Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Randall Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the shadow Minister for that question. This issue has been raised a number of times. I have had many Zoom calls with Members from the area over the lockdown, and the difficulty with having the project has been that we have been in lockdown, but we have made major flood announcements, with £5.2 billion of funding. Many of the Yorkshire areas have benefited, but of course, if there are further conversations that the shadow Minister would like to have, we would be happy to have them.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to increase animal welfare standards.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to increase animal welfare standards.

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

This country has some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world. We have modernised standards for dog breeding, changed the way we do pet sales, brought in a world-leading ivory ban and introduced mandatory CCTV in slaughterhouses. We are going further, as we said we would in our manifesto, to end excessively long journeys for farm animals, to ban primates as pets and to ban imports from trophy hunting.

[Tom Randall]

I thank the Minister for that answer, which will reassure the many Gedling residents who write to me on animal welfare issues. As our manifesto made clear, leaving the European Union gives us the opportunity to enhance standards, not reduce them. Given that, does my hon. Friend agree that we should perhaps stop playing party politics on this issue and get behind the many initiatives that the Government have introduced to promote high animal welfare standards and increased protection for animals in homes, farms and the wild?

[Victoria Prentis]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that there is a great deal of interest across this House and, indeed, among our constituents in issues concerning animal welfare. The UK is a leader when it comes to matters of animal welfare, but there is always more that we can and will do.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

We work closely with FareShare, as we always have. As the hon. Gentleman points out, we did make available some additional funding to help it to support the financially vulnerable during this pandemic. Obviously, as we go into winter we keep all these matters under review.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

One of the biggest issues that Gedling residents have written to me about since my election is the culling of badgers. I recently met representatives of the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust to hear more about the issue and the vaccination programme it is running, with DEFRA funding. Although it is important to follow the science in the decision making, there are concerns that the cull will eradicate some badger populations. Could my right hon. Friend tell me what criteria were used to determine the next areas where the culling will take place and what the extent of it will be?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. In our response to the Godfrey review, we set out our approach to dealing with bovine tuberculosis in the next five years. In response to the specific question, we look at epidemiological assessments in individual areas to see where particular strains are present in both badgers and cattle, and that drives the decisions about where culling is necessary.