Leaving the EU: Live Farm Animal Exports

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and we should certainly consider that. If, for any reason, our opportunity to make those changes is delayed longer than we would like, some intervention along the way might be appropriate.

Many people agree with the reasonable proposition that animals should be slaughtered as close as possible to where they are raised, and that the carcases should then be exported. We should seek to apply that; it is not only far more efficient, but clearly better for the animals. If we were to do that, there would also be an opportunity to up-sell and to create more jobs in the UK, rather than exporting the value-added part of the process with the live animals. A ban may have an impact on some trade, and we need to accept that.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

If the hon. Gentleman accepts, as I think he does, that transporting live animals for long periods in poor conditions is wrong and not good from the point of view of animal welfare standards, what difference does it make whether they are slaughtered at the end, or going for fattening? Surely it is the transit that we ought to look at, regardless of what happens to the animals in the end.

[Steve Double]

From researching the issue and speaking to many people in the industry about it, I think the reality is that when animals are exported for breeding stock or for fattening, they are usually far more cared for, and are transported in far better conditions, because there is a higher value on them, than if they are being exported to be slaughtered. The market, for want of a better word, takes care of that issue. The problem is acute when animals are exported long distances to be slaughtered, because they tend to suffer the worst conditions. I do not think that applies when a higher value is put on the animal being exported.

As I was saying, a ban may have an impact on trade. For instance, our trade in sheep, as opposed to lamb, relies on exports because there is a very limited market for mutton in the UK; some may think that we should look into changing that, but that is the situation. Mutton sheep fetch £70 to £80 a head when sold in the UK, but up to £200 a head when exported live to parts of the EU with higher demand. Even in that example, however, we need to consider whether that additional profit is right, or whether we should do the right thing for the animal, despite the impact on the market. We need to do everything we can to stop the unnecessary suffering of exported animals .

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[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Wilson. I thank the Petitions Committee for allowing today’s debate. As has been said, the petition did not quite reach 100,000 signatures—I think there are about 93,000 at the moment, which is a really good effort—but I am very glad that we decided to have the debate anyway. Like the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), I pay tribute to Janet Darlison, the creator of the petition, for all her work in promoting it and for creating the momentum that has brought us here today.

When the Minister comes to speak, I hope that we will have a little more clarity on what exactly the Government’s position is, because at the moment that is lacking. I am certainly none the wiser having heard the introductory speech, but it is up to the Minister to say where he wants to take us. In 2012 I spoke about a ban on live exports, and just last year I supported the ten-minute rule Bill in favour of such a ban, so I am glad that we now seem to be a little closer to a ban becoming a reality. However, I feel that there has been some rowing back on some of the pronouncements that were made during the European Union referendum campaign.

For example, the current Foreign Secretary went down to Ramsgate and I thought that he announced in no uncertain terms that there would be a ban on live exports if we left the EU. I know from the emails I have received that there are people who were persuaded to vote leave simply because of that issue. Perhaps those are the sorts of emails I tend to get from people involved in the animal welfare movement. I tried my best to outline some of the reasons why I thought animal welfare might not benefit from Brexit, particularly if we consider the animal welfare and food safety standards that we might be forced to relinquish as part of a trade deal with the United States. However, many people were adamant and were convinced that a live export ban would be delivered almost overnight if we voted to leave.

It is now being said that such a ban is being considered as one of several options as we leave the EU. As the Minister is here today, I will point out that I asked a similar question about foie gras. At the moment, the production of foie gras is banned in this country, on the grounds that we believe it to be cruel, unnatural and something that we should not tolerate here. The line has always been that imports of foie gras cannot be prohibited, because the dastardly EU would not let us ban them. So one might think that, given we have already established our own moral position on this issue here in the UK, once we are free from the clutches of the EU a ban on imports would be the next step. However, the answer I have just received to my written parliamentary question is:

“Leaving the EU and the single market therefore provides an opportunity to consider whether the UK can adopt a different approach in future”.

