Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Bill  

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I remind hon. Members that the occupant of this Chair is acting not as Deputy Speaker, but as Chair of the Committee of the whole House—I did try, but anyway, we all now know.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Chair.

This is an issue that I am personally passionate about—I have spoken on animal welfare issues from both the Back Benches and the Opposition Front Bench many times since coming to this place six years ago. I am very pleased that Labour Front Benchers are supporting the Bill, but recognise the need to strengthen its provisions and for the protection of animal welfare to go much further. All animals deserve protection. I know two things about the British public: one, they are disappointed that it has taken us so long to get to this point; and two, they want to see much more. Where is the ban on keeping primates as pets? Where is the foie gras ban? Where is the action on puppy smuggling, and why has the trophy hunting ban not gone through as an Act?

The Bill is long overdue. In the 2019 general election, the Conservative party included this prohibition and many other animal welfare policies in its manifesto. Five years have passed, and we have had setback after setback. Maybe that reflects the number of Prime Ministers we have had over that period and their varying views on animal welfare, but this is the last in a series of delays that are being put right. Last year, when I was a Front Bencher, I was hugely disappointed that the Government abandoned the kept animals Bill. When I was at the Dispatch Box trying to bring that Bill back, they even voted against a number of their own policies. The British public will not forget. Maybe the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is different now, but the Minister is the same Minister who opposed us on that occasion. How many animals have needlessly suffered because of this delay? There are victims here—it is not a victimless delay.

It took a private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson) to tackle animal exploitation in the wild tourism industry, a measure that we all supported. The approach of the Government for a whole year, which they now seem to have abandoned, was to try to achieve animal welfare improvements through private Members’ Bills. I am glad that we are now back to having Government Bills on these issues, but where is the animals abroad Bill?

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Just to help the hon. Member, could he refer to the amendments or new clauses that he is addressing? His speech sounds awfully like a Second Reading speech.

[Alex Sobel]

Thank you, Chair. I will come to those now.

The amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) include a number of provisions to extend the scope of the Bill. I want to say a little bit about alpacas, which I believe are dealt with in amendment 2. In my constituency, I have seen a growth in alpaca farming. There are alpacas in Cookridge in my constituency, on the way to Leeds Bradford airport; Meanwood Valley urban farm, which is just over the border in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), has alpacas; and, on Queensway in Yeadon, I recently spotted a number of alpacas in a field. This is clearly an area of expansion in the British farming industry, but there is also now quite a lot of alpaca breeding, so there is no need to export live alpacas to this country, because there is sufficient depth of alpaca farming to carry on that work. The same goes for other animals, including llamas and deer. We are overrun with deer; we certainly do not need the export of them.

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

Being overrun with deer is usually a forestry issue. They are wild animals and are not covered by this Bill, and they are certainly not covered by these amendments.

[Alex Sobel]

I thank the right hon. Member. Obviously, there are wild deer and deer farmed for venison; both types exist in this country.

I do not want to hold up the debate for too long, so I will conclude. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West said, the Labour party is the party of animal welfare—that is a strong priority for Labour. We have long called for a ban on live export for slaughter. Every year, millions of farm animals are at risk of facing long-distance journeys, including the new animals that we have tabled amendments to cover. Amendment 5 aims to future-proof the Bill. Particularly as the climate changes, farming will change, and we need to be able to evolve and update the legislation as practices change. I support amendments 2, 3, 4 and 5, which stand in the name of my hon. Friend, and I hope to see the Bill go much further.

[Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I strongly welcome the Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Bill. It is absolutely right that we ban the disgusting practice of live export for slaughter. We have driven it from Dover, and when the Bill becomes law, it will mean that it cannot come back. That is fantastic news.

This is an issue of great interest and impact for my constituency, because at the peak of that activity, we saw 100 transportations through the port of Dover. Excellent local campaigners, particularly Yvonne and Ian Birchall from Kent Action Against Live Exports, have worked tirelessly over decades to get us to this position, and I congratulate them on that. They have been very diligent in keeping me and many Members from across the House informed of the pernicious activities involved in this particularly despicable trade, but I have never heard them mention a concern about reindeer, which are dealt with in the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). I will come on to the other breeds mentioned in the amendments that are before the Committee.

This issue is still live in the constituency that I have the honour to represent. It came to the fore with the introduction of Irish Ferries, which became the third ferry provider into Dover a short time ago. I strongly welcome Irish Ferries to Dover, but when that company arrived, I had to seek assurances from it that it would not be engaging in live exports across the channel. The reason for that has been very well explored in the instruction debate: it is something that can and does happen in the island of Ireland. In relation to the land bridge issue, it is concerning that a difference between parts of our United Kingdom will continue to exist. It is unfortunate that a change as important as the one we are making today, which is enabled by our Brexit freedoms, throws fresh light on a gap that has been growing since the implementation of the Windsor framework. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on the effectiveness of the road bridge, because we are legislating, which means that this issue is important enough to legislate on. An answer that relies on a commercial solution suggests a weaker position in relation to that land bridge than some of us would like to see.

Let me turn to the Opposition’s amendment 5, tabled by the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones). I note that it seeks to apply a regulatory extension—secondary legislation—for deer, llamas and alpaca in relation to this important issue. I am mindful that even the campaign group Compassion in World Farming has said in the last 48 hours that it is not aware of any activity that would fall into the fattening and slaughter definition we are looking at today for those particular breeds. The reason I draw this to the Minister’s attention is the context of the comments he made about the World Trade Organisation and other international trading laws to which the UK is subject. I pause at that point to repeat that those are laws to which the UK as a whole is subject, not just Great Britain.