Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [Lords]

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It feels rather odd to be rising after three Tory Back Benchers in a row—the only three Tory Back Benchers who have spoken in this debate—have all criticised a Government Bill, so I am here to lend my support to the Government, and I hope the Secretary of State is grateful for that.

By the time the Bill becomes law it will be more than six years since the UK voted to leave the European Union. It is now more than four years since the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) moved an amendment to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which I seconded, calling on the Government to recognise animal sentience, as enshrined in article 13 of the Lisbon treaty, in UK law. It is four years since the Government promised to legislate, although that was only in a bid to stave off a Back-Bench rebellion after a big public campaign urged MPs to support the amendment. It has to be said that Tory Back Benchers back then seemed a lot more enthusiastic about supporting animal sentience—perhaps that is what comes of recent electoral changes.

It has been nearly three years since I introduced my own ten-minute rule Bill on animal sentience. That was after we took evidence at the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the Minister kept saying, “We really want to bring measures forward, but we need the right legislative vehicle.” So I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill and said, “Here’s your legislative vehicle on a plate,” but the Government did not seem interested. It is also nearly two years since the Petitions Committee debate in Westminster Hall and well over a year since the end of the transition period, so we have been waiting a long time. Forgive me if I am a little cynical, but I am not entirely convinced that the Government really wanted this legislation at all, and I think that was borne out by the contributions from the three Conservative Back Benchers that we have heard from so far today.

I thank the campaigners and members of the public who have emailed MPs, signed petitions and kept pressing, because that is why the Government have finally produced this Bill. This pattern of promising action on animal welfare but taking forever to act is typical of this Government. We have seen it on ivory imports, trophy hunting, live exports and foie gras imports, as well as on refusing to crack down on the cruel and environmentally destructive practice of grouse shooting or to close the loopholes that have allowed fox hunting to continue. It is beyond me why an MP would stand here and say that we need to amend the Bill so that we have the right to be cruel to animals just because that has been traditional in this country. That is not exactly the definition of progress.

Nevertheless, despite my concerns about the Government’s credentials, I am glad the Bill has finally come before Parliament, and with a significant win for campaigners—the recognition of decapods and cephalopods as sentient beings. A couple of MPs have said that sentience is not defined. One reason the Government gave for the delay to this legislation was that they needed to carry out research. They got the London School of Economics to do research, and the LSE said:

“Sentience (from the Latin sentire, to feel) is the capacity to have feelings. Feelings may include, for example, feelings of pain, distress, anxiety, boredom, hunger, thirst, pleasure, warmth, joy, comfort, and excitement.”

There we go: that is the definition of sentience. I would have hoped that those MPs would look at the LSE definition.

[Luke Pollard]

The point I made in my remarks was that the terms of reference that accompany the Bill actually include a definition of sentience, and it is very similar to the one my hon. Friend has read out. Would it not be better if that definition was included in the Bill and not hidden in the terms of reference?

[Kerry McCarthy]

That might be a matter for the Bill Committee, so that we avoid some of the criticisms we have seen. I hope that the recognition of the sentience of decapods and cephalopods will mean an end to gross acts of cruelty, such as unstunned lobsters being boiled alive in the cooking process. When the Minister winds up, I hope she can confirm that that will indeed become illegal if the Bill passes, as the LSE recommended in its research.

We know that the octopus is an incredibly intelligent creature. I was shocked to read recently that the world’s first commercial octopus farm is set to be established in Spain. The farm will not be on UK soil, but the Government could ban imports and outlaw any such farms in UK waters, again as proposed in LSE research.

As has been mentioned, there are concerns about clause 2, which requires the proposed Animal Sentience Committee to consider only the adverse effects of policy decisions on animals, not the positive effects. I was not entirely convinced by the Minister’s very brief response to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion on that, and I hope the issue can be discussed in Committee.

I often say this in such debates, but I somewhat hate the self-congratulatory, complacent approach to animal welfare in this country. People are so very keen to boast of how good we are, but there are still many examples of where animals are abused and exploited. Industrially farmed animals can still face horrific, overcrowded and unsanitary conditions and be subject to abuse by those who purport to care for them. With live exports, we see animals suffering from thirst, overcrowding and overheating —again, in appalling conditions. The Environmental Audit Committee has just reported on poor water quality in UK rivers, and one of the key sources of water pollution was sewage run-off and agricultural slurry from intensive farming.

