Real Fur Sales

Christina Rees Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room. Members should send their speaking notes by email to [e-mail]. Similarly, officials should communicate electronically with Ministers.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered real fur sales in the UK.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. Banning fur is increasingly an issue of public concern, reflected in the decision that the vast majority of consumers now make to avoid buying fur products and the huge support for the Fur Free Britain campaign—try saying that five times fast—led by the Humane Society International UK. In 2000, this House set an example for the world by banning fur farming in England and Wales, and Scotland and Northern Ireland enacted bans in 2002. We are clearly a nation of animal lovers, yet our existing legislation on the fur trade contradicts that fundamental aspect of being British.

Pressure for change is growing both inside Parliament and among the broader public. More than 1 million people have signed Fur Free Britain’s petition to ban fur sales, and a group of more than 100 MPs and peers signed my cross-party letter to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs just last month, which called on the Government to ban the import and sale of animal fur. A similar number of MPs signed the live early-day motion on the same issue, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), and the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) tabled a ten-minute rule Bill on this matter in April, so it is clear that Members want the animal fur trade to end.

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[Christian Wakeford]

I would disagree slightly, because some out there would try to picture hunting with some degree of romanticism, but that is just not true of the fur trade, which is barbaric and cruel. It is not hunting, but catching animals in traps and leaving them to bleed out or even worse, so although I disagree on that point, I completely agree with my right hon. Friend’s sentiment.

Brexit has given us a unique opportunity to forge a new standard for animal welfare and protection, in keeping with our values as a country. Previously, 80% of animal welfare legislation came from the European Union, and last year the Minister of State, Lord Goldsmith, confirmed that following the end of the Brexit transition period we will be able to properly consider raising our standards on the fur trade even further. We must now move forward from those words and legislate for real change.

Leaving the European Union has started a new chapter in our trading relationship with the rest of the world, and banning fur will send a strong message that our trading principles will be synonymous with our high standards of animal welfare. Cities, states and countries around the world are implementing their own versions of this legislation, with Israel recently becoming the first country in the world to ban the sale of fur. Our new trading freedoms are ours to become an integral part of the global movement against this outdated industry, and we must not let this opportunity pass us by.

Supporters of the fur industry—unfortunately there are a few, and I have been trolled by many of them in the last few days—claim that it should be left purely to the market and consumer choice. Yet despite the unpopularity of fur and its almost complete absence from the high street, the UK is still responsible for importing a large amount of animal fur and online sales are persistent.

We already have laws in place banning the sale of cat, dog and seal fur. We do not leave the fate of these species to market forces, nor should we, but we do for other fur-bearing animals. A ban on both imports and sales of fur can guarantee an end to the UK’s status as a global trading hub for fur.

Backers of fur have also claimed that an import and sales ban could jeopardise the UK’s effort to strike new trade deals around the world. This claim is little more than hyperbole and fearmongering. A ban not only would be consistent with our World Trade Organisation obligations but would be unlikely to be a red-line negotiation issue in any trade deal, because trade in fur is not economically significant enough.

I would also take this moment to pre-empt any suggestion that such a thing as humane fur farming exists. That is a fallacy and a downright lie, but do not take it from me alone. I would like to read a brief quote from a former CEO of the British Fur Trade Association, who recently, of his own volition, left the industry after 10 years and now supports a fur ban. He said:

“Over time I realised that whatever soundbites we devised to reassure consumers, retailers and politicians, neither welfare regulations nor any industry certification scheme, would ever change the reality of these animals being stuck in tiny wire cages for their entire lives.”

It is now time that we end the double standard of having a ban on fur farming while importing the same cruelty from overseas. The fur industry is outmoded and out of touch with the modern values and principles of the humane treatment of animals. I implore my parliamentary colleagues to join me in condemning it to the history books, as we have so many other cruel and archaic treatments of animals.

In conclusion, following the Government’s call for evidence on the fur trade over the summer, given the strong public and parliamentary support for this measure and noting the Government’s commitment and ambition to be a world leader on animal welfare standards, I ask the Minister to use her response to today’s debate to reassure me and everyone in this room that legislative action to end the UK’s involvement in the global fur trade will be imminently forthcoming. It is not just a popular thing to do; it is the right thing to do.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

We will put an informal time limit on of about four or five minutes, and we should get everyone in.

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[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

I remind Members to indicate that they wish to speak by standing between speakers.

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[Taiwo Owatemi]

I am hoping the Minister will be able to answer that. We all hope that the Government will be able to provide some clarity on when they hope to ban the sale of fur.

Fur is regularly imported from the EU and several other countries. This is completely unacceptable. It is once again up to this House to set the highest standard possible, deciding what trade we believe to be ethical and wish to permit. I urge colleagues across the House to join me in saying that Britain no longer wishes to permit the barbaric trade in animal fur, instead choosing to make history instead by being the first country in the world to ban the trade in full. I call on the Government to step up and support tough legislation that would see the fur trade consigned to history. I thank the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) for securing the debate. We must all continue to speak out against the terrible practice.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

I want to call Front Benchers at 5.08 pm, so will the remaining two speakers be wary of that?

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[Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure, as always to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. Sometimes, we—[Interruption.]

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Order.

Sitting suspended for Divisions in the House.