To me, that sounds like equivocation taken to the nth degree, and I fear that the same might apply to live exports.

It is also somewhat disingenuous to suggest that such a ban on live exports was always on the Government’s wish list and that it just was not possible to achieve until we left the EU. Ministers who argued during the EU referendum campaign that we would get a live exports ban once we left the EU are members of a party and a Government who in 2012 were instrumental in stopping action at EU level—I think it was being led by Germany—that would have limited the journey time for live animals to below eight hours. In most cases that would have been tantamount to a ban on live exports from the UK. However, the UK went along to those discussions and argued against attempts to limit the hours.

I have raised this issue in a number of debates, including the recent debates on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, as it seems to me to be representative of the verbal and policy gymnastics that the Government have undertaken since the EU referendum, and nobody has come back to me and said that the UK did not take that stance. So let nobody be under the false illusion that we could not have taken significant action to limit —perhaps not ban, but limit—live transit times.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I believe that in 1992 it was a Conservative Government who sought to impose import restrictions, but they were challenged and overturned in the European Court of Justice, so this is something that a Conservative Government have tried to tackle in the past.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am talking about 2012, which is far more recent than that, and as I said the Government went along to the negotiations and were not prepared to take the side of those who were arguing for an eight- hour limit.

It is important that the Government are held to account on what I see as a promise to end the practice of live animal exports that was made during the referendum campaign. That is because—as the petition rightly states, although I do not think we have heard quite enough about it this afternoon—the transport of live animals, no matter what the end result is, whether they are going for slaughter or for fattening up overseas, causes a huge amount of unnecessary suffering.

It is important not to forget the tragedy that jump-started the long-running campaign for a ban, which happened many years ago. In 1996 nearly 70,000 sheep were left to die either from heatstroke, suffocation, burning or drowning, after the ship that was carrying them caught fire in the middle of the Indian ocean. Although, thankfully, an incident on that scale has not happened again, countless animals continue to endure gruelling journeys every year.

In 2012, 40 sheep had to be euthanised after being crammed into a truck, and just last August it was reported that 500 sheep spent four days without any access to food or water while they were being transported to Turkey. Also, many people here will have seen today’s story in The Times about how every year more than 5,000 calves—unweaned and discarded by the dairy industry—are sent on journeys of more than 135 hours from Scotland to Spain. That number had doubled from the previous year; I think the 5,000 figure is from 2016.

[Zac Goldsmith]

The hon. Lady is making a very good speech and I just want to add one more point. I believe that in the past two years 20,000 calves have been sent to Spain. In Spain there is a requirement that a calf should be given bedding for only the first two weeks of its life and not beyond that, whereas a British calf has the right—if I can put it that way—to have bedding for six months. So the standards in Spain are dramatically lower than those in the UK, which is another reason why this issue is about not only whether an animal is going to be slaughtered, but the conditions in which it is living when it reaches its destination.

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[Kerry McCarthy]

As is often the case—perhaps not on the wider Brexit issue, but on this specific issue— I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman. Actually, that was a point I was going to make later in my speech: there is a big discrepancy between two weeks’ worth of bedding and six months’ worth of bedding. It is certainly something that we have to take into account.

As I was saying, I hope that the Minister can provide some clarity as to whether Scotland would be exempt from any ban on live exports that was introduced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I understand that that is the case. Fergus Ewing, the Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy and Connectivity, said this month that Scotland would not participate in such a ban, so I would also be interested to hear from the Scottish National party spokesperson whether the SNP will allow the export of veal calves to continue.

Although the number of live animals exported each year has fallen from millions to tens of thousands, tens of thousands of animals are potentially still enduring cruel, long and painful journeys. Even during routine trips, animals are often exposed to freezing or extremely hot temperatures, with a lack of adequate sustenance, dangerous overcrowding and injuries being common.

