Hospital Food (Animal Welfare Standards)

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. In a minute, I will comment on various hospitals. He shows that hospitals can deliver high welfare standards, source a lot of their meat and egg products nationally and serve up good-quality meals, and that it can be done on a reasonable budget. The other argument is that the hospitals will turn around and say, “We only have a limited budget, and we have got to make it go a long way.” However, some hospitals manage to get a good deal and good welfare standards, and then produce good food.

I emphasise that I am not here to knock hospitals and the NHS. I only want to improve the welfare standards for the meat and eggs served in our hospitals. Our health service does a very good job, but sometimes—dare I say it—patients might like slightly tastier meals when in hospital. It would certainly improve our view of life, even if it does not cure us instantly. It can have a positive effect.

During the same period, in stark contrast, setting mandatory standards for food served in other public institutions has proved highly successful. For example, the introduction of mandatory school food standards by the Government in 2005 led to a dramatic improvement in the quality of school meals, ensuring that children who opt for them get healthy, tasty and varied options. The introduction of mandatory nutritional standards for food served in Scottish hospitals in 2008 and Welsh hospitals in 2011 resulted in a significant improvement in the healthiness of patient meals, and it has been at the forefront of the Scottish and Welsh Governments’ efforts to tackle the effects of poor diets on health, particularly in relation to heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.

Although the introduction of mandatory food standards worked in those settings, the use of voluntary guidance for hospital food has not succeeded to the same degree. Hospitals in England spend a third of their food budget and £167 million of taxpayers’ money every year on meat, dairy products and eggs. Approximately £1 in every £4 spent on hospital food in England is spent on meat, and approximately £1 in every £10 is spent on dairy. That represents a vast amount of public expenditure, which the Government can use to ensure that taxpayers’ money is invested in rewarding farmers who have adopted ethical farming practices rather than those rearing animals in unacceptable conditions.

It also helps to ensure that most of the meat, eggs and dairy produce that feeds patients in hospitals is sourced from Britain, and locally, I hope. Some hospitals are proving that it can be done on budget. A handful of NHS hospitals in England already only serve food that meets the animal welfare standards I am advocating, proving that doing so is both practical and affordable. For example, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, and Braintree community hospital and St Margaret’s hospital in Essex, have all been—

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Neil Parish]

I certainly will. I knew it was a mistake to pause.

[Bill Wiggin]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I hope that my intervention gives him an opportunity to find his place in his speech.

My hon. Friend will have read the excellent speech about care made by the Secretary of State for Health. Does he not agree that this is the perfect opportunity to increase the quality of food for patients while delivering top-quality care for them? It is a win-win situation for the Government, if they follow my hon. Friend’s argument.

[Neil Parish]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which gave me the chance to find my place in my speech. I agree with him. Before he arrived in the Chamber, we were making the point that food produced under high welfare standards has the benefit, in many cases, of being that bit tastier for patients. We are also asking for a slightly more varied menu—dare I say it—in some hospitals, because that will be the key.

I re-emphasise that I am not criticising hospitals and the NHS in any way. I am asking them to use the good practice that many hospitals are providing throughout the country. We need many more hospitals to do that.

All eggs served by the hospitals I mentioned before my hon. Friend’s intervention are cage-free, and those hospitals will be working to improve the animal welfare of their food, including serving chicken and pork that is either organic or meets RSPCA welfare standards. Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust spends less on its higher welfare food than other hospitals spend on food reared to low or no standards of animal welfare.

Hospitals that have been given a Good Egg and a Good Chicken award by Compassion in World Farming for buying RSPCA welfare chicken, pork and cage-free eggs include the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust in London, York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, North Bristol NHS Trust and Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Healthcare NHS Trust. I should probably have included West Berkshire community hospital, and I shall ensure that I do so next time. Although those hospitals show what can be achieved on an NHS budget, the standards they have achieved have not been replicated throughout the country, despite one in every 10 patient meals being thrown in the bin. Mandatory standards are needed.

