless it deals with ghastly local government.

I will not waste the Committee’s time by repeating the necessity of this SI. The Official Opposition wholeheartedly support it for the same reasons set out fully by the Minister. So long as avian influenza is a threat to all flocks in the UK, in addition to the devastation among wild birds, the only precaution is to keep poultry inside. That is unfortunate, but there is no other way.

As the Minister explained, that means that free-range poultry would be kept inside as well and lose the designation “free range” if it is kept inside for more than 12 weeks. However, that would not apply to Europe, which operates under different rules at the moment. Thus, without this SI change, English producers would find their poultry meat marketed as “indoor bred” but similar meat from Europe could be labelled “free range”. Clearly, that would be damaging to the UK poultry sector, so this is necessary to maintain a level playing field.

As the Defra Explanatory Note points out, there is very little free-range chicken meat at the moment. At this time of year, the main free-range poultry are turkeys, geese and ducks, and it would be wrong to damage our producers by labelling them “indoor bred” while letting foreign imports be classed as “free range”. For those reasons, we will support the SI.

However, I flag up the same point that I made in the debate on free-range eggs: we cannot go on like this indefinitely. For impeccable reasons, we are misleading consumers, even though I think the products need a label stating that they have been kept inside. I am not sure about that, so perhaps the Minister will clarify in her winding-up speech whether, in relation to products that have been kept inside, there is an explanation for how they comply with “free range”. I repeat that, ever since my time in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1990, I have felt that the definition of “free range” is misleading. Yes, chickens must have access to outdoors for half their lives, but they rarely go out of the little hatch and stay inside most of the time. However, now is not the time or occasion for me to start a war with the British poultry producers.