Culling of Pigs

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I can assure the noble Lord that we are taking action on a range of issues, which we hope will resolve the problem in the coming weeks. We are working with AHDB to identify export markets to fill the gap of the 21% of exports that are no longer available to the Chinese market because they withdrew licences because of Covid. He is right to point to the labour issues. These are principally because, at the end of the Covid restrictions, many overseas workers returned home and we are seeking to find ways to bring large numbers of them back. There is a deficit of between 800 and 1,000 butchers which we want to fill. There are many other things we are working on to ensure the mainstream supply of pigmeat, including, of course, for Christmas.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, it is heartbreaking to raise stock from piglets to fully grown pigs ready for slaughter and the supermarket shelves, only to have to cull them on farm and waste their meat. An influx of skilled workers from abroad could alleviate this situation. What is the Minister doing to lower the English language requirement for meat processing workers, who clearly do not need the same level of fluency as a GP?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

That is a very valid point. Part of our discussions and the announcement that I hope we will be able to make imminently reflects what is also done in the poultry industry, where those changes were made to encourage more workers to come over and operate in that sector. We hope that this will alleviate the labour problems in this sector.