Animal Welfare: Cats and Dogs

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I come from a family of proud dog lovers. My long standing personal friend and noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood, to whom we are all deeply indebted for this debate, has spoken eloquently of his lifelong devotion to cats. There is ample room in the human heart for both. Churchill regarded both cats and dogs with great affection and from time to time brought them together in happy co-existence. During his peacetime premiership, he had for some while the exclusive companionship of a fine poodle, named Rufus. Then in October 1953, a pretty black kitten was found on the steps of No. 10 where, over the years ahead, under Conservative, Labour, and coalition Governments, a succession of felines would turn up. The 1953 kitten rushed to Churchill and jumped on his knee to begin deep, contented purring. “It has brought me luck,” Churchill declared. “It shall be called Margate,” he added, without further explanation. He presumably had in mind the seaside town where he had recently delivered a triumphant speech to the Conservative Party conference. Rufus went off to bed in a sulk, but swiftly came to terms with the new situation and contented to share his world famous master with the new arrival.

It is fitting that we should discuss in the same debate the welfare of two animals that have given so much companionship to so many people, and will continue to do so. They all deserve the best possible care, but as my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood has shown so distressingly, today too many of them are the recipients of harshness and cruelty, not love and affection.

The Question before us happily relates to the entire United Kingdom and so provides an opportunity for me to make brief reference to Northern Ireland, a part of our country to which I am particularly attached. Animal welfare issues come within the ambit of the Northern Ireland Assembly, but that is no reason to exclude them from consideration here. At every level there is much that Belfast can learn from Westminster and vice versa. A new chapter in the history of animal welfare in the province opened last year with the implementation of the Welfare of Animals Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, which introduced—very belatedly it must be said—the major new legislative framework of protection created in England and Wales by the landmark 2006 Act. Enforcement of the law, which had previously rested with the police, has passed to Northern Ireland’s 26 local councils. They have banded together to appoint five—just five—animal welfare officers.

There is much for the group of five to do. A rising tide of abuse and neglect is plainly apparent to the Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the world’s second oldest animal welfare charity, founded in 1836 and to whose work I pay tribute. All sections of the community have always been served with unwavering dedication both in times of turmoil and in the better times that now exist. The USPCA backs wholeheartedly the calls being made throughout the country for action in schools, particularly primary schools, to equip the young with a proper sense of responsibility towards family pets.

Some appalling recent cases of cruelty have been uncovered by the USPCA. For example, a single family in North Down now faces some 200 charges arising from the attacks it unleashed first on badgers and subsequently on pet cats, using dogs including illegal pit bull terriers. In its most recent report, the USPCA expressed profound concern about the increasing number of puppy farms, which nothing is likely to halt while advertising on the internet remains unregulated. As an officer of the USPCA put it to me:

“The sums to be made are astronomical and public awareness is low”.

As regards cat breeders, no arrangements for inspection exist. The USPCA states that:

“A kitten would have to die for reasons attributable to the breeder before any action could be considered by a welfare officer”.

Will the new legislation make a significant difference? Will there be an increase in prosecutions on a similar scale to that recorded in England and Wales after the 2006 Act? The early signs are not encouraging. In 2012-13, just one person was successfully prosecuted. The USPCA is concerned that undue use is being made of improvement notices in cases where prosecutions are needed. But in the ineffable prose in which our public authorities delight, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, known as SOLACE, looks serenely ahead. It has a project board that,

“continues to hold stakeholder events to build relationships and an understanding of roles and responsibilities and to discuss a wide range of animal welfare issues”.

A rather more vigorous approach would be preferable.

The Northern Ireland Executive need to instil a far greater sense of urgency and purpose into the civil servants and officials with whom they are so generously supplied. I hope that my noble friend the Minister, who is devoting so much time and care to the welfare of cats and dogs in this part of the country, will encourage Northern Ireland Ministers to follow his fine example. He might, in particular, press them to consider putting the USPCA on the same footing as the RSPCA as regards investigatory and enforcement powers. Let us do things in the same way throughout our country where that is the best course.

EU: Sow Stalls Ban

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what information they have about the likelihood of other European Union member states complying with the forthcoming European Union ban on sow stalls.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Taylor of Holbeach)]

My Lords, the European Commission has sought data on how member states are progressing with complying with the sow stall ban, which comes into force on 1 January 2013. To date, the Commission has not released this information.