One particularly harrowing investigation found that thousands of cattle were being transported via ship, and the unweaned calves were simply being tossed overboard if they became too sickly or died. As was mentioned in The Times story about the veal calves today, with their 135-hour journeys, although there are rules about rest periods, for example on long journeys, that can simply mean that the trucks stop in laybys and the animals continue to be held in very hot and crowded conditions for another hour or so, which for them is really no rest period at all.

The Government continue to proclaim their global leadership in animal welfare and even talk about legislating for higher standards but, as has been touched on, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce standards effectively when it comes to the current live transit. Even the EU, in its 2011 review, admitted that effective enforcement is near impossible. Whenever animals continue to be exported live, there will continue to be suffering and violations of welfare. Unfortunately, the EU review did not come up with any changes to the standards. It seemed almost to accept that cutting corners to save space and money will always be attractive for companies that transport live animals, which will always be to the detriment of the animals involved.

It has been mentioned, not least by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), that when animals are transported beyond the UK they move beyond the Government’s reach, into countries with much lower standards than ours, and not just far-flung countries but our closest neighbours, including Spain and France, as we have heard. Many UK sheep are sent to France, and a 2016 French National Assembly report concluded that there were serious and widespread welfare problems in French abattoirs. Members might have seen from recent parliamentary questions that I and others have tabled, or from The Guardian’s excellent “Animals farmed” series, that conditions in our own slaughterhouses and food production lines are not always as we might desire, but there is certainly widespread concern about overseas conditions also—we have already mentioned the situation in Spain. The problems are exacerbated by many animals being re-exported even further away, meaning that their re-packing is covered only by the standards of the country acting as the middleman, not by ours. It goes without saying that we cannot assume that after the animals have endured the awful journeys they will be killed quickly or humanely.

If the Government are serious about being known as a world leader in animal welfare, they must put their money where their mouth is and announce their clear commitment to banning the export of live animals, for slaughter or for further fattening. The Labour party has called for that in its recently published animal welfare plan, and for the Government to ensure an exemption for livestock crossing the border on the island of Ireland, with which I think everyone would agree.

[Colin Clark]

I have spoken about livestock moving the significant distances between the islands, from Orkney and Shetland and the islands on the west coast of Scotland. Does the hon. Lady accept that that transport reaches a standard with which she would be comfortable?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I cannot comment on the standard, as I have never looked into it, but I am happy to take the hon. Gentleman’s assurances—he is a fellow member of the Environmental Audit Committee. I was talking about exceptions outside the UK. We accept that live transit would continue to be allowed within the UK, but we also need to ensure that decent standards and proper monitoring are in place. The one exception would be across the land border between Northern Ireland and Ireland; I do not think anyone would argue that that should be subject to an export ban.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Once we leave the EU, we will completely lose control over the welfare standards of any animals that go from the UK into southern Ireland. Does the hon. Lady accept that those animals could continue their journey on to Spain or France?

[Kerry McCarthy]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to argue for not having live exports across the border from the north of Ireland to the Republic of Ireland, he is welcome to do so. This goes to a much wider issue that the Government have not yet managed to address: what do we do about the border between the north and the south once we leave the EU? Many people want it to continue in its current form, but the practicalities of leaving should mean that a hard border is established. That is one for the Government and perhaps not one that we in Westminster Hall can grapple with today, but the fact that we need to address the issue of animals being transported between the north and the south ought not to be used as an excuse for not addressing an export ban outside the British Isles.

[Mr Carmichael]

The difficulty with the hon. Lady’s argument is that we either ban exports or we do not. A ban is a ban, and she is arguing for a ban that is not a ban. As the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) says, once animals are in southern Ireland they can be exported anywhere.

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[Kerry McCarthy]

If the right hon. Gentleman is arguing that we need a hard border with Ireland, which will then prevent us from implementing anything else we would desire to see in the relationship between the north and the south, he may do so, but I think we must consider that relationship a special case. We need to look at how many animals would go on in transit. The Minister perhaps can enlighten us on that, but I suspect that it is not a significant number.

