Monday 4th June 2018

(5 years, 9 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Maria Eagle Portrait Maria Eagle
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I agree with my hon. Friend; I do not think that it is possible to hunt humanely with those kinds of traps. Indeed, they have been banned in this country for decades longer than fur farming has been banned. We should not allow that kind of trade into this country.

This is not a party political debate. I hope that the Minister realises that there is widespread support across parties—as there always has been, and as there was at the time of my Bill—for banning this inhumane and appalling way of treating animals. It is not a party political issue, but perhaps the Minister would like to talk to some of his colleagues, particularly in the Lords, who appear not to have fully understood the nature of the ban introduced in 2000. When the Select Committee took oral evidence from Lord Henley, he said:

“I have no desire to close things down. I am not in the business of banning things.”

Lord Gardiner said he was

“committed to improving the welfare standards of animals across the world.”

Lord Gardiner ought to know that that cannot be done with fur farming; there are no welfare standards that are acceptable. He said that animals

“for whatever purpose are reared and then killed in a humane manner”

and that the fur industry needs

“to be thinking about how we produce fur in a more humane manner…fur farming, if it is to have a future, needs to be concentrating on humane and sustainable farming and trapping.”

The Minister needs to go back to his Department and have a seminar with his colleagues in the Lords about how impossible it is to do the things they seem to think are possible. If they represent the Government’s attitude to the issue, we are not going to see any progress. It is not possible—I cannot stress this enough—for fur farming to be done humanely. It has to be banned. After all this time, as the first nation in the world to ban fur farming, we can take a leadership position around the world, but we will only do so if Ministers in the Department understand that it is not possible to do this farming better.

George Howarth Portrait Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
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My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. The core of her argument—I agree with it—is that the ban can be done. Does she agree that it is within the scope of the Government and the Minister to change the practice of importing fur in a way that would please not only those of us taking part in the debate, but the majority of our constituents?

Maria Eagle Portrait Maria Eagle
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I think it is possible. It was certainly possible for us to ban fur farming in this country even though we were a full member of the EU at the time and were not talking about leaving. Leading by example is a very good thing. We have done it before: following our ban of fur farming—we were the first country in the world to do so—there have been full bans across many European countries, inside and outside the EU. Austria, the Netherlands, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, the Republic of Macedonia and, most recently, the Czech Republic have banned fur farming. I gave a seminar to Czech parliamentarians ahead of them considering their legislation, and I heard the same arguments from their fur trade people that I heard 20 years ago from the then remnant of our fur industry. There are partial bans in Belgium, Denmark and Hungary. The Germans have just increased their regulations to require all farmed mink to have water to swim in. I doubt that will do much for the viability of mink farming in Germany—in fact, I think it will make it completely unviable.

Progress is being made, but it is too slow. Given the statistics about the level of the trade and the fact that it has not died out, as we might have hoped 20 years ago, now is the time for us to take that next step. I do not agree for a minute that it matters whether we are inside or outside the EU; we can do it either way. We do not have to ask anybody; we can do it ourselves, and parliamentarians should do it. I think we will, and I hope that in considering the matter the Minister will take a view that his colleagues in the Lords did not sufficiently understand the nature of the trade to properly set out the Government’s position to the Select Committee.

I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to express that the Government, of which he is a member, will take forward the banning of this trade, because it is time. It is something that our constituents want. Over decades they have shown a very high level of support for banning the trade and for looking after animals properly. The idea that we can have 135 million animals killed for their fur every year, having put up with the most appalling suffering, is unconscionable. We need to act. We need to lead the world again. The Minister is in a position to do it, and I hope that he will. Perhaps he will tell us so today.

[Philip Davies in the Chair]