Dog Meat (South Korea)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. I thank the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden) for introducing this debate. I am also pleased to see the Foreign Office Minister and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), in their places.

I was the shadow Foreign Office Minister covering this part of the world for four years, until about a year ago. I also had the human rights brief. The ongoing frustration is that it is always so difficult to get people to listen to arguments about human rights issues in our relationships with other countries, let alone get them to consider the animal welfare issues. I was rather disappointed when I asked a question last Thursday of the new Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), about the Government’s action plan on business and human rights that was launched with much fanfare three years ago. I asked where the action plan fits into the new Department for International Trade—when going out to other countries to negotiate trade agreements, will we be aware of the attempt by the former Foreign Secretary, William Hague, to meld the desire to trade with companies and to talk about human rights? The answer I got was pretty much, “That’s a completely separate issue. It’s something for the Foreign Office and nothing to do with us.”

If we cannot even persuade that Department that human rights should be on the agenda when we are negotiating trade agreements, we will have difficulty making the argument that animal welfare should be on there too. I hope that the Foreign Office Minister takes that back to his colleagues and starts talking to the new Ministers in the Department for International Trade about the importance of this issue and the strength of feeling about it.

I had the pleasure of visiting South Korea a few years ago with the UK-Korea Forum for the Future. Every two years, some UK parliamentarians go out to South Korea, and every other year, people from the South Korean Parliament come over here. South Korea is not only a major trading ally of the UK; it is also our friend, but that should not stop us at times being a critical friend. It is interesting to note in the Library briefing that the consumption of dog meat in South Korea did not become commonplace until the Korean war in the 1950s. It is easy to forget what an incredibly poor country South Korea was back then, lagging well behind its neighbour to the north. Of course, now the situation has been reversed, and we hear reports that Kim Jong-un’s people are on the verge of starvation. Obviously, the human rights situation is dreadful there too.

One of the fascinating things about my visit to South Korea was seeing how the country had transformed itself from abject post-war poverty into an economic export-led powerhouse, albeit not always under the most democratic leadership. Seoul now presents as a very modern, high-tech city, with gleaming skyscrapers and excellent transport, but as we have heard, some of the old ways remain, including the dog meat trade. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Sir Alan Meale) mentioned, 5 million dogs are involved in the trade every year. I have seen figures that show that more than 2 million dogs are factory farmed in South Korea for human consumption. They are kept in terrible conditions in tiny cages, exposed to extreme heat and cold, before being cruelly killed, often via electrocution.

[Sir Alan Meale]

In terms of the two figures I referred to, one is the overall figure for the whole country, but my hon. Friend is right; 2.5 million to 3 million puppies are factory farmed for the trade.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification.

The fact that the petition so easily reached 100,000 signatures, and the number of emails Members have received from constituents, remind us that Britain is a nation of dog lovers, as we saw in the public response to other campaigns, such as Pup Aid’s campaign against puppy farms. That serves as a reminder that we ourselves are not above criticism and that much can be done to improve animal welfare in this country.

In the past, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), has told me that the UK has the best record on animal welfare of any country in the world. After our last exchange, she sent me some evidence in support of that. Whether we are the best is a moot point, but we are clearly better than most. However, we still regularly see terrible footage of conditions in some slaughterhouses and factory farms here, with millions of birds shot in the name of sport and some truly appalling cases of ill treatment of pets. We discussed the cruelty of snares in the main Chamber just before the summer recess.

I am pleased to have been asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) to sponsor her ten-minute rule Bill calling for tougher sentences for animal cruelty, following the dreadful case of the Frankish brothers in her constituency, who filmed themselves torturing their bulldog by throwing her down the stairs, stamping on her head, swinging her around and headbutting her. We certainly should not be too complacent or congratulate ourselves too much about conditions here in the UK. Today is about making the case against the dog meat trade in South Korea, which is the only country to intensively farm dogs for food. As petitioners have told us, there is a good chance of making progress with the South Korean Government on this issue, not least because the eyes of the world will be on South Korea in the run-up to the winter Olympics.

It was interesting to read in the Library briefing the article by Jill Robinson, the founder and CEO of Animals Asia, which has long campaigned on these issues and says that because the laws in South Korea are stronger than in countries such as China, there is less criminality in the dog meat trade, with fewer dogs mysteriously disappearing from the streets. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) for the speech he made in last year’s Backbench Business debate on the wider dog meat trade in countries such as China, in which he outlined in distressing detail the immense cruelty and suffering involved in the theft, transportation, caging and slaughter of millions of dogs each year.

The Yulin dog meat festival is a particularly hideous example of that. Animals Asia has said there is less criminality in South Korea, but Jill Robinson argues that that in fact means there is more cruelty, because there is no way to make dog farming profitable without cutting every corner imaginable. She says that Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines have made dog meat eating illegal, largely because there is no humane way to breed dogs for meat.

