Real Fur Sales

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Christian Wakeford]

I completely agree. It is a cruel irony that we have illegalised the practice in this country but offshored cruelty. It is not something that I am particularly happy about, and hopefully we will see change.

The 5 million or so animals caught for their fur in barbaric traps that are banned in the UK fare no better. Sometimes they are left languishing in traps for days, and often chew off their own limbs to escape.

Our debate today should allow us to discuss whether the UK should be playing any part in an industry that we find so unconscionable in our own country. Despite our previous world-leading progress in banning this outdated and cruel practice, we have since continued to allow the import and sale of fur from abroad, effectively outsourcing animal suffering. Since 2003, we have imported—

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. On wanting to ban imports, we know that at the moment the Government are interested in doing trade deals with other countries. Could it not be a condition that we do not wish to do trade deals with countries that continue to exploit animals in this way?

[Christian Wakeford]

I completely agree; in fact, it is almost as if the hon. Member has read part of my speech in advance. If we are exporting and importing cruelty, it is fundamentally wrong. Any sane, normal-minded person would find it absolutely intolerable.

Since 2003, we have imported more than £800 million of animal fur from countries including China, Finland, France and Poland. HSIS estimates that this equates to some 20 million animals—to let that sink in, 20 million animals have gone through this cruelty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be part of this debate, Ms Rees, and I thank the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) for securing it. I will be quite brief, as the UK can be proud of its extremely high animal welfare standards and the fact that we have banned fur farms. I intervened on the hon. Member for Bury South to talk about the opportunity we have with the trade deals coming up to not just stop the importation of fur, but to maintain those animal standards in all our imports. I would press on the Minister the need when making these trade deals to say that we should not have any reduction in animal welfare standards—be that in fur, in meat production or in any way whatsoever.

I am pleased that the hon. Member for Bury South mentioned that consumer choice is very important. However, sometimes consumers mistakenly buy fur products because they are incorrectly labelled, and because they cannot clearly identify where the products come from. He made the point that we know the country that our meat has come from, but we do not have the same knowledge with fur products; that is something else I would encourage the Government to look at. There are really high-quality synthetic alternatives, and if they were clearly labelled and made available, I think consumers would certainly want to choose them.

The evidence suggests that the great British public are overwhelmingly against fur farming and that they want to see high standards of animal welfare maintained. The opinion polls show that they think that fur farming is absolutely unacceptable. I conclude by saying to the Minister that I would like see this commitment to animal welfare reflected in the trade deals the Government reach with other countries.