Welfare of Laying Hens Directive

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is nice to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Amess. I, too, thank the Chair of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), for securing the debate; we all supported her in securing it.

I do not think that the Minister should be in the dock this morning; it should be the European Union and the European Commission. As has been said, directive 1999/74/EC is 12 years old. What has the Commission done about it in the meantime? Last June, Commission officials came to see us in our Select Committee, and we had figures from Spain. There are 42 million hens in Spain, of which 2 million are free range and 40 million are either in enriched or in non-enriched cages; people did not have a clue as to how many hens have been put into enriched cages. How can we be confident that Spain is converting? Will it have one or two poultry houses on each farm that have converted to new enriched cages? In that case, an awful lot of eggs produced in non-enriched cages in other parts of the same farm could find their way on to the market as grade A eggs. There are many reasons for the Commission to get strong.

Spain has a record of non-compliance, especially on welfare standards. When I was in the European Parliament, I chaired an all-party group on animal welfare. When it came to achieving welfare requirements, Spain was always one of the worst for compliance. Basically, the responsibility goes from the national Government to the regional and local governments—people pass it from one to another and wring their hands, and nothing gets done.

The Commission has seen this coming. In our Committee last June, we told it that hens, which will lay for 13 months, were going into non-enriched cages. One does not need to be Einstein to work out that, when 1 January arrives, lots of eggs will still come from non-compliant cages. We want to see action taken on that.

It has cost our industry £25 a bird to convert to enriched cages. Let us not forget—I have said this before—that the poultry industry does not receive any money from either the common agricultural policy or the single farm payment. It has to compete on not only a national stage, but an international stage. This country has a good and highly competitive poultry industry, but the industry cannot stand having many inferior eggs, produced under lower standards, coming into the country. The industry reckons that it costs 11% less to produce in non-enriched cages than in enriched ones. We need to take action.

I commend the Minister for his work with retailers. In the end, whether it is the law or not, we must physically ensure that such eggs do not come in. The best way to do that is to look at what we are eating and where the egg has come from. Not only shelled eggs are imported; we reckon that about half the 18% that we import comes in liquid and powder form. That is the area—where they could well get in—that causes me most concern. By working with retailers, we can stop a lot of that happening.

The Commission has a problem because it has taken no action for so long. At this time of higher food prices, it will be difficult for the Commission to smash 45 million eggs a day. That will not look terribly good to the consumer.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I have huge respect for everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) says on such issues and I sympathise hugely. The issue comes down to whether the UK should take unilateral action on 1 January. I think that the Select Committee would agree on everything else. I am interested to know my hon. Friend’s view on whether the UK should take unilateral action.

[Neil Parish]

I am sure the Minister will cover this matter in his summing up, because it relates to legal advice. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton said, one can get two or three lawyers in a room and have two or three opinions. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say on legality.

I still maintain that we must look at the market; otherwise we will be left with inferior eggs produced under lower welfare standards. From a food point of view, there is probably nothing wrong with the eggs, but they are not compliant. We must ensure that they are driven down in price, so that it is uneconomic for farms to produce them across Europe, and in the end that becomes a matter of the market. If we can drive those prices down, so that those eggs are only worth half a grade A egg, it will not take too long. Farmers may be many things but they usually work out the law of economics, and they will soon find that it is uneconomic to produce those eggs, especially with the high cereal prices at the moment. That must be our main goal. I am happy to slate supermarkets when they do not get it right, but they have got it right in this instance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Ah, it is a Welsh pronunciation, with the “ch” sound. I am dying to see how Hansard transcribes that. The hon. Lady mentioned the importance of recognising and rewarding good producers and the investment they have made, and that has been a common theme of the debate.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) made a very good contribution about how UK producers’ investment should bear fruit, or at least produce good eggs. He was certainly supportive of the idea, and I saw nodding heads on both sides of the House, of clearly identifying which producers, processors, retailers, supermarkets and restaurants use not only good shell eggs but good liquefied and other processed eggs, and which do not. There is some scope for the Minister. We might have a way forward, together with the UK egg producers and the various representative organisations.

The hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) spoke very well about his experience with free-range hens. My household has always had a few, just for our own consumption. It has been a long-standing tradition on our smallholding, but I cannot compete with the hon. Gentleman’s much more extensive expertise. He rightly pointed out that we could do a lot with the power of consumers and the markets, but we have a heck of a long way to go.

I draw parliamentarians’ attention to research by YouGov and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The RSPCA would like to go even further towards free range and away from any sort of caging, but it has done an interesting analysis, which the Minister might not be aware of because it has, I think, come out only in the past few days. It looked at people’s awareness of the legislation, and at their buying power as consumers; 69% of them wrongly assumed what the law would mean for hens and animal welfare. A further 19% had not heard about the legislation at all. A fifth wrongly assumed that all battery cages would now be banned; 8% thought that all hens would now be free range and 1% thought it was something to do with farmers having to play music to their hens. We have a long way to go, not only in working with the retail sector, including supermarkets, but in highlighting the issue to consumers so that they can genuinely drive change in the market, but that is not all that I shall talk about today.

