Animal Welfare (Exports)

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, as it is directly relevant to my life experience. I am one of the livestock farmers that other Members have been talking about for many years. I have been indirectly involved in the live export trade. In the early part of my career I was a cattle farmer, and nearly all the British male breeding stock has changed since then. We are now using European breeds—Charolais, Limousin and Simmental. The quality of British beef has been completely transformed, therefore, simply through the relationship between this country and other countries. That process is still going on elsewhere.

The main part of my enterprise was producing sheep, however. Exporting to France was particularly common. Most of my stock were sold at the local livestock market, where they were bought by a dealer, who would put together a lorry-load. The standards of those who transported animals were very high. The lorries at the Welshpool livestock market were of a very high standard, and many people were watching the quality of the loading, which was very good.

Some 20 or 30 years ago I would sell my small hill lambs towards the end of the season. The tradition then was to take them to the small market in Llanfair Caereinion from where they were taken to Spain. They were kept in Spain for several weeks, and the feeding regime was changed so the quality of the product was changed. I discussed the whole process with the local transporter, M. E. Edwards and Sons—one of the finest transporters in Britain, with very high standards, who is still operating today. The point was made to me that transporting those lambs served to underpin the lamb trade in rural Wales, and that they were far better treated than lambs supplied from elsewhere to the Spanish market would have been. If the lambs had not been transported from Wales, in what seemed to me to be the highest possible standards, they would have come from other parts of Europe, where standards had not been checked.

I have a lot of sympathy with many of the points made in the debate so far. I am in favour of gold-plating the standards of animal transport. It is a lot more important to ensure there are high transportation standards than to worry about distances. I am not in favour of banning live exports, and it is not entirely logical to concern ourselves with distance. We must make certain that all transport is of the very highest standard, and we should demand that when journeys cross borders, too.

Most of the store cattle at my farm in central Wales were sold to central Scotland, where they were fattened. That journey probably took longer than some of the time scales we are talking about. I cannot see the point of such time limits, and neither do I envisage that they will ever become law.

Let me turn to the question of unintended consequences. When I was in my teens, I was involved in these issues. Many people will remember the demonstrations at Dover. They were a matter of some concern, as they were hugely damaging to the farming industry. The ferry companies felt under public relations pressure, and eventually decided no longer to carry the animals. They were then transferred to Ramsgate, Ipswich or other ports where the standards were far lower. The boats were far less safe and less comfortable for the animals, and the travel time is far greater, and the facilities at the docks are not as good. The unintended consequence of having created that huge rumpus at Dover was a lowering of the standards of animal welfare.

Those who transport livestock from Britain must meet the gold-plated standards we in Britain demand. If we stop live exports, European companies will still buy lambs to satisfy demand in their markets, but they will buy them from somewhere else. The result of a ban on animal transportation will be that the sum total of animal cruelty is increased, and no one wants that. We must be aware of the possible unintended consequences of the proposals we make.

I welcome the Minister’s recent statement on these matters. We want to maximise the proportion of slaughtering that takes place in the United Kingdom, rather than abroad. That will support the British economy and mean there are more jobs in the United Kingdom. European markets need to be educated, however. The French like to have lamb that has been in France for a day or two so they can describe it to customers as “Welsh lamb.” The Spanish certainly used to want to have the animals in Spain for quite a long period so they could have different feeding regimes and the resulting meat was different and more attractive to the Spanish market. We need to change the nature of the markets in Europe, therefore.

I am also pleased about the Minister’s focus on zero tolerance. If a transporter is found guilty several times, their licence must be taken away as they are not fit for the job. This is a highly sensitive job that is important to the farming industry, and the British people have a natural instinct to care about the animals we farm. It is unacceptable for anybody who has a record of poor behaviour to have a licence to transport animals. They must be kicked out of the industry all together.

The Minister referred to the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency. Wherever there is the slightest doubt about standards—as there is in Ramsgate at present—the agency must check up on the situation very closely. There must immediately be a Government presence at the port in question and action must be taken if necessary.

[Lyn Brown]

rose—

[Glyn Davies]

I was going to finish there, but as the hon. Lady wants to intervene, I shall pretend I have another half-sentence to say.

[Lyn Brown]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I listened intently to the points he made. I did not agree with some of them, but as his speech came across as a confessional, I felt I should not intervene until now. Does he agree that what happened at Ramsgate—some 40 sheep died—is unlikely to be an isolated incident? We need a proper review into the transportation of animals, and an inspection regime must be put in place. Does he agree, and will he call for a proper review by the Government, not a narrow internal one?

[Glyn Davies]

I am terribly sorry if my speech came across as any sort of confessional. Throughout my involvement in the business, I have been extremely proud of it. Indeed, if I lived my life again, I would probably do exactly the same thing. I see absolutely no reason to apologise for anything. May I also say how much I appreciated the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) about improved payment being a good thing for farmers in this country?

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman may be leading us to a more compassionate future if he decides to finish the sheep that he has in Wales; he could give them a Spanish diet for the last few months and export them as carcasses. Would that not be both profitable and more humane?

[Glyn Davies]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is being completely serious, but I rather agree with the principle of what he is saying, and this goes back to what I said about education. Whatever we can do to move to a system of slaughtering in Britain for the European market, I wholly applaud, but I do not think we can do that now; it would be like taking step 10 without taking steps one to nine first, and it would not be sensible at the moment. We should continue with the live export trade—we probably have no choice but to do so—as it is the right thing to do, but we should do it absolutely properly.