Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Bill  

Mike Penning Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel]

Thank you, Chair. I will come to those now.

The amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) include a number of provisions to extend the scope of the Bill. I want to say a little bit about alpacas, which I believe are dealt with in amendment 2. In my constituency, I have seen a growth in alpaca farming. There are alpacas in Cookridge in my constituency, on the way to Leeds Bradford airport; Meanwood Valley urban farm, which is just over the border in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), has alpacas; and, on Queensway in Yeadon, I recently spotted a number of alpacas in a field. This is clearly an area of expansion in the British farming industry, but there is also now quite a lot of alpaca breeding, so there is no need to export live alpacas to this country, because there is sufficient depth of alpaca farming to carry on that work. The same goes for other animals, including llamas and deer. We are overrun with deer; we certainly do not need the export of them.

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

Being overrun with deer is usually a forestry issue. They are wild animals and are not covered by this Bill, and they are certainly not covered by these amendments.

[Alex Sobel]

I thank the right hon. Member. Obviously, there are wild deer and deer farmed for venison; both types exist in this country.

I do not want to hold up the debate for too long, so I will conclude. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West said, the Labour party is the party of animal welfare—that is a strong priority for Labour. We have long called for a ban on live export for slaughter. Every year, millions of farm animals are at risk of facing long-distance journeys, including the new animals that we have tabled amendments to cover. Amendment 5 aims to future-proof the Bill. Particularly as the climate changes, farming will change, and we need to be able to evolve and update the legislation as practices change. I support amendments 2, 3, 4 and 5, which stand in the name of my hon. Friend, and I hope to see the Bill go much further.

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[Sammy Wilson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, which I hope the Minister will listen to, because otherwise—despite all the amendments that have been tabled and that, if pushed to a vote, we will support—the problem will still exist, it will not have been addressed and the protection of animals that the Bill is designed to provide will not be fulfilled.

[Sir Mike Penning]

I rise to speak about the amendments, in particular those tabled by the Opposition Front Benchers. They did so in good faith, but I do think there are issues with them. If we look at this issue as a nation and are honest about why there has been so little or no exporting of live animals, it is public opinion that made that happen. That is what stopped it at Dover and some of the smaller ports.

I had the honour of being a researcher for the late and departed Sir Teddy Taylor, the former MP for Rochford and Southend East. Among many things, he campaigned hard to ban the live export of animals. Before I came into this House, I did a little bit of journalism among many other things, and as journalists, we followed lorries, as the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) did, down to Italy, believe it or not, without them stopping for fodder or water.

I get where the amendments are coming from, but to suggest that animals such as llamas or deer might at some future time be moved for fattening and slaughter is stretching the imagination. This place is for debate. The Labour Front Benchers disagree with me—I absolutely get that—but I am sent here to express a view. We have major problems with deer in our forests—not just muntjac, but other species—to such an extent that some farmers are going to give up their leases on some of the National Trust land they farm. They say it is not viable. We are not going to export those deer—we will not send them across for fattening. Llamas are not going to be sent for fattening and slaughter. The Bill is targeted at an industry.

I have every sympathy with my friends from Northern Ireland, and I know exactly where they are coming from, but it will not be financially viable for wholesalers—that is normally who it is—to take cattle from the Province into the Republic and send them on that huge sea journey. That journey is not cost-effective and just will not happen.

We are sent here to protect and not just to talk about financial viability, and this Bill is important. Yes, I would like to have seen it earlier, as I think we all would. It was a manifesto commitment that I stood on, and I think manifesto commitments are important. However, we cannot divide this sovereign Parliament and give those duties to, for instance, the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly. I do not think that is right; it is for this country to set what is right and wrong in terms of those international obligations.

[Sammy Wilson]

The right hon. Gentleman said that the closure of the land bridge will make it less commercial for animals to be exported that way. I had a response from an agriculture Minister in Northern Ireland talking about the export of animals from Northern Ireland via Dublin and then on to Rosslare and Le Havre. He said:

“Analysis by my officials has shown that calves exported from Northern Ireland via a Republic of Ireland port (Dublin or Rosslare) are rested on the truck in the Republic of Ireland for at least one hour before sailing to France. It has not been considered necessary to date to feed the calves during this rest period to achieve compliance with the EU regulation”.