Undercover investigations from organisations such as Animal Equality and Viva! have exposed horrific conditions. Last year, it was revealed that cows were beaten with electric prods and sheep and pigs were slaughtered without adequate stunning at the G & GB Hewitt abattoir in Cheshire. We have seen reports of overcrowding, filthy conditions and even cannibalism among pigs on Hogwood Pig Farm. We have seen pigs being killed by having their heads slammed to the floor on Yattendon pig farm, chickens dying in heatwaves at Moy Park farm and chickens dying of thirst, suffering ammonia burns or resorting to cannibalism on multiple chicken farms that supply Tesco. All the farms I have mentioned were Red Tractor-approved, with supposedly higher animal welfare. We have a long way to go.

I echo what the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said about the need to reduce dramatically the number of animal experiments, and the shadow Secretary of State’s concern about importing lower animal welfare standards into the country as a result of recent trade deals. All that leads me to a wider point about what we want our relationship with the animal kingdom to be. The reality is that biodiversity has plummeted by 60% since 1970, yet a staggering 60% of all mammals on this planet are now livestock, as industrial agriculture booms. Only 4% of mammals now are wild animals. That shows the impact that humans have had on the natural world: we have confined nature to farms and destroyed whatever is left outside them.

It is also estimated that since the dawn of human civilisation, 15% of fish biomass has been lost and 70% of global fish stocks are now either fully exploited or over-exploited. Renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle recently said that humans treat oceans like a “free grocery store”, and called on us to respect marine creatures in the same way we do elephants.

Recognition of the sentience of animals is the first step in a better relationship with them, so I welcome the Bill and urge colleagues to support it—but recognition is one thing, and respect is another. If we truly respect animals, we must do a lot more than just pay lip service to sentience: we must end the exploitation and abuse of animals on factory farms; stop treating animals as commodities; end the hunting and shooting of animals for sport; and halt and reverse the devastating damage that we have done to the natural world. I hope that all those issues can come out as a result of this Bill. It is just a starting point, but it is important to get the concept of animal sentience on the record, and I am happy to support it.

[Mr Speaker]

We now have a maiden speech. I welcome Louie French.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Hudson]

Leaving the European Union certainly means that the UK can put legislation on the statute book to promote animal health and welfare. I would like the Government to go further, because there are things we can do to improve animal health and welfare now that we have left the European Union. The Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on which I sit, has produced a report, “Moving animals across borders”, that makes very strong recommendations about simple things that can be done.

I welcome the Bill, but I stress to the Government the need to please make animal welfare joined up across Government and across different policy areas. We need to act now to do that. The evidence is there in many of these different areas. Oftentimes, we do not need to consult and put it in the long grass; we can do the things that need to be done now.

With your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will list some things that we could do that the Bill will help us to do. I strongly welcome the pet theft legislation. I have been campaigning for it, and I am pleased that it has come in to the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill. That legislation is very much focused on the high-profile species—the dog—that has sadly been stolen in increasing numbers during the pandemic, and that is getting worse, but it is not just dogs that are being stolen; cats are being stolen every day and as we speak.

I strongly urge the Government to expand the legislation. I know there is a clause to say, “This can be done in the future. We will take evidence”, but cats, horses, ponies, farm animals and livestock are being stolen now. I represent a rural part of the world with a big farming footprint, and farm animal and livestock theft is a big issue for us. If we are now putting on the statute book that animals are fully sentient beings, and we are taking that into consideration in legislation, I strongly urge the Government that we need to create a huge deterrent to people who commit this abhorrent crime of animal theft.

On domestic public sector food procurement, I urge the Government to close the loophole in the Government buying standards that allows public bodies to buy food products at lower standards on the grounds of cost, if it is cheaper. We need to close that loophole. When I have raised this with Government, they have been very encouraging, saying, “Yes, we will be looking at that.” Certainly our Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee looked at that closely. If we are trying to be a beacon to the rest of the world, we must get our own house in order. I urge the Government quickly to close that Government buying standards loophole.

Opposition Members have talked about international trade. My views on international trade are on the public record. As an outward-looking nation, it is important that we strike trade deals with the rest of the world, but they have to be fair to both partners. Within that, the Trade and Agriculture Commission made a lot of clear recommendations on core standards and the animal welfare side of things, which we need to respect in those trade deals. Sadly, I feel that the Government and the Department for International Trade are being very slow in responding to that.

We need to have core standards in trade deals. We need to put out the message to the rest of the world that if they want to trade with us, they need to bring their standards up to those we find acceptable in this country. We are a beacon. We have high animal health and welfare and we can drive up standards around the world. There must be red-line products that we do not allow in.

I draw a difference with Opposition Members when it comes to hormone-treated beef and chlorine-washed chicken, which the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), talked about. To a degree, that is not going to happen. The Government have been very clear that that is illegal in this country, and it will remain illegal. It is other products that we need to be thinking about in terms of substandard animal husbandry techniques.