In last year’s debate, my former colleague in the shadow DEFRA team, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), said:

“Although the Korea Food and Drug Administration recognises all edible products as food, other than drugs, Seoul has passed a regulation classifying dog meat as a ‘repugnant food’. However, as in other parts of the world, such regulatory oversight has not been effective in curbing the demand for dog meat.”—[Official Report, 5 November 2015; Vol. 601, c. 1223.]

There is a law in place in South Korea—the Animal Protection Amendment Act 2007—which prohibits some of the cruel methods used to slaughter dogs, but it is widely ignored, as we have heard. According to charities involved in campaigning on this issue, many South Koreans believe that the more a dog suffers before it dies, the better the meat will taste, as adrenaline in the system makes the meat taste better. Dogs are therefore often subjected to cruelty before being slaughtered. There is an issue of enforcing the current law as well as making the case for stronger laws and, indeed, trying to outlaw the dog trade altogether.

It is encouraging to hear that cultural attitudes in South Korea are changing and that many more people are speaking out. There is always a danger of being seen to preach to other countries where the cultural norms do not coincide with the practices in this country, and it is best if change can be encouraged to come from within. Some might argue that we are guilty of sentimentality, double standards or hypocrisy in condemning the dog meat trade when so many other animals are killed for food every day around the world, with many kept and killed in equally cruel conditions.

Some of us are of the school of thought that says, “Why eat a cow or a pig if you wouldn’t eat a dog or a cat?” We saw that in the horse meat scandal, when consumers here were appalled to learn that they might be eating horse when they thought they were eating beef or lamb. Of course consumers have the right to know what they are eating and to choose whether that is an animal they wish to eat. I make the point simply that we are discussing the dog meat trade, but there are many other debates to be had about slaughter conditions, the transportation of animals and other practices around the world that we do not focus on quite so much.

In last year’s debate, there was much discussion about the extent to which we should seek to impose our cultural norms on other countries. As the Government said in their written response to the petition, selling and eating dog meat is a legal and culturally normal practice in South Korea, as it is in a number of other countries. They went on to say:

“In the absence of international norms, laws or agreements governing the trade and consumption of cat and dog meat, the United Kingdom has no legal grounds to intervene or take trade measures against those countries”.

I accept that there are no legal grounds for intervening in the actual practice of eating cats and dogs, but I hope that the hon. Member for Hertsmere and I, as well as the many Members who will follow us, will make the case today that there are certainly moral and ethical grounds for intervening against the immense cruelty involved in the trade. I hope that the UK Government do not hide behind the reasoning they originally gave in response to the petition as an excuse for inaction. We should be doing all we can to continue to raise this issue during our bilateral discussions and to support activists in South Korea who seek to outlaw this terrible trade.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that contribution. The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) made reference to the Yulin dog meat festival, which has been considered in Westminster Hall and in the main Chamber. I was pleased to join her colleague, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), when we presented a petition to the Chinese embassy in London. They did not open the door, but I have no doubt we will be back next year. My right hon. Friend’s point is incredibly important: we cannot focus on this just because of the winter Olympics and the opportunity in the next two years to shine a spotlight on the dog meat industry in South Korea. It is our job to make sure that the focus does not wither.

Building on the comments that have been made about some of the local issues we face on animal cruelty and animal welfare, it is important to recognise that from my own constituency’s perspective, we do not have our sorrows to seek. Individuals are convicted for dog fighting and for stealing domestic cats in order to train their dogs to be involved in the dog fighting industry. I received an email today—I will have to look at it in more detail—that suggests that permission has been given for a beagle farm in Hull for 2,000 dogs to be bred per year for the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. I do not know enough about that, and I am not sure I am in a position to consider criticising it at this stage because I recognise the necessity, but it is incumbent on us all to recognise that it is not just outwith this country that there are welfare issues.

[Kerry McCarthy]

On that particular point, it is particularly disappointing that, as I understand it, the local council opposed the setting up of the beagle farm for toxicity tests on dogs; the former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles), also rejected it; and it was only when there was a change of incumbent in that post that it was allowed. It is really disappointing that it has been allowed. The two leading lights of the campaign against it are Stanley Johnson and Professor Michael Balls—both of whom have sons who have been Members of this place. They are formidable campaigners on this, and I hope that we can eventually overturn it.

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful for that additional information, although I am sure that if I proceed with the issue you will remind me it is ancillary to the debate at hand, Mr Nuttall. The broader point is that on animal welfare—issues that not only motivate us, but create a really passionate response from our constituents and have encouraged more than 100,000 people to sign the petition—we cannot lose sight of those easy wins or important goals that we should be seeking to secure at home as well as abroad. With that, I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate and I look forward to the responses by those on the Front Benches.