Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Sarfraz Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 16th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sarfraz (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest with several not-for-profit organisations working on animal welfare, as set out in the register. I welcome the Bill: it gives a voice to animals, which have no ability to speak. In 50 years’ time, historians will look back in shock that we have 70 billion animals in factory farms to feed 7.8 billion humans. Animals have no voice, but consumers are speaking loud and clear. Last year, consumers globally spent over $20 billion on plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy. In the UK, demand for these products has more than doubled in the past five years. I wonder whether noble Lords have tasted an Impossible Burger or sausages by Beyond Meat. They are delicious plant-based alternatives to meat. The global meat-free sector alone will be in excess of $85 billion by 2030, and grew 25% last year alone.

The food sector is a lifeline of our economy, providing jobs for one in seven people, but it is also causing damage. Even before the pandemic, poor diet was responsible for one in seven UK deaths. Transforming our food system is a once-in-a-lifetime health, environmental and economic opportunity. The food tech revolution is the next global agricultural revolution, with enormous benefits for biodiversity, land use and climate change. We can make our country the global hub for food tech. More than $3 billion was invested last year in alternative protein companies, and about 17% of that was in the UK and Europe. We must, of course, support our livestock farmers in the UK, many of whom farm sustainably and treat their animals very well, but we also want our entrepreneurs to be at the forefront of this new and exciting market.

The Canadian Government have announced a plant protein supercluster. The Singapore Government have approved cell-cultured meat. The Israeli Government are providing non-dilutive funding to food tech start-ups. The US Senate just approved significant spending on food tech R&D.

This Bill is the moment for us to tell our entrepreneurs, loud and clear, that just as we are leading global R&D in clean technology and life sciences, we will support them in leading the world in food technology. I congratulate the Government on introducing the Bill.