I conclude by talking about something the Minister needs to advise us on, and that is World Trade Organisation agreements. Colleagues will be aware that under WTO agreements countries cannot, under normal circumstances, discriminate between trading partners. The principle is known as most favoured nation treatment, and in practice it means that the UK could not allow for the live export of animals to the Republic of Ireland while excluding the rest of the EU. Therefore, it is wholly possible that a ban on live animal exports could contravene WTO rules—a view shared by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, among others. Any WTO member can challenge another member on its trade policy, which could then be ruled as breaching the organisation’s rules.

However, as a member of the EU, the UK is already party to several trade bans that have never been challenged at the WTO, including the import ban on cosmetics tested on animals and the ban on fur produced from cats and dogs. When the Government consider their future options, they can look at the 2009 EU seal import ban as an example of how to pass the WTO test. I hope that the Minister can explain how he feels we will pass that test if we introduce at least a partial ban on exports.

Finally, I understand that the Command Paper for the Agriculture Bill might be published tomorrow—the Minister might like to enlighten us on that. It presents a perfect opportunity to introduce proposals to ensure that a ban comes into force as soon as possible after the UK leaves the EU. Both before and after leaving, the Government should push the European institutions and member states to strive for greater co-operation. I do not want us just to walk away from the problem. It is one thing to say, “When we leave the EU we can make our own rules; we can have standards that are truly excellent—gold-plated.” I do not want us to walk away from the EU, full stop. I would like us to remain a member and be able to influence animal welfare standards across the continent, but even if we cannot, we still need to use what influence we have and what trade discussions we are having to try to ensure that those standards that are not what we would like to see, in France and Spain and further afield, are improved.

We have an opportunity to improve animal welfare. I said at the start of my speech that Brexit offers very few opportunities, but if we are to leave the EU I hope that the Minister seizes this one and does something to ensure the better welfare of animals for years to come.

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[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who I think is wrong about rural as opposed to urban communities. We have only to listen to the RSPCA to hear about unspeakable acts of vicious cruelty that take place against domestic animals in our urban areas to know that cruelty is not divided by region, people or nations, but by wickedness in individuals. It is absolutely the road to hell to ban things because we do not like the proper process that should be followed. I am particularly passionate about this because my amendment to the Animal Welfare Act 2006 would have seen the sentence for cruelty increased, but it was voted down by the Labour Government who took the credit for the Bill.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West for revealing my fondness for tropical fish, although I am not sure that they are completely relevant in this debate as they tend to be flown in from Singapore on very long journeys. However, the problem with a ban is that we are all here because we want to see less bad treatment and better treatment of animals in transit, irrespective of where they are coming from or going to and irrespective of whether they are for slaughter or for breeding stock.

I had to pass exams to be allowed to transport my animals. It is wrong to say that there are not rules on what we are allowed to do. There is an eight-hour limit. We have to have tests and we can drive our animals only within 65 km of where we live without any regulation whatsoever. So what the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said is wrong. She should look it up on the DEFRA website

[Kerry McCarthy]

The hon. Gentleman has just said that I said there were not any rules, but I said nothing of the sort. I accepted that there are rules in place, but I said that they are not being adhered to. For example, calves being held in a truck in a lay-by technically counts as a rest period, but most of us would agree that is not much of a relief for them. I did not say that there were not any rules.

[Bill Wiggin]

I thought the hon. Lady said that we tried to object to the eight-hour limit in the European Union.

[Kerry McCarthy]

That is an overall limit.

[Bill Wiggin]

I have given the matter a great deal of thought and it occurs to me that we should not ban live exports. If we do that, we will lose control through the Irish border and the animals whose welfare we seek to improve could end up travelling from southern Ireland to Spain or France on journeys that are considerably longer than they need to be. We need to improve the standards of transport within the United Kingdom, and when they arrive in Kent ready to cross the channel they must be properly inspected by vets. That means there needs to be lairage and unloading of the animals, and they need to be checked. Then they should be loaded into approved-only transporters. There are penalties for any suffering that happens on the journeys, but at the moment there is not an owner.

