Farmed Animals: Cages

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The Minister is shaking her head. In that case, I am sure that she can give us a good timetable. That will come as a relief to many of us. It has been carried over; let us hope that we see it soon. As has been said by many others, we need action now to bring an end to the cage age.

It is also vital that we ensure that any domestic production of animal products, produced through higher welfare, cage-free standards, is not simply undercut and replaced by imports from countries that still use lower-welfare cage systems. Any conversation with farmers at the moment leads very quickly to their concerns about being undercut in trade deals. I think we may be discussing this issue again later in the week but, to our eyes, the Government’s long-delayed national food strategy failed to include proper protections for imported food. Henry Dimbleby, the author of the Government inquiry that was set up a few years ago, said:

“Yet again the government has ducked the issue of how we don’t just import food that destroys the environment and is cruel to animals—we can’t create a good fair farming system, then export those harms abroad. I thought the government would address this but it didn’t.”

Well, perhaps the Minister can do so today.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making excellent points, which are echoed by the many emails I have had from constituents on this issue. Does he agree that when food is produced much further away from where it is eaten, trying to interrogate animal welfare standards becomes almost impossible for consumers and shops?

[Daniel Zeichner]

The hon. Lady raises a very important question, and one of the challenges of the years and decades ahead will be to try to resolve these conundrums. The Opposition feel strongly that the more we can produce food closer to home, the better off we will be.

Although I appreciate that there are concerns about the impact that increasing animal welfare standards could have on food prices—particularly at the moment, when many households are struggling with sky-high inflation—the fact is that, as set out in Dimbleby’s report, our food system is not working. It fails animals, it fails the environment and often it fails the consumer. In our view, the national food strategy has not addressed those issues. We want to see the Government work with the food sector to ensure that we can improve animal welfare without pushing up the cost for consumers. As I said two years ago, we need rock-solid commitments that ending the use of cages on our farms is a priority for the Government, and we need proper detail on how they plan to do that through a proper farming policy.

The Government have stated on numerous occasions their aspiration for the UK to become the global leader in farm animal welfare, and they really could embrace a cage-free future now. I ask the Minister to explain why this suffering should be allowed to continue, and why the Government have consistently kicked the can down the road when it comes to ending the cage age.