Animal Welfare in Farming

Roger Gale Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered animal welfare standards in farming.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I am grateful for the opportunity to hold this debate to give a voice to the voiceless here in Parliament.

The treatment of farm animals in the UK is a reflection of our values as a society, yet millions of animals endure lives of confinement, pain and neglect. I am proud to have convened this debate on an issue that has been very close to my heart since I was old enough to understand: animal welfare. The debate could not be more timely, with a number of grotesque infringements of legal and accepted norms exposed in recent undercover footage. From the mistreatment of piglets to the rampant impunity found in a few of Scotland’s salmon farms, shocking incidents have rightly caused public outrage.

However, we must be clear: these are sadly not isolated incidents, but a symptom of policy and enforcement failings in our food and farming systems. The way we treat farmed animals is not only the biggest animal protection issue we face here in the UK, but deeply entwined with the climate crisis, nature loss and the viability of our food systems. It speaks to a moral failing, a disconnection from the suffering hidden behind supermarket shelves. Ultimately, we need a food system that recognises the need to reduce demand, raise legal baselines and support better farming systems.

I am pleased to note that today’s debate has been linked to the petition titled “End the use of cages and crates for all farmed animals”, which has now surpassed 100,000 signatures and calls on the UK Government to

“ban all cages for laying hens as soon as possible”

and to extend the ban to all cages and crates “for all farmed animals”, including farrowing crates for sows, individual calf pens and cages for birds. Despite the ban on barren battery cages in 2012, about 10.6 million hens —28% of the UK laying flock—are still confined in so-called enriched cages, which severely restrict natural behaviours such as wing flapping, perching and dust bathing, and contribute to frustration, bone weakness and chronic protection issues.

I congratulate the petition sponsor, Dame Joanna Lumley, and commend her courage and compassion. Her lifelong dedication to humanitarian and environmental causes is matched in this case by her powerful advocacy for animals, who cannot speak for themselves. I also want to recognise the tireless work of the many non-governmental organisations, including Compassion in World Farming, the Humane League, World Animal Protection, FOUR PAWS and others, represented in the Chamber today, that have been campaigning for decades to end the cruelty of cages, crates and inhumane farming systems. Thanks to their persistence, these issues are finally being heard in Parliament with the seriousness they deserve.

However, accountability is woefully lacking. Prosecutions for animal welfare violations in farming are extremely rare. Between 2011 and 2021, only 28 such prosecutions were brought—fewer than three per year, despite tens of thousands of inspections and numerous breaches. The regulatory system is led by the Animal and Plant Health Agency, which is under-resourced and overly reliant on industry self-reporting. We need independent inspections and meaningful penalties for breaches.

Many people believe that labels such as “Red Tractor” or “RSPCA Assured” guarantee good welfare, and consumers want to trust that such schemes deliver in good faither. It is the Government’s job to ensure that those labels mean something. Sadly, far too often that is not the case, as we have seen from many investigations on certified farms that still use crates, cages and other cruel practices.

One such practice that must be urgently reviewed is the use of farrowing crates on pig farms. A recent poll commissioned by Humane World for Animals found that 73% of people in the UK had either never heard of farrowing crates or knew very little about them—a stark reminder of how this suffering is hidden from the public eye. Yet in the UK, approximately 50% of sows are confined in these small metal cages, which prevent them from turning around or expressing natural maternal behaviours. Compassion in World Farming describes farrowing as among the most extreme forms of confinement. Pigs are widely regarded to be highly sentient animals, but they are forced to give birth and nurse their young while virtually immobilised. The European Union has committed to phasing out cages for all farmed animals by 2027, but a recent letter from the National Pig Association suggested another 20 years of suffering to phase them out.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I have already indicated this to you, Mr Vickers, but I apologise to colleagues now for the fact that I will have to leave before the end of the debate, which is why I will not make a speech—a constituent is coming to see me, and the votes in the House have screwed up the timing.

The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to learn that I entirely share his view; I guess that probably everyone who will speak in this debate does. One of the supposed advantages of our leaving the European Union was that we would be able to control what came into the country in the form of food. It would be quite wrong, would it not, if, while seeking to drive up animal welfare standards in this country, we disadvantaged our own farmers and at the same time allowed into the country products from other countries where those standards are lower? Therefore, does he agree with me—I am the patron of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation—that we need to call upon the Minister to ensure that that does not happen, and that our farmers are not disadvantaged while we improve our standards?

[Adrian Ramsay]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I always enjoy hearing his thoughtful remarks and strongly agree with his words today, which show the cross-party concerns on this issue; I will come on to the issue of international trade later on.

On the issue of farrowing crates, I urge the Minister to set out a clear and swift timetable for the banning of farrowing crates; I hope he will address that issue specifically in his remarks at the end of the debate.

We must also speak to the plight of broiler chickens, which are the animals most intensively farmed in the UK today. Around 90% of chickens reared for meat in the UK—nearly 1 billion animals per year—are fast-growing breeds, often referred to as “Frankenchickens”. These birds have been selectively bred to grow up to 400% faster than chickens did in the 1950s, reaching slaughter weight in just 35 to 40 days. To put that in perspective, if a human baby grew at the same rate, they would weigh nearly 300 kg—the size of a fully grown tiger—by the time they were two months old.