The lorry driver is not the owner of the animals in the back, so if a sheep’s leg is sticking out of the back of the truck, nobody suffers financially for that. If one of the animals is found to be suffering when they are unloaded, it gets put down and then there is a penalty, because that life is lost and that animal is no longer fit for human consumption. The whole purpose of its export has been taken away. That is the penalty that hangs over all livestock producers all the time. If someone is found to have put the wrong medicines in their animal, it is condemned. That is how we deal with and enforce rules.

If we have proper policing all the way along the transport route, it is perfectly reasonable to continue to send animals 22 miles over the seas as opposed to thousands of miles around the edge.

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[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I would hazard a guess that, unusually, this afternoon’s petition is probably supported by the vast majority of UK citizens. I noted that one of the areas with the greatest density of replies, as we can see from the information published by the House, was South Thanet, and for good reason. Part of South Thanet has been mentioned in the debate: the very small commercial port of Ramsgate, which is part of my constituency. It has the very dubious honour, which I want to get rid of as soon as possible, of being the only UK port through which lamb and sheep are transported across an international sea border for slaughter abroad.

If the inappropriate means of transport across the channel—up to three hours on a small, ageing Russian tank transporter called the Joline, which plied the Volga river in a previous incarnation and is now Latvian-flagged—is not bad enough, we should also be concerned about the long journey times within the UK. The sheep and lambs are often from Cumbria, meaning an eight to 10 hour trip to Kent. The onward journey, after three hours travelling across the channel, could be to somewhere as far as Germany, which would take another eight hours or more, after which they are slaughtered. We are talking about a transport time—without mentioning the problems that we have already heard about regarding veal—for lambs of 24 hours in total. Although exports through Ramsgate can be at any time of year—in winter cold or summer heat—peaks are often seen to coincide with religious festivals, notably Eid, following the end of Ramadan.

The issue of animal exports out of Ramsgate gained national focus because of a truly appalling fiasco on 12 September 2012, as has been mentioned this afternoon. A single lorry carrying more than 500 sheep was declared unfit to travel. Temporary holding pens were set up, as no official lairage was available at the port. Some 43 sheep had to be euthanised due to injury, six fell into the water, and two drowned. Breaches of animal welfare regulations were found, and appropriate fines and a suspended prison sentence were levied against the director of the transport company. Thereafter, Thanet District Council unilaterally suspended the trade through the municipally owned and run port. However, following an injunction by the shippers, the trade was forced to resume again the next month, in late October 2012.

A petition was presented to Parliament in January 2013 by the then MP Laura Sandys, calling for the permanent suspension of live exports through the port. Things then became truly weird, with protracted legal action by the shippers—action that concluded in February 2014, resulting in a claim of more than £4 million in compensation against the local council. It is a small council, so local taxpayers had to bear that cost. Live animal exports could not be prevented in what was a very telling judgment for two reasons. First, section 33 of the Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847 allows, in simple terms, free access to goods traffic from any UK port—an historical law that was more appropriate, I would argue, in the age of sail and steam, when navigation was more hazardous. For that reason, I sought to introduce a fairly simple amendment to the old Act via a ten-minute rule Bill in May 2016. My Bill would have allowed municipally owned and controlled ports the discretion to ban the trade. In Ramsgate, it is certainly not a trade that people want through the port, which they own.

In some ways, that Bill was a little bit of devilment, because even if it had passed at that time, it would have been deemed not in accordance with single market rules on the functioning of the EU. That was clearly highlighted in the second part of the High Court judgment, which stated that in any event, notwithstanding the 1847 Act, EU law governing the function of the single market would prevent restrictions of animal exports. I note what the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said, but the EU interprets animals as mere “goods”. EU rules still allow the production of foie gras, the existence of veal crates, bullfighting and everything else. I do not think that EU standards are the gold plate that many people see them as.