The practice was already happening before this legislation. It closes one route—the land bridge—but is likely to lead to even greater suffering. The EU regulations and Department officials do not even consider it cruel to rest the animals for one hour and then send them on a 24-hour boat journey without any food.

[Sir Mike Penning]

This House thinks the practice is cruel, and that is why we are changing things with this legislation today. Frankly, what our European friends do, now that we are out of there, is down to them. We can talk to them, be friends with them and do lots of things with them, but we do not have to do what they tell us to do anymore. That is crucial.

There is one amendment that I would have been the first to support, had the Opposition or the Government wanted to table it, and that is on foie gras. I cannot understand why they have not. I spoke on Second Reading about amendments that should have been tabled. Why on earth is something whose production is banned in this country, because it is cruel, allowed to be imported and sold in this country? That is a mistake in the Bill. I am sure that amendments might be tabled in the other House. If they were tabled in this House, they would be agreed. Those amendments should be made to the Bill, but perhaps I will speak a bit more on that on Third Reading.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak tonight in favour of the Labour amendments and to briefly pay tribute to constituents who have raised these important matters with me and other colleagues. I stress the significant public interest in this issue. Like other colleagues, I have had a large amount of correspondence. We all want to see this change. We do not want to see live animal exports in any shape or form, and I appreciate the effort my colleagues have gone to in identifying future risks, which should be taken seriously.

I welcome the legislation, but I regret the delays in it coming to the House. I also ask the Government again to support wider measures to improve animal welfare. I commend the work of the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) and the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) who just spoke about the possibility of tackling foie gras. Those are serious points, and the hon. Member for Crawley has done excellent work on trophy hunting. I was proud to be able to support that work.

I will turn to the Labour amendments, which are in the name of the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones). As she said, the Bill leaves open the possibility of other animals being exploited. She is right to point that out, because some of the species mentioned in the Labour amendments are farmed in the UK. There is deer farming and the hunting of deer in woodland. I have seen llamas being farmed in the Thames valley. I understand there is a possibility that these species could be traded. I am concerned by that, and we are right to raise these points from the Opposition Benches.

The point that my hon. Friend made about the way that the live animal export trade developed rapidly and expanded between 10 and 20 times in scale over a 10-year period is a salutary reminder of what some unscrupulous business people are willing to do in this industry. I urge the Government to think again about these probing amendments, which are wise and sensible and highlight some serious future risks as agriculture changes and develops. We would be wise to address that by looking at the species in the amendments and adding them to the Bill to ensure that those animals are protected in the same way as other animals. I urge Ministers to consider the thoughtful amendments tabled by Labour Front-Bench Members.

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[Mark Spencer]

It was not an extensive list. There are many examples of the Government taking action, and we will continue to do so.

[Sir Mike Penning]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mark Spencer]

I will, because my right hon. Friend has been involved with the Bill throughout its passage.

[Sir Mike Penning]

I thank the Minister for giving way, because after sitting here for three hours or so, I would have been very disappointed not to be able to bring up the subject of foie gras yet again—you gave me the look, Madam Deputy Speaker, which was understandable. The Minister produced a long list of what we had done, but what we can do in the future is ban the import of foie gras. Its production is banned in this country because it is cruel. Why are we still importing it, and why are we not banning it?

[Mark Spencer]

The Bill deals with the export of live animals, not the import of products. I am sure that there will be many opportunities for colleagues to continue to raise animal welfare issues, and they will of course have a sympathetic ear from the Government.

Let finally put on record my sincere thanks to animal welfare groups, particularly Compassion in World Farming but also the National Union of Farmers and other stakeholders that have helped with consultation responses, for their support as the Bill has made progress. Let me also thank my excellent civil service colleagues, who have been very supportive throughout the drafting of the Bill, for their work to help bring it to this point. The Bill will reinforce our position as a world leader on animal welfare, and that is something of which we can all be very proud. I look forward to following its progress through the other place, and I commend it to the House.