Farmed Animals: Cages and Crates

Tony Vaughan Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Irene Campbell]

I could not agree more, and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for reminding me to declare my interest as a member of the Labour Animal Welfare Society.

In Scotland, 84% of people have said that they think that farrowing crates should be banned immediately or in the next five years. Additionally, more than half of Scots said that they were willing to pay more for pork that was not produced using farrowing crates. That is something to bear in mind. Although the previous Government stated in 2019 that farrowing crates should be banned, consultation never took place on phasing them out. This debate is an opportunity to get that discussion, and hopefully consultation, under way.

It is a positive step that there is consensus from various organisations that farrowing crates should be banned, even if differing timelines are suggested. The British Veterinary Association is in favour of banning farrowing crates. It found that 75% of vets are concerned about the impact of farrowing crates on the welfare of pigs, with 36% of those vets saying that they were very concerned. The BVA is now calling for a gradual phasing out of the crates over 15 years and a transition to a system that favours the health of both the sow and the piglets. It recommended that Government producers and retailers should implement an awareness campaign for consumers and share best practice, thus demonstrating that there must be scope to ensure better and more accurate labelling of products. I will say more about that later.

In preparing for this debate, meetings were held with the National Pig Association, the National Farmers Union, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Compassion in World Farming and the petitioner, Dame Joanna Lumley. Although I am pleased that the National Pig Association agrees that we need to transition to flexible farrowing systems, it wishes to do so over 20 years. It is good to see that there is agreement on the phasing out of this practice. The RSPCA’s pig experts found that a transition should take no longer than 10 years, and furthermore, Dr Alice Brough, a former pig industry vet, said

“We banned gestation crates in 1999; we have had 26 years to prepare for this obvious follow-on.”

With that consensus, surely there must be scope to agree a shorter and speedier timeline.

I also met with the NFU to discuss its views on enriched cages for laying hens, which, disappointingly, it still supports. It is hugely positive that the vast majority of hens are not kept in cages, but we cannot forget the 23% of eggs that are still laid by hens in cages. We know that the transition is doable and practical, and we must get a timeline in place to see an end to this practice.

In 2022, polling found that 94% of the public oppose the use of enriched cages for hens. These cages replaced battery cages, which were banned when the UK adopted the relevant EU Council directive in 2012. However, enriched colony cages have only 9% more usable space per bird than the previous battery cages, and they are hardly bigger than an A4 piece of paper. Every year in the UK, a shocking 8 million layer hens spend their lives in cages. As with pigs, many of their natural behaviours are restricted by these cages. The hens cannot flap their wings, perch or dust bathe, and that can cause frustration, bone weakness and osteoporosis. How enriched are these cages if confinement is so extreme?

It is important to note another key issue related to chicken farming: hatch and dispatch. In the UK, 86 male chicks are killed every minute; that is 45 million baby chicks a year. However, this cruel practice is today unnecessary, as countries such as France and Germany have already mandated the use of in-ovo sexing technology, which determines the sex of a chick before they can feel pain. Within in-ovo sexing, eggs can be discarded before they have to hatch. It is estimated that implementing such technology would add less than one penny to the cost of each egg. Surely, the UK must adopt that system without delay.

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend talks about an additional 1p per egg, but does she agree that some sort of financial incentive or financial reason would be an important factor in increasing the state’s ability to phase out cages and crates? Otherwise, we are not going to see this happen en masse.

[Irene Campbell]

I agree, and I will later mention that there has to be such support.

Groups of pheasant and pairs of partridges are also kept in breeding cages—again, offering each bird little more room than the size of a sheet of A4 paper. The birds suffer from stress, breeding-related injuries and death. There is no legislation on how birds should be treated apart from 2009 guidance from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. That must surely be urgently reviewed.

Many quail are still kept in battery cage systems or overcrowded barns, which raise their stress levels and make them aggressive. They can fly upwards very quickly to get away from danger, so the limited space leads them to injure themselves by hitting their heads. However, there are alternatives, such as barns with more space and better natural conditions.

At farms that are RSPCA assured—the UK’s only higher welfare farm assurance and food labelling scheme—cages are not allowed. Laying hens are kept on free range farms or in large barns, where they are free to roam, and sows are loose housed, either indoors with more space or outdoors in paddocks with access to shelter. Such higher welfare standards are increasing in market share and popularity. For example, major retailers such as McDonald’s now use only 100