It was encouraging to see, a couple of weeks ago—and somewhat late in the day, I might add—the Labour party publish its proposals for animal welfare. I warmly welcomed them, but they largely mirrored what we on the Conservative Benches are doing and have been talking about for some time. The Leader of the Opposition spoke today about maintaining membership of “a” or “the” customs union, and maintaining rules and standards very much in alignment with those of the EU, so that we end up in some perpetual membership of the single market. I am afraid that that was where the credibility of Labour’s position on animal welfare somewhat fell to bits in my mind. An independent country would be able to introduce the welfare standards it feels are right, but single market rules have thus far failed us on animal and farming standards.

Just a month ago, I held an event on the parliamentary estate—just next door—with representatives of key animal welfare groups, many of whom are here, and a diverse range of celebrities, including Joanna Lumley, Frederick Forsyth, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Selina Scott and Jan Leeming. I was pleased to be supported by Conservative colleagues, but there was also support from Members of the Scottish National party—I was grateful that they were at the event. Sadly, not one Labour Member came, and I am somewhat intrigued about that. I am also somewhat intrigued about the fact that the Labour Benches are virtually devoid this afternoon.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Craig Mackinlay]

Of course—I am surprised that the hon. Lady has waited so long.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I did get an invite to that event— I think I was actually speaking at something else that afternoon—but I thought I had been sent it accidentally, because I thought it was Conservative animal welfare event, especially given some of the names that were mentioned. I did not go because I thought I had somehow accidentally got on to the hon. Gentleman’s mailing list, but he should not assume from that any lack of support for the cause.

[Craig Mackinlay]

I am sorry if there was anything in the invitation that put the hon. Lady off, but it was very much open to all, and some other parties took up the offer.

We live in changed times. We voted to leave the European Union, which means leaving the customs union and the single market and no longer being bound by the EU’s acquis in areas where we wish to diverge. That gives me great hope. We have the opportunity to advance new international trade deals, and for the first time in a generation we are free once more to do what is right and what the people of this country demand. That very much comes under the banner of taking back control, which means taking back control of animal welfare and farming standards.

I and other Members have mentioned the encouraging words in the Conservative party manifesto by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and other agriculture Ministers. I fully supported the Live Animal Exports (Prohibitions) Bill proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), and I pay tribute to the 94,000 people across the country who signed this petition. I feel that they will share my view that, post Brexit, we can have a renaissance of animal welfare standards, alongside our commitments to introduce CCTV in abattoirs and increase sentences for those who abuse animals.

I fully appreciate farmers’ concerns about the potential for increased costs, which were ably set out by my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin). He must feel like he is in “12 Angry Men”—one of my favourite films—but I am not sure he is going to win today. The increased costs resulting from the application of the standards that my hon. Friend ably set out may stop this trade in its tracks. The profit from the difference between the farm-gate cost and the price that the farmer receives when the animals are delivered to the market abroad will no longer be realised.

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[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on opening the debate, and thank him for giving us such a comprehensive introduction to an issue that is important to the public. As he says, more than 93,000 people have signed the petition. I too congratulate Janet Darlison and others, who put the petition together and secured the debate.

It is unsurprising that a petition calling for legislation to ban the export of live farm animals in favour of a carcase-only trade has received nearly 93,000 signatures. This issue has been the subject of a long-standing campaign by animal welfare organisations, but as most people who have followed the issue know, and as my hon. Friend acknowledged, European Union free trade rules have prevented the Government from taking meaningful action on this over the past 30 years. However, once we leave the European Union, we will be able to take action on what for many people is an iconic animal welfare issue.

While EU trade rules might have prevented Governments from banning the live export trade, we have still seen a dramatic change in the numbers of live animals exported, particularly those destined for slaughter. Some 25 years ago, around 2 million animals were exported each and every year. The peak of live exports going from the UK for slaughter was in 1992, when a total of around 400,000 cattle, 300,000 pigs and nearly 1.5 million sheep were exported from the UK directly for slaughter.

As a result of the high number of animals being exported, live export became extremely controversial, with widespread demonstrations against it at the main ports during the 1990s. Port authorities and shipping companies were put under considerable pressure to end the trade, which led to nearly all the main ferry operators refusing to take animals destined for slaughter.