On resuming—

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

The debate may now continue until 5.54 pm, and I intend to call the Front Benchers at 5.32 pm.

[Allan Dorans]

Sometimes we imagine that our concern for the wellbeing of other species is very modern, but in 1783—nearly a quarter of a millennium ago—a young ploughboy, Rabbie Burns, Scotland’s bard, who was born in my constituency, wrote of the feelings of animals in his famous poems “To a Mouse”, “On Glenriddell’s Fox Breaking His Chain” and many others, clearly displaying his understanding that animals have feelings and suffer pain. By 2021, we have so much evidence of animal sentience that we must reconsider all our behaviour towards them.

In my short time as an MP, I have found myself writing to Ministers and speaking in the House, urging them to act on a wide range of animal welfare-related matters, including the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, an end to lab testing with animals, stiffer penalties for cruelty to animals, a ban on the use of cages, traps and puppy farms, and of course an end to the fur trade. As the RSPCA put it:

“Evidence from multiple scientific studies has helped us to understand that a wide range of animals are sentient beings. This means they have the capacity to experience positive and negative feelings such as pleasure, joy, pain and distress that matter to the individual.”

As many as 2,500 scientific studies have proven the existence of animal sentience across a dizzying array of species. To put it simply, like us they know what it is to experience the horror of what we do to them, to live in agonising fear of it and—if they survive—to have to live with the memory of it.

The fur trade also means terror for sentient creatures. As one of my constituents put it to me:

“I don’t wear fur because I think it’s cruel. Every year around the world millions of animals are kept in small wire cages or caught in metal leghold traps before being brutally killed, all for a product no one needs, a frivolous piece of fur trim. The practice of keeping and rearing animals in cages unfit for purpose and to kill them for their fur for profit is barbaric, cruel and inhumane and for any country to condone and allow such fur to be imported and sold is equally as barbaric.”

The message is clear; the call for evidence is complete. A total ban on fur imports and sales is required, and it is required now.

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[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Rees. I thank the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) for calling this debate on an issue of great importance for so many of our constituents around the UK. The hon. Member referred to us as a nation of animal lovers and he painted a picture of an intolerable situation that the Government have the power to solve easily. We have had a good debate and we have heard a lot of support for action from across the Chamber.

It has been great to hear the different arguments made by many Members from different parties. We heard about how good synthetic fur quality is from the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale). We heard about the brutal treatment of animals and an upsetting description of the conditions they live in from the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar). We also heard that this issue matters to people across the UK. As my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) pointed out, in Wales a greater proportion of people—82%—back a ban.

I wanted to make some remarks about how long this journey has been. I am proud that my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) introduced a Bill to ban fur farming in the UK that was turned into reality and made law over 20 years ago by a Labour Government. Britain was the first country to enact a ban on this cruel industry and I am pleased to see countries across Europe have since followed suit.

The ban was a huge step forward and as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) eloquently said almost four years ago, while it halted the production of fur in the UK, fur farming was outsourced—a comment that was echoed today by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). It was also pointed out that we have a huge opportunity and things have changed since then.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) raised the point that trade deals could help halt the trade and could hold countries to account to stop these practices. We know that other countries have less stringent animal welfare regulations, and that should be pursued. Although the public mood against the fur trade is overwhelming, we have yet to cut our economic ties to the trade completely and the UK continues to import and export tens of millions of pounds of fur products each year. This must stop. As long as we are trading these products, we are complicit in their production. It is right that we support a ban on trading fur in the UK and part of that must involve addressing the scandal of real fur being passed off as fake, as was mentioned today.

Some argue against a ban by claiming the need for fur to be ethically sourced instead, but it is well known that these so-called ethically sourced schemes unfortunately fall short. It is difficult to understand what best practice could mean as regards the conditions these animals are kept in. We know best practice in animal welfare can be so poor that it means very little. How could best practice be anything but poor? It is impossible to keep wild animals in captivity in the conditions we have heard about and to tend to their welfare.

Perhaps the most damaging examples to advocates of ethical sourcing are places like Germany and Sweden where the fur industry is being phased out. That is because the rules in those countries for the welfare of foxes and mink in captivity are so high that businesses are simply not profitable. We heard about the impact on public health and those examples demonstrate that cruelty cannot be regulated out of the industry and that it poses extra risks—unfortunately, it is a requirement for the industry to function successfully.

There is a direct contradiction between the ethical treatment of animals and the commercial viability of the fur trade, so I welcome the Government’s consultation on the sale of fur in the UK. I wonder why it has not come sooner. When I was preparing for this debate, I read through the robust Westminster Hall debate on the issue almost four years ago. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge concluded by praising the standard of the contributions just as I have, but warned:

“My worry is that they will think that all we have had is a debate. That is the challenge for the Minister to go away to think about.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 32WH.]

The Minister has been thinking about it for a long time now. What is the timetable for the consultation, and when does the Government hope to legislate?

My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) was right in her recent speech in the House that our moral objection to the fur trade should not be bargained away in any future trade deals. There really is no time to lose. I was so pleased to hear her excellent contribution today. I hope the Minister can provide us with more answers on timescales and where we want to get to. Clearly, the whole House is behind this.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Would the Minister be so kind as to leave a couple of minutes at the end for summing up?