European Pig Industry

Neil Parish Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

It is an enormous pleasure, especially following our debate on Europe, to speak in an attempt to protect the British pig, a noble beast, from the depredations of the European Union.

On 1 January this year, a European directive, Council Directive 2008/120/EC, came into force throughout the EU. It lays down minimum standards and requirements for the welfare of pigs, and, most notably, outlaws the use of systems, known as stalls, which in fact confine sows in individual metal stalls. It was originally passed in 2001, and in this respect—as in so many areas of animal health and welfare—the United Kingdom has been in the vanguard.

The Minister is a former pig farmer, as is his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), who is also present this evening. I only wish that I too had been a pig farmer: I should have liked that very much. My right hon. Friend and the Minister will know—as, indeed, will many other Members—that Parliament placed a complete ban on sow stalls in 1999, and that the United Kingdom had already achieved full compliance with the directive when it came into force this year. Unfortunately, however, that is not true of all member states.

In June 2012, the European Commission reported that 18 of the 27 member states expected to meet the January 2013 deadline for full compliance with the directive. Despite assurances given to the Commission, however, figures leaked from the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health in December 2012 showed that 80% of member states were expected to fail to comply with the ban.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I welcome the debate, because I want to draw attention to a difficulty affecting Europe’s enforcement of the directive. One of the problems with EU legislation is that it is only when it has actually become law that the European Commission can take action. It should be able to take action before the event: that would enable the practice of keeping pigs in stalls to be stopped in Denmark and in all member states.

[Mr Bacon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In this country, once the rules come into force on a given date—1 January 2013, in this instance—that should be it. There is a huge difference between our approach to the law, what we do with it and how we obey it, and the approach of many countries on the continent, where law and the making of law are more of an aspiration than a statement of what is and how things should be. I do not want to dwell on that point too much, because it is outside the terms of the debate, but I think that it highlights one of the fundamental differences between us and many European countries, which makes the melding of our countries—should we wish it, which we do not—almost impossible.