I do not want these trade deals to undermine our fantastic British farmers. This is about not protectionism but standing up for our values. What do we believe in? This Bill shows that we firmly believe that animals are sentient beings and that we have a high regard for animal health and welfare. We need to be doing that with our domestic policy, but we also need to be doing it in our international trade deals, when we strike them.

The trade deal with Australia can be a positive thing, but we must make it work and it must be fair to both partners. As it stands, it is not fair to the United Kingdom. I urge the Government to look at the safeguards they have said they have put in place and to ensure that those safeguards have some teeth. We need the tariff rate quota mechanism that I have been calling for, but we also need an assurance that if the amount of beef—it is largely beef, but it could be lamb—coming into this country is too high, that mechanism can be used to turn down that supply. That is not protectionism; that is standing up for our farmers and our values. I also welcome the Government’s having moved, under pressure, to put animal welfare chapters into these trade deals, but I firmly believe they are not strong enough. They need to be strengthened.

There is a non-regression clause in the Australian trade deal, but it is not good enough to say, “Well, our standards will not get any worse.” We need to make sure that the standards come up to the standards that we believe are right in the United Kingdom. We are a beacon on this, and we can drive up animal health and welfare standards around the world.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee made a series of pragmatic and sensible recommendations on animal health and welfare in our report “Moving animals across borders”. Unfortunately, the Government have been a little slow and—to give a cricketing analogy—a bit straight bat on it. Our recommendations included raising the minimum age of dogs that come into the country to six months, to stamp out the abhorrent crime of puppy smuggling, and banning the import of dogs that have been mutilated by ear cropping and cats that have been declawed. We need to stop that. We need to ban the movement of heavily pregnant dogs, because that fuels the puppy smuggling trade.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech, which supports the argument that clause 2 ought to include positive measures. Would it not be great if we introduced legislation that addressed issues such as cropping dogs’ ears or declawing cats, which would show the world that, through this Bill, we are making progress on such issues?

[Dr Hudson]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I agree with her. Pointing out where things are having an adverse effect is important, but so is pointing out positive measures. We need to put out the message about where we think things can improve.

I would also like to see—I have pushed this hard in the Chamber and would do so in the Bill Committee—improvements in the health checks on animals coming into this country, including pre-import tests for diseases such as canine brucellosis, babesiosis and leishmaniasis, and the reinstatement of mandatory tick treatment. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson) talked about some of these things. Now that we have left the European Union, we can reintroduce the mandatory tick treatment for small animals that the Europeans stopped us doing. That might seem a semantic, purely veterinary point, but if we protect animals coming in, they are less likely to bring in diseases that are dangerous to our dog population, some of which have zoonotic potential and could affect people. I would also like to see reinstatement of the rabies titre checks for animals and an increase in the wait time to 12 weeks post rabies vaccination. That would indirectly stop the puppy smuggling trade because it would make it less likely that a fluffy little puppy would be coming through to fuel that market.

I declare an interest again as a veterinary surgeon with an equine background. We need to sort out the equine identification system as well. Hundreds, if not thousands, of horses are illegally exported to the continent of Europe for slaughter, and if we improved the identification of those animals, we could stamp out that abhorrent practice. The EFRA Committee has made recommendations to Government, and I urge them to respond. Unfortunately some of the responses seem to be a bit “Little Britain”— “Computer says no.” To quote a famous sports brand, I say to the Government, “Just do it.”

Finally, I want to raise again the crisis that is facing the pig sector in this country. If we are talking about animal sentience and valuing high animal health and welfare, we need to highlight that crisis. As the EFRA Committee has said, it is an animal and human welfare crisis. I say that as a vet who spent time in the field during foot and mouth supervising the cull of farm animals on farm. Those animals did not end up in the food chain; they were disposed of. I can tell the House how upsetting that is for farmers, vets, slaughter workers and all concerned. We need to mitigate and avert that. More than 30,000 pigs have been culled on farm, and I know that the Secretary of State and DEFRA have been moving on this, putting pressure on different Departments, for example to increase cold storage. We had the Minister for Safe and Legal Migration before us and we were, frankly, pretty dissatisfied with the responses. We need some joined-up thinking across Government to improve the visa situation so that people can come here to help solve this crisis. I say to Ministers, “Please act now to avert this catastrophe.”

The Bill needs some additions, but the Government have initiated much that is to be welcomed, and it important that that will be on the statute book. The Government have talked the talk, and I urge them to walk the walk. We have a duty of care for these sentient beings; let us put that into practice, and let us do it now.