Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Lord Coaker
Main Page: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Coaker's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(7 years ago)
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Michael Gove
My hon. Friend has been a passionate and successful campaigner for animal welfare during his entire career in the House of Commons, and he is right to say that there are now opportunities to take steps to improve the treatment of live exports—or potentially to ban them—as we leave the European Union. The steps that we take when we put animal welfare at the heart of all we do must be consistent with our broader negotiating objectives as we leave the EU.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
On animal welfare standards, whether we are in the EU or outside it, will the Secretary of State consider the importance of labelling so that people know what they are buying? When a label says that a chicken has been reared outside or been stunned or not stunned, people must be able to trust that they know what has happened.
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman is right: there is confusion and uncertainty in the minds of some consumers as a result of current labelling. Already, farmer-led schemes such as the Red Tractor scheme ensure that people know that animals have been kept to the highest welfare standards, but we can go further and I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman on that.