Fur Trade Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Gordon Marsden
Main Page: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)Department Debates - View all Gordon Marsden's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(5 years, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Daniel Zeichner
I assure my hon. Friend that that is the direction in which I shall proceed in the next few minutes.
To return to the history and as the petition states, 18 years ago Parliament banned fur farming in England and Wales. That ban was extended to Scotland and Northern Ireland in 2002. As the petitioners note, that means that in effect we now outsource the issue. We do not want fur farming on our own doorstep but are currently not strong enough to end our complicity in what can only be described as animal suffering. To end it, and reflect the national will, which clearly is that we should go further than we have done, we need more than just a domestic fur farming ban.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
I was one of the MPs who voted for that ban in 2000. No man is an island, and no animal is either. Does my hon. Friend agree with my constituent, Candace Gledhill, about the cruelty by which foxes, minks and raccoon dogs are kept in
“wire-mesh cages on fur farms for months on end”
and
“coyotes and other animal are caught in the wild using crude, inhumane steel traps”?
Does he agree that if we do not act on the matter and do at least what it is possible for us to do here, we are complicit in that cruelty?