Such rapid growth causes immense suffering, including chronic lameness, organ failure, respiratory problems and open burns, as these chickens spend their final days lying in their own waste, often with broken bones, too heavy to stand. That cannot be right and I hope the Minister directly addresses that point as well. There are alternatives—slower-growing breeds, with significantly improved protection outcomes—but without Government leadership, market incentives will continue to favour the cheapest and cruellest options.

On the subject of pigs and chickens, many campaigners will have rejoiced at the rejection of a new mega-farm at Methwold in Norfolk; I know the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy) was heavily involved in campaigning against it. The sheer scale of the Methwold proposal was staggering—up to 870,000 chickens and 14,000 pigs, confined in barren indoor sheds. Chickens would have been packed into high-intensity units, with barely any space to move, no access to daylight and no environmental enrichment. Animal protection groups raised serious concerns about the dangerously low staff-to-animal ratio, which would have made it almost impossible to monitor suffering or to intervene in time.

Methwold is not an isolated case. There are many applications around the country, including a growing number in my constituency, for new or expanded intensive livestock units. That is deeply worrying for constituents, who are concerned not only about animal protection, but about air and water pollution, odour, and the long-term impact on communities and our countryside. The proposed Cranswick farm at Methwold was rightly opposed by the local council because of its cumulative environmental risks and wider ecological impact.

We should not be pursuing this model of farming, yet World Wide Fund and AGtivist.agency report that the number of US-style megafarms in the UK has increased by 21% in about a decade. That is going in the wrong direction, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister about how the Government will address it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) for enabling us to speak on this important topic.

I will start by sharing how valuable it was to spend a day of last week’s recess at Staffordshire’s county show. As always, I came away full of admiration for our farming community. I am a little biased, but Staffordshire is a shining example of some of the best of British farming, and everybody at the show seemed to agree. That is not just in terms of productivity and innovation but in the deep care many of our farmers have for animal welfare.

That brings me to the complex and often uncomfortable balance we are trying to strike in this debate between raising animal welfare standards and the environmental, financial and logistical realities of making that happen. When we talk about moving away from practices such as caged systems—a move that, for the record, I absolutely support—we are also talking about the need for more barn space, more land use and more infrastructure, all of which mean higher running costs for farmers and sometimes greater greenhouse gas emissions.

To be clear, those are not reasons for rejecting higher animal welfare standards, but they are reasons to approach the issue with farmers in mind. That must be our starting point, because farmers are not charities and, more than ever, they have to look at the bottom line, which all too often is dwindling. Let us be frank: supermarkets will always demand higher welfare, but they are not always willing to pay more for it. That is disingenuous to consumers and squeezes producers even further, pitting welfare against farm viability.

An area where we could make a real difference is animal welfare labelling, which is being looked at by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, of which I am a member; I am glad that the Committee’s Chair is present. For the average shopper, labelling is a minefield. Information on nutrition and the country of origin has been simplified in the past decade, but in the animal welfare space we have statutory minimum standards and the “Red Tractor”, “RSPCA Assured”, EU organic and Soil Association organic labels, all representing different standards.

Consumers need to understand what labelling means in practical terms and how to interpret it when they shop. That will not be easy, but I believe that is a challenge that we can and should take on. However, in doing so, we must make sure producers have a say, alongside consumers and animal welfare organisations, so that they can realise the benefits of clearer labelling too. The lack of coherent and clear information on welfare on the shelf is a concern for farmers who are producing to higher standards because they do not have a clear way of differentiating their products for consumers. They therefore do not reap the rewards from the quality of their goods that should incentivise higher welfare standards. Research indicates that the current systems of farm assurance, regardless of the label, are not working as best as they could for farmers, consumers and, most importantly, animals.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman entirely. Does he also agree that there is a significant error in not properly labelling animals subjected to non-stunned slaughter?

[Josh Newbury]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I think that that is a perfect example of where stronger, more consistent animal welfare labelling would give consumers that kind of information. In other countries, such as Germany, systems take that into account, and consumers should have access to that information.

On farm assurance, for example, the campaign group Animal Rising has uncovered failings in “RSPCA Assured” farms and abattoirs.

We also have to ensure that fairness for the farming sector is paramount. I raised that in Select Committee sessions and it has been raised today, but it bears repeating: we cannot ask our farmers to invest in higher standards and then leave them exposed to undercutting by imports. We are all in favour of better welfare. In fact, a 2022 poll revealed that 71% of the British public want the Government to pass more laws to improve animal welfare, but we cannot hold our farmers to a gold standard while turning a blind eye to imports that are produced to far lower standards. Trade deals without adequate safeguards will negatively impact the UK’s animal welfare standards for decades to come, undermining our farmers and the hard-won animal welfare improvements that we need to build on. That risks putting more farmers out of business, jeopardising our food security and offshoring animal cruelty.

To put it simply, if it is too cruel to produce here, it should be too cruel to import. If it is not good enough for our farms, it is not good enough for our shelves. Ultimately, we need to get the balance right by supporting our farmers to raise standards, making sure that consumers understand what they are buying and ensuring that the whole system—domestic or international—reflects our values as a nation of animal lovers.