In 2017, about 21,000 farm animals were exported for fattening and production, and a further 5,000 were transported directly for slaughter from Great Britain. That was a decrease on the 2016 export figures, when about 50,000 farm animals were exported for fattening and production, and around 5,200 were transported directly for slaughter from Great Britain. To put that in the context of our national production, approximately 14 million sheep were slaughtered in the UK in the same period. The reality is that the live export for slaughter of sheep, in particular, is today a very small part of the overall UK sheep trade.

Some of those exported animals will have been transported on the MV Joline, which has sailed between Ramsgate and Calais since 2010, carrying vehicles that mostly transport sheep to Europe for slaughter or further fattening. Those sheep, after travelling to Ramsgate, spend up to six hours at sea on the MV Joline. That is followed by a further journey, often of around eight hours, before reaching their destination in France, the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany. Many people find putting animals through such long journeys, only for them to be slaughtered at the destination, indefensible.

The Government would prefer to see animals slaughtered as near as possible to their point of production, as a trade in meat on the hook is preferable to a trade based on the transport of live animals, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) pointed out. The Government are committed to improving the welfare of all animals, and share both British farmers’ and the British public’s high regard for animal welfare. We are proud to have some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world, and have continued to lead the way in raising the bar on welfare standards. For example, as a number of hon. Members pointed out, we recently introduced legislation to make CCTV mandatory in all slaughterhouses.

As we move forwards to a new relationship with Europe and the rest of the world, we have a unique opportunity to shape future animal welfare policy and ensure the highest standards in every area, including the welfare of animals in transport. To that end, we committed in our manifesto to taking early steps to control the export of live farm animals for slaughter as we leave the EU. We are considering all the options on how best to achieve that commitment, and today’s debate has been helpful in demonstrating the various issues that any new policy will need to take into account.

Over the years, various scientific and veterinary reports have been written on the needs of animals during transport. A 2011 report by the European Food Safety Authority, EFSA, made certain recommendations to improve the welfare of animals in transport—recommendations that have not been adopted by the European Union. It is clear from reading the EFSA opinion that the requirements of different species before and during transport are significantly different. For example, studies confirm that heat stress can present a major threat to cattle welfare, while scientific evidence shows that if adult cattle are transported on journeys longer than 29 hours, fatigue and aggressiveness increase, and that cattle should be offered water during rest periods during journeys. There has also been some evidence that sheep and goats can suffer seasickness.

That 2011 report made a number of recommendations, including that the maximum journey time for horses be 12 hours, that journey times for calves be reduced and that pigs be transported in familiar groups, since they are social animals. In 2016, the UK supported Sweden in calling on the European Commission to look again at the regulations governing welfare in transport. It is disappointing that no progress has been made on this in Europe beyond the publication of good practice guides.

We are aware that there is also a significant amount of evidence and scientific research into the welfare of animals during transport, some of which was published after the current legislation came into force. We have therefore commissioned the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh to carry out a research project to look at the existing evidence base, and to highlight the key research that we need to be aware of, to ensure that any future measures we consider are based on the most up-to-date evidence.

I turn to the contributions from other hon. Members. I am very much aware that there were a number of contributions by hon. Members who have been long-standing campaigners on this issue, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), who recently presented a ten-minute rule Bill on the issue, and my hon. Friends the Members for Southend West (Sir David Amess), for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) and for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale).

I will address an issue raised by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). We recognise that particular island communities may have special circumstances that we must take into account; at the other end of the country, where I come from, a similar issue pertains to the Isles of Scilly. I had the honour of visiting the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency some years ago; in fact, I visited what I think is Shetland’s one and only abattoir. It prided itself on its attention to detail when it came to animal welfare. I think I am right in saying that there is no similar facility on Orkney, and that most of the animals there are transported. That is something that we are aware of and must obviously take account of.