Hospital food should reflect the ethical concerns of the British taxpayer. The introduction of mandatory RSPCA welfare standards for hospital chicken, pork and cage-free eggs is an affordable way to ensure that chickens, pigs and hens that have been reared for patients’ meals are given a good quality of life. It would also ensure that hospital food reflects the ethical concerns of British shoppers who, in a report by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs last year, specified that the welfare of chicken, pigs and hens was an increasingly important influence on their purchasing habits. The report found that 75% of UK households said that the animal welfare standards of egg and chicken meat production is an “important issue”, 65% of households “actively seek” higher welfare eggs, and 50% seek higher welfare chicken when shopping. The increase in sales of RSPCA Freedom Food pork by a staggering 116% in 2010-11 also shows that a growing number of consumers consider pig welfare to be an important issue.

RSPCA welfare standards ensure that animals reared for food have been cared for and live a good quality life. It sends the right signal to the farming community, which is keen to have high animal welfare standards and wants to encourage people to pay that little bit extra for production, because there are extra costs for extra welfare. Again, this needs to be brought to people’s attention.

RSPCA accreditation ensures that food has been produced from animals that are reared to welfare standards exceeding legal minimum requirements and guarantees that they are cared for and enjoy a good quality of life. Farm animals reared to RSPCA welfare standards are provided with space to move around, comfortable places to rest, an interesting enriched environment that allows them to express natural behaviours, good health care and ready access to appropriate feed and water. The standards cover large and small farms and animals that are reared outside and indoors. The standards exclude some of the worst farming practices that are still allowed even here under UK law, including the use of so-called enriched poultry cages for egg-laying hens—these are quite controversial—which provide each hen with less usable space than an A4 sheet of paper. The standards also prevent producers from rearing chickens that are genetically selected to grow quicker, and forced to live in crowded and dark conditions.

To protect pigs, the standards prohibit farmers from keeping them on slatted or concrete floors and putting pregnant pigs in restrictive farrowing crates both before and after they give birth. Sometimes there can be an argument for putting a pig in a crate during birth, just to save the piglets, but certainly not afterwards.

As hon. Members may have seen in the supermarket, all meat, dairy products and eggs produced to RSPCA welfare standards are approved by the RSPCA’s Freedom Food assurance scheme, as shown by the logo on the packaging. Hospital food that meets RSPCA welfare standards is good value and affordable for caterers. Although RSPCA Freedom Food-certified chicken, pig meat and cage-free eggs may cost more than alternatives produced from animals reared to no welfare standards, they remain affordable for hospitals. In fact, figures from the retail sector show that RSPCA Freedom Food chicken, pork and cage-free eggs can sometimes be cheaper. For example, RSPCA Freedom Food barn eggs from Sainsbury’s cost the same as cage eggs from Tesco and Asda. I am not promoting different supermarkets. Sainsbury’s RSPCA Freedom Food chicken thighs and drumsticks are 22% cheaper than Sainsbury’s chicken and thighs that meet farm-assured standards.

The overall picture shows that hospitals can expect to pay more for food that meets RSPCA Freedom Food standards, but not by as much as we might think. Paying more money for a higher standard of welfare is a price worth paying.

To recap, substantial benefits would be achieved by introducing mandatory RSCPA welfare standards for hospital chicken, pork and eggs. Those standards would end the postcode lottery in the animal welfare standard of hospital meat, dairy and eggs, in which some hospitals serve much higher quality products than others, and would ensure that patients can be confident that good animal welfare production processes are used in all hospitals, in whatever part of the country. Taxpayers’ money would be invested in rewarding British farmers who are producing great food to high standards of animal welfare, and there would be a guarantee that hospital food meets the standards that many Britain consumers actively seek when shopping for themselves. Hospital chicken, pork and eggs would be served with clear information about the animals used to produce the food and where it is reared.

We can work together now, providing good food for patients in hospitals and ensuring that it is produced to high welfare standards. I am keen that farmers who produce high-quality food to high welfare standards have a market for their food, so that we encourage the right kind of production. There is a win-win situation for the Government in ensuring that they target taxpayers’ money on buying higher welfare standard food, making sure that patients in hospitals have good quality food to eat, and ensuring that farm production in this country carries on to meet the high welfare standards that the public at large expect of farmers. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.