Antimicrobial Resistance: Farm Animals

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Virendra Sharma

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the use of antibiotics on healthy farm animals and antimicrobial resistance.

It is a great honour and pleasure to be here this afternoon and to see you in the Chair, Mr Bone.

Antimicrobial resistance, or AMR as it is more commonly known, should be of grave concern to us all because it affects every single one of our constituents up and down the country. As we emerge from the shadow of the covid-19 pandemic, this looming health catastrophe must be treated with greater urgency. We are on the edge of yet another global human health crisis, described by the United Nations Environment Programme as a “silent pandemic”, except we will be able to vaccine our way out of this one. Worldwide, more than a million people a year are already dying from infections that cannot be treated with antibiotics. Our food system is broken, and this is the hidden public health cost of intensive factory farming.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing the debate. The use of antibiotics in factory-farmed animals as a method of disease prevention to compensate for poor living conditions is a huge contributing factor to widespread antimicrobial resistance. The EU introduced legislation to tackle this. Does the hon. Member agree that Ministers must urgently act on their 2018 commitment to restrict preventive antibiotic use?

[Mr Sharma]

I thank the hon. Member for her positive intervention. I am sure the Minister will note it, and I will also be raising that issue later in my speech.

One of the root causes of AMR is the overuse of antibiotics on cruel factory farms. Factory farming inflicts unspeakable cruelty on billions of animals in the UK every year. It confines them to horrendous conditions often with barely enough room to turn around or lie down. This highly stressful and often barren environment can lead to injuries and severe behavioural issues, including aggression, tail biting in pigs, feather pecking and even cannibalism. The cruelty does not end there. Factory farming subjects animals to painful mutilations, such as tail docking and teeth clipping, without effective pain relief. This is not farming; it is industrialised animal cruelty. Colleagues will not be surprised to hear that these stressful, cramped and unsanitary conditions create the perfect breeding ground for disease. That brings me to my next point: the overuse of antibiotics.