I completely accept that the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) is sincere on this issue; she has a long-standing track record of campaigning on many issues. However, she sought to suggest that there might be a lack of commitment from the Government, or that we were backsliding. Let me be very clear: people like me who campaigned to leave the EU explained that EU law prevented us from taking action in this area. That is true. I went down to Ramsgate and met people and explained that EU law is the obstacle. After the referendum result, the Conservative party put in its manifesto a commitment to control the export of animals for slaughter when the UK leaves the European Union. As I have just pointed out, we are now giving consideration to how we will take that forward. We have been consistent throughout.

The hon. Lady should look at her party’s position on this. A few weeks ago, the Opposition introduced—with great fanfare—a package of measures on animal welfare, but just a week later adopted a position on the European single market and European customs union that would basically make many of the things they set out in that welfare manifesto unlawful under EU law.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am grateful that the Minister has allowed me to intervene, because that point was also made earlier. I think he is referring to the Leader of the Opposition’s speech today. It set out our position on remaining in the customs union. It does not say the same thing about the single market. Hon. Members who spoke earlier rather conflated the two. They are very different positions.

[George Eustice]

We hear of all sorts of different positions on this issue from the Opposition at the moment. I simply say that EU free movement rules, which enshrine an open ports policy, govern this. Whether it is because of the customs union or single market legislation, the hon. Lady will find that taking action in this area will not be possible if the kind of approach that her party would like is adopted.

The hon. Lady made a legitimate point about WTO rules, but as she pointed out, there is clear WTO case law that enables Governments to ban certain trades on ethical grounds—including in a case on seal furs—as she highlighted. That issue was also looked at quite extensively in the judgment in the case of Barco de Vapor v. Thanet District Council, in relation to the contentious issue that my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet pointed out. That judgment made it clear that were it not for EU regulation and EU laws in this area on trade, it would be possible for a UK Government to amend the Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847 to introduce an ethical ban, should they want to. EU law is the obstacle to taking action in this space.

The hon. Member for Bristol East talked about the forthcoming Command Paper on agriculture and speculated about the timing of that. I will not get into speculation about timing, except to say that we have been working very hard on these issues. I have also been very clear—I have championed this since becoming the Minister responsible for farming—that I want there to be a strong animal welfare dimension to that agriculture paper. It will look predominantly at the type of framework that we would put in place to replace the common agricultural policy, but we have already been clear that we want to look at the idea of incentives to support high animal welfare systems of production.

The hon. Lady mentioned Scotland. We are working with the devolved Administrations to try to put forward a UK approach to this issue. As she highlighted and as we heard today, there is some scepticism from the Scottish Government and Scottish industry, which we recognise. To answer the specific question, it is possible—because this is essentially trade regulation—to put in place UK-wide regulations, but under the Sewel convention, there is an expectation that we will consult the devolved Administrations, and that is what we are doing.

I turn to some of the other contributions made by hon. Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West, as I said, has been a long-standing and passionate advocate on this issue. I welcome all his positive comments about the steps that we have been taking in this regard.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) introduced into the debate some very important notes of caution. The Government are clear about our position: we want to control the export of live animals for slaughter. It is sometimes very difficult in contentious debates such as this for people such as him to come in and take a contrarian position when there is a lot of emotion around. I understand that, but I think it very important, if we want to get the legislation right, that we take account of some of those complications.

My hon. Friend pointed out that there are already a lot of inspections of transport operators. That is true. We do not inspect at the point of entry at the port, or the point of departure at the port. Basically, we do not universally inspect; we do not inspect every consignment, and there is good reason for that. The terrible and unfortunate episode that took place in Ramsgate in 2012 showed the difficulties and dangers of trying to unload sheep in a port situation and trying to correct a position there. That is why, in the case of sheep destined for the MV Joline, we do have 100% inspections, on every consignment, at the point of loading, but not at the port; we do risk surveillance at the port. For other operators, we tend to have a risk-based approach, but there is 100% inspection, at the point of loading, for the MV Joline.