Animal Welfare (Primate Licences) (England) Regulations 2023

Lord de Clifford Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I want to follow the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Trees, about the possibility of exportation to Scotland when the licensing scheme is set up, as it will be, in England. It is quite a serious issue, as we have seen with XL bully dogs. I wonder whether the Minister’s department has been in touch with the authorities in Scotland to draw their attention to what is going on so that they are fully aware and can make their own assessment of the risk.

Some primates are kept as pets in Scotland, and I happen to have met two of them on separate occasions when they were being taken for walks. It is not as if it is an entirely English practice; there are certainly some instances north of the border, although I do not know how many there are. It is important that the two jurisdictions work together on this system without the disparity that is apparently coming because the regulations apply only to England.

[Lord de Clifford (CB)]

I declare my interest as working in the veterinary field, and obviously I am keen on animal welfare.

I too welcome the statutory instrument. It is a step forward for the improvement of primate welfare. If enforced, the new licence standards will discourage possible new owners from keeping these animals. A total ban on keeping primates as pets would be a far preferable outcome, but that is not what we are being offered today.

In my view, there are limitations on this, and I support the regret amendment. The time limit of two years is excessive. For an animal to be kept under those unacceptable conditions for that length of time is not particularly good, especially if an inspection has been done and someone has been given two years to implement that, as under Part 3, Regulation 15(2)(a) and (c).

Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Bill

Lord de Clifford Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord de Clifford (CB)]

I also welcome this Bill and am in awe of the passion shown by many Members of this House in getting the Bill to this stage. I note my interests in the register.

The simplicity of the Bill is a strength and I hope that it will contribute to a quick passage through the House. However, by keeping it simple, there is the potential to miss certain areas of animal welfare. The range of farm animals included are the principal main production animals, but this leaves out minority animals —it does not, for example, mention birds. I thank the Minister for his time doing the briefing on the export of young poultry, also mentioned in detail by my noble friend Lord Trees.

I also welcome and back the noble Baronesses, Lady Young and Lady Fookes, on their amendments for these species to be included, if required in the future by the Secretary of State. As humans have generally shown over the years, where there is an opportunity or a loophole, people will seek to use it in some way. This will only be to the detriment of a small number of animals and birds in the future.

Due to the focused nature of the Bill, there is a missed opportunity to improve the general legislation with regard to the transport of animals throughout the UK and for their export for breeding and competition purposes. Some of these journeys can be of significant time and length, and we need to protect animals during this transportation. I ask the Government to look again at this legislation to ensure that we continue to improve animal welfare standards during transportation, to include time and distance travelled, to monitor the health and welfare of these animals, and also to include driver skill levels, the design of transport vehicles and the stocking density.

As mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, the support of local abattoirs is essential to keep the transport distance down to minimum for animals due for slaughter. This proposed legislation can only happen due to the UK leaving the EU. Animals are certainly benefiting from this legislation, but we need to ensure the farming industry as a whole benefits too. The export of farm animals was a minor but significant part of the fresh and frozen meat sector, and the only reason it has reduced is the lack of EU border control posts, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington.

When this legislation is passed, this potential profitable and alternative market will be closed to English, Scottish and Welsh farmers due to the welcome higher animal welfare standards. I therefore ask the Minister to encourage the Government to begin, as asked for by the NFU, a formal process of developing and establishing a core production standard that applies to all agricultural imports, as mentioned by the right reverend Prelate. These standards should apply to all future international trade deals, to prevent the undercutting of British farmers, whose costs are increased by high animal welfare standards —which we all welcome.

All these high standards need to apply not only to production but to biosecurity, and these issues were highlighted by my noble friend Lord Trees in a recent debate on biosecurity. It is important that, if we cannot export our livestock for slaughter, we export and promote the UK’s high animal welfare standards and maintain a level trading playing field for all UK livestock producers.

Biosecurity and Infectious Diseases

Lord de Clifford Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord de Clifford (CB)]

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Trees on raising this topic in the House and on his detailed introduction. I welcome the Minister to the Chamber and wish him all the best in his maiden speech. I declare my interest in this matter, working for a large group of vets with an interest in both the farming and companion animal sectors.

My colleagues who specialise in farm animals were delighted that this subject was being raised in the House. Their initial comments and concerns were that the UK does not value its biosecurity, as there is little public awareness of this matter and the potential dangers to public health and animal health from new infectious diseases.

As mentioned by my noble friend Lord Trees and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, African swine flu is currently a major concern for the pig industry. The disease grows ever closer to the UK. It is now well established in eastern Europe, not only in farming herds but in the wild boar population, where its presence is a lot more concerning, with cases being reported as recently as September in Sweden. The effect of this highly infectious disease on the UK’s pig herd is significantly more than on many other nations, as at least 50% of our breeding sows are housed outdoors, and therefore the risk of infection is significantly higher. If the infection were to get into the national outdoor pig herd, it would potentially be as devastating as the foot and mouth outbreak back in the early 2000s.

The most likely route of this infection to outdoor pigs is by their consuming infected meat discarded by a member of the general public. This could be a ham or bacon sandwich, made from contaminated meat illegally imported from areas where African swine flu is established, thrown away close to a field of outdoor pigs. As my noble friend mentioned, the importing of illegal meat has become a real issue. As reported in January, the Dover Port Health Authority has seized more than 57 tonnes of illegal meat, possibly a fraction of what is coming into the country from restricted areas in eastern Europe.

We welcome the introduction of the border target operation model that will introduce some border controls at the end of January, but there are concerns, as mentioned by other noble Lords, about its funding and the number of inspections that can be done. Can the Minister guarantee resources for these inspections?

A very simple threat to our biosecurity is the threat from the general public when they bring food back into the country on return from holidays. The public are totally unaware of the potential danger to our national pig herd. There is little or no public information service explaining the potential threats to our nation’s biosecurity by bringing food or plants back to the UK. This is the opposite of the island countries in Australasia, which have huge biosecurity controls when you enter their country, and publicise them.

Mosquito-transmitted diseases are another threat to our nation’s animals. Currently, we have two outbreaks of such a disease. Bluetongue is a disease that affects both cattle and sheep, and we have outbreaks in Kent and Norfolk. The current infection is a great worry to farmers and vets in the UK, as the outbreak first occurred in November at the very end of the normal danger period when the cold weather normally reduces the number of mosquitoes being blown over from Europe. The warming of the climate means that these mosquitoes are more likely to survive longer. It is hoped that the cold weather will hold back the current outbreak from spreading further around the country, although some cases have been reported in the last few weeks in the current infected areas. The other concerning feature of this current strain is that there is no vaccine for it, which potentially could allow bluetongue to become a significant disease within the UK cattle and sheep population.

The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, mentioned antimicrobial resistance. As a nation, we tackle issues that we foresee as long-term problems for human and animal health. An example of this is antibiotic resistance. We have reduced antibiotic sales for use in production animals by 57% since 2014, and human use has also fallen over this period. But what do we do as nation? We import foodstuffs from nations that do not have the same restrictions on the use of antibiotics, or policies to reduce their usage. Therefore, we are importing antibiotic resistance from other nations.

As we continue to seek new international trade agreements with other nations whose biosecurity policies may not be as robust as the UK’s, we need to ensure that biosecurity is on the negotiating table to protect our nation and not undermine what we are trying to do in this country.