Farmed Animals: Cages and Crates

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the Petitions Committee for calling this important debate and the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for introducing it.

The call to end the cage age of animal farming is clear. It comes not just from Parliament and politicians but from the public, nowhere more so than in my constituency. More people have signed the petition to end the use of cages and crates for farmed animals in South Devon than in any other constituency in the country. That is a powerful message from a rural farming community, which is demanding a future built on compassion, not cruelty. I thank the 513 people from South Devon who signed the petition.

I urge the Government to keep their promise and finally take action to end the cage age of animal farming, not through vague pledges or delayed consultations but with a clear strategy delivered within this Parliament. Farrowing crates and other cruel confinement practices belong to the past. They cause immense suffering and deny animals, including the thousands of birds kept in cages for so-called sport, basic freedoms and dignity. In 2025, that is simply unacceptable.

The Liberal Democrats have a long-standing record of standing up for animals. We have consistently supported stronger penalties for animal cruelty and higher welfare standards in farming. In government, we put in place a ban on battery cages for laying hens. I would like to see that ban extended to all cages but, as others have rightly said, that must be done carefully and in consultation with farmers and producers.

For too long, we have been pushing the Government to launch a consultation into the use of farrowing crates for pigs, and to end the use of cages for farm animals. Our farmers are key to delivering that future. We know they care deeply about animal welfare, but they have been badly let down: betrayed by trade deals that undercut our high welfare standards, failed by poorly designed and delayed subsidy schemes, and denied the workforce and funding they need to thrive. To make these changes to caged animal farming, we must give farmers the support they need to transition.

Let us talk about that support, because the numbers are frankly outrageous. The Government are spending £67.5 billion on defence, or more than 5% of total public spending, while the entire DEFRA budget languishes at just £7.4 billion—barely 0.6%. Farming itself receives just £2.4 billion, or a meagre 0.2% of the national budget. To put that in perspective, all DEFRA spending—not just for farming but for the environment, food and rural affairs—adds up to just 11% of what we spend on defence. Food security is part of our national security, but how can we claim to prioritise food security, rural livelihoods or animal welfare with numbers like that? Farming takes the largest share of DEFRA’s budget, but it is nearly one third of a shockingly small pie. Meanwhile, the programmes meant to support the future of farming, improve animal welfare and restore our natural environment, including the sustainable farming incentive, countryside stewardship and landscape recovery, have been hit with a £100 million cut—cuts in the middle of a climate crisis, cuts while farmers struggle to meet the higher standards that we are demanding with fewer resources, cuts when public demand for ethical farming has never been stronger.

The Liberal Democrats stand with our farmers and our animals. We are calling for an extra £1 billion in the farming budget to support higher welfare standards, proper training and workforce investment. We will keep fighting to ensure no food can be imported or sold in the UK if it is produced in a way that would be illegal here.

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her excellent speech. Does she agree that lots of British farmers, like many in my North Cornwall constituency, are trying to move away from confined systems such as crates, but that until the Government insist on applying UK animal welfare standards to imported food, they will be undercut by cheaper, lower-welfare imports?

[Caroline Voaden]

It is key that if we are going to demand higher standards here, we must apply the same standards to food that we import.

If the Minister truly believes that food security is national security, that needs to be backed up with real investment—not empty slogans or cuts on a spreadsheet, but real support for our farmers. I ask him to listen to communities such as those in South Devon, which are demanding that we act. We banned battery cages in 2012; now it is time to finish the job. Let this be the Parliament that truly ends the cage age.