[Lord Lexden]

I am very grateful to my noble friend for his comments. Can he confirm that our farmers have invested very substantially to remove sow stalls here? Bearing in mind the current difficulties over another important farming issue, how confident is he that there will be full compliance with the ban on sow stalls throughout the EU by 1 January 2013?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

In this country, as noble Lords will know, sow stalls have been banned since 1999, so my noble friend is right in saying that there has been considerable investment. In the light of recent experience, he would not expect me to be fully confident that other states will be compliant. We can be confident in our own position, as I have said, because we are not prepared to compromise on the welfare of sows, which is why we moved away from sow stalls early. We will not tolerate livestock regimes that compromise animal welfare and we will work hard in Brussels to ensure full compliance across Europe by the deadline.

Agriculture: Egg Industry

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, I am a newcomer to the important matters highlighted in this debate, for which we are indebted to the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, who introduced it—the first of two Earls to speak in this debate, which lends it a splendid distinction.

I wish to speak briefly about the effect this directive will have on the egg industry in Northern Ireland, a part of our country in whose well-being—all aspects of it—I am always deeply interested, as I have pointed out before in your Lordships’ House. I do not believe that the existence of a devolved Assembly should preclude the discussion of Northern Ireland issues in this House, particularly where a wider UK dimension exists, as it does with this issue.

It is estimated by the Ulster Farmers’ Union, a long established and highly regarded voice of rural interests, that the Northern Irish egg industry is worth some £50 million a year to the Province’s economy. This directive was published in 1999. Many of the problems foreseen then by the UFU and their colleagues in other parts of the country have still not been resolved, although the European Union has had 12 years in which to put in place measures to ensure that compliance does not entail a competitive disadvantage for our farmers, as other noble Lords have already stressed. They have also stressed that fairness—a level playing field, in today’s well loved jargon—for poultry farmers is absolutely essential, given that in the United Kingdom in particular this industry historically has not enjoyed direct government support.

My friends in the UFU estimated in 1999 that 1.8 million birds in Northern Ireland would need to be moved to the new “enhanced colony cages”, at a cost of around £10 a bird. The average cost of conversion to the Northern Irish poultry farmer has been estimated at £300,000—or more, should they decide to convert to free-range production rather than the enhanced colony cage systems. Farmers south of the border in the Republic of Ireland have been eligible for financial help amounting to roughly 40 per cent of the cost per bird of conversion. Despite helpful discussions with United Kingdom Ministers, no similar assistance has been forthcoming to help farmers in Northern Ireland, who compete in the same geographical market.

Those more familiar than me with the farm modernisation scheme will know it to be a heavily oversubscribed fund, with no specific remit to help the poultry sector in particular, and will be unsurprised to hear that it has been of little help to the Ulster farmer looking to convert. The £300,000 cost is coming in the form of bank loans which will require repayment in the harsh economic circumstances in which we find ourselves, and amid a price war among the major supermarkets, which is preventing producers from raising the prices of their product. Several UFU members considered the costs too great at the outset, and ceased production. Small-scale, family-run farms, vital to Ulster’s important rural economy, have been replaced by major industrial producers, and others are at risk.

It is also worth bearing in mind that while the EU itself has had more than a decade to deal with the problems this directive might cause, farmers themselves have enjoyed no such luxury. A report due in 2005, but not published until January 2008, set the standards for these enriched colony cages, and farmers in Ulster prudently waited—they are extremely prudent, for the most part, in Ulster—until they could read this report before undertaking major financial risks. This was an excellent decision on their part, as it turns out that a farmer who converted to what might have been called an industry-standard enriched cage system in 1999 would have found his cages declared non-compliant after 2008. Farmers have therefore had just four years to raise the funds and complete the transitional process. This makes it all the more impressive that Northern Ireland expects to be fully compliant with this directive on 1 January 2012, in line with other parts of the United Kingdom, while other countries, as we have heard, have made public that they will not be compliant in time, if ever.

There was particular concern in Ulster arising from the fact that, under this directive, food manufactured using eggs from caged hens could still be tradable across the European Union. So we are back once more to the much invoked level playing field. Farmers in Ulster are looking for an assurance from the EU that products that use non-compliant eggs are at the very least clearly labelled as such for import and export so that farmers who invested in compliance are not at a serious disadvantage. There was a real risk that eggs from caged hens would continue to be used in the manufacturing of goods that could then be sold right across the European Union, pricing eggs from compliant farms out of the market.

For many farmers in Northern Ireland, as elsewhere, much is at stake. I ask the Minister to ensure that there is close communication between his department and the Northern Ireland Executive as these matters advance to a conclusion.