[Glyn Davies]

I cannot allow that 1% figure about playing music to hens to pass without comment. I may be the only person here who has been a farmer, with 20,000 battery cages. It was unheard of not to play music. The whole point is that opening a door should not surprise the hens and make them jump around, so playing music in battery cages is common practice.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I will not exhaust your attention, Mr Chairman, by asking what music the hon. Gentleman played. As an ex-punk, I think my taste in music might startle the hens, but I am glad to hear that music is played. Was it classical?

[Glyn Davies]

Springsteen.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

As we know, Council directive 1999/74/EC will make it illegal to have laying hens in conventional battery cages across the EU from 1 January 2012, after which date egg production will be allowed only in enriched colony or non-cage systems; for example, free range, barn or organic. We have heard today that Members on both sides of the House agree that that is appropriate, and there has been none of the discussion about gold-plating that we often have with EU regulations. The directive has been welcomed, both for animal welfare and for food production standards, and it might well benefit UK production and producers, if we can get it right. It is also good for the quality of the eggs and egg products that we eat every day. The significant problem is that not every EU nation will comply with the directive—13 of them will not—which poses enormous challenges for the UK egg industry. The industry’s response to the Minister’s written ministerial statement on 6 December 2011 was that it feels “totally let down” by Ministers on this important matter, and I want to look today at why it feels that way and at what must be done.

I compliment the UK egg industry on its responsible approach to the directive over a number of years, with investment in the region of £400 million to convert conventional cages to enriched ones. The capital cost of an enriched colony unit is between £20 and £24 per bird place, and the National Farmers Union has stated that for a producer with a medium-sized cage unit of about 100,000 birds the cost of erecting the new units is, on average, in excess of £2 million—not an insignificant amount. Free-range egg producers have also invested heavily in preparation for the directive, and that has been a draw on the industry, which, as has been mentioned, is a competitive market that does not receive EU support. The NFU has also stated that the majority of birds in the UK will be in enriched cages by January 2012, which is to be welcomed, and that all lion scheme producers will be converted in time.

A lot of work has been going on over recent years, with many people investing heavily to comply, but the problem is that the UK is not self-sufficient in eggs and egg products. We import 15% of our egg requirements, and valid concerns remain about whether imports from January 2012 onwards will come from EU nations that comply with the directive, and about the possible impact on the UK egg industry, including on prices. One of the industry’s fears is that prices will be driven down, with cheaper eggs and lower standards.

In a move that was openly welcomed by the UK egg industry, the Minister recently dangled the potential for a unilateral ban on eggs from EU nations that do not comply. However, in his statement last week, he decided that it was “not a realistic option”. Having raised that possibility, why can the Minister not now deliver it? It will leave many egg farmers feeling that he failed them.

What has the Minister delivered? He has given an unequivocal assurance that DEFRA and the devolved Administrations will enforce the conventional cage ban from 1 January 2012. I think that everybody in this debate will welcome that and how the industry, the devolved Administrations and DEFRA have risen to the challenge. He also stated that a risk-based surveillance scheme would be introduced to ensure that imported shell eggs from other member states produced in compliance with the cage ban would be in place from 1 January 2012. [Interruption.] He is nodding.

The Minister also said that Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency surveillance would be conducted on imports of shell eggs, using ultraviolet light analysis, to identify batches of caged eggs that are not from an enriched environment. However, he also acknowledged that due to the loophole in the egg marketing regulations, he could not prohibit the marketing of egg products from conventional cages sent for processing, nor could he prohibit the use of products made from such eggs. That is a significant loophole.

However, the Minister made the welcome announcement that retailers, food manufacturers, food service companies and processors have come out in public support of the UK egg industry. I do not make many puns in debates such as this, but those good eggs, reflecting earlier campaigns on the issue, are to be complimented on the steps that they have taken and will take. The British Retail Consortium, whose members include McDonald’s, Starbucks, the four major supermarkets and many other brand names, will ensure that they do not buy conventional caged eggs or use them in their products. Furthermore, he outlined that the Government would make necessary changes to the Government buying standards’ mandatory criteria to ensure that eggs produced in conventional cages are not used in any form, whether fresh, powdered or liquid.

After that seemingly wide-ranging set of measures, why does nobody in the industry seem happy? I suggest to the Minister that it may be a case of trying to look busy while failing to deliver the one thing that he strongly hinted was possible, a unilateral ban. The industry is now being overwhelmed with many different initiatives as a diversion. Perhaps they will forget the fact that they think they have been led up the garden path. It is a classic case of over-promising and under-delivering, which is never a good strategy.

[Sandra Osborne in the Chair]

The British Egg Industry Council says that the measures are not good enough and that the Government could have introduced a complete ban on all illegal products in the UK. Its chief executive, Mark Williams, said:

“The UK egg industry feels totally let down by the Government. Whilst we have received repeated platitudes of support from DEFRA, it has failed to back these up with any real action. Our legal advice has confirmed that the UK Government is able to enforce UK and EU law by banning illegal eggs and egg products, so why have they chickened out?”

That is his pun, not mine.

Although the National Farmers Union has welcomed the measures taken by Government, it has stated categorically that

“our members will certainly be bitterly disappointed that it has not been possible to take tougher action.”

One British egg farmer, Duncan Priestner, echoed the concerns of many, including the NFU, when he said this week that he feared some food producers would be tempted to buy eggs from illegal systems in Europe, because they will be cheaper. He said:

“It will drive down the prices that farmers get. Like the pig industry”,

which has been referred to,

“that will put us in a very difficult financial position."