Import and Sale of Fur

Debate between Nadia Whittome and Trudy Harrison

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Trudy Harrison)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria. It has been less of a pleasure, in many ways, to listen to colleagues’ accounts, but I thank all Members for raising awareness, which is absolutely necessary, about some of the ways animals have been kept and treated in the production of fur.

I would particularly like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) for his evidence-based, exceptionally well-written and powerful speech, and to ensure that the record remembers his work for decades on the subject of animal welfare, in this place and well before coming to this place. I thank all colleagues for bringing to our attention accounts that are deeply awful but necessary to face. I do feel that ignorance—simply not knowing about the conditions in which some fur-farmed animals are kept and the way they have been so cruelly treated and killed—would lead to the purchase of these products. Of course, this debate has expanded well beyond animal welfare to include biosecurity and environmental impacts.

As I think every speaker said, we are a nation of animal lovers. Animal welfare has been a really significant priority for the Government since 2010. Already, our standards of animal welfare are world-leading: according to the World Animal Protection International animal protection index, they are not just the best in the G7, but the best in the world. I was pleased to hear such a focus by colleagues across the House on this area today.

Since 2010, we have raised animal welfare standards for farm animals, companion animals and wild animals. The most notable legislative measures already taken include the banning of traditional battery cages for laying hens and the raising of standards for chickens to be consumed for meat. We have implemented and upgraded welfare standards at slaughterhouses and introduced CCTV. Further steps include the revamped local authority licensing regime for commercial pet services including selling, dog breeding, boarding and animal displays. We banned third party puppy and kitten sales through Lucy’s law. We introduced protections for service animals through Finn’s law. We introduced offences for horse fly-grazing and abandonment. We also banned wild animals in travelling circuses.

Our manifesto commitments demonstrate the ambition to go further on animal welfare. In 2018, we committed to bringing in new laws on animal sentience; introducing tougher sentences for animal cruelty; implementing the Ivory Act 2018 and extending it to other species; ensuring that animal welfare standards are not compromised in trade deals; cracking down on the illegal smuggling of dogs and puppies; bringing forward cat microchipping; banning the keeping of primates as pets; and banning imports of hunting trophies from endangered species.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) referred to the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith). It is making sterling progress through the House, as are other private Members’ Bills—there is the work that the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees) is doing on the banning of shark fins, and the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson) is doing through her Bill to improve animal welfare abroad in relation to advertisements.

[Nadia Whittome]

It is clear from the Minister’s words that she understands the importance of animal welfare and the impact that fur farming has, not just on animal welfare but on the environment and public health. Given that, can she tell us a date by which the Government will introduce an import ban on fur?

[Trudy Harrison]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. If she can be patient for just a couple more minutes, I will go into more detail about the response to the call for evidence—30,000 people responded—and the next steps in this process, but I would like to continue to explain the Government’s progress so far. We have also banned the cruel shipment of live animals, or rather there has been no shipment of live animals for fattening and slaughtering since 2020. We want this to continue, and that is absolutely why we will be bringing forward legislation in the very near future—certainly before the end of this Parliament—to ensure that it continues. We also want to ensure that, in return for funding, farmers safeguard high standards of animal welfare.

We have already delivered many of the manifesto commitments. The Government have increased penalties for those convicted of animal cruelty. We passed the Animal Welfare Sentience Act 2022 and launched a dedicated Animal Sentience Committee. We made microchipping compulsory for cats as well as dogs. We also announced an extension to the Ivory Act 2018, which came into force last year, covering five more endangered species: hippopotamus, narwhal, killer whale, sperm whale and walrus.

On top of our manifesto commitments, in 2021 we published our ambitious and comprehensive action plan for animal welfare. The plan includes about 40 different actions—steady progress is being made on the vast majority—and sets out the work we are focused on pursuing throughout this parliamentary term and beyond. Our action plan covers farmed animals, wild animals, pets and sporting animals, and it includes legislative and non-legislative reforms relating to activities in this country and abroad. Most recently, the Government supported a private Member’s Bill that paves the way for penalty notices to be applied to animal welfare offences, and we are consulting on how we should do that. We have also banned glue traps and given the police additional powers to tackle hare coursing.

As well as legislating, we have launched the pioneering animal health and welfare pathway, which sets out the way forward for improving farm animal welfare for years to come, building on the work that we have already done to improve conditions for sheep, cattle and chickens. With the pathway, we are working in partnership with industry to transform farm animal welfare, through annual health and welfare reviews with a vet of choice, supported by financial grants.

The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) invited me to provide updates and reassurance on the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill. The reason that I went through our impressive track record on animal welfare was to convey confidence to Members across this House that what we set out in our 2019 manifesto will be delivered. It will not be delivered through a single Bill, because we have encountered numerous difficulties in trying to achieve that. As I said last week, the important thing is that we deliver our commitments successfully and swiftly, so we have announced that measures in the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill will be taken forward individually during the remainder of this term.

The hon. Gentleman will understand that the King’s Speech later this year will be followed by a ballot. Private Members’ Bills will then be supported by officials in DEFRA, along with other single-issue Bills, statutory instruments, legislative programmes, secondary legislation, regulation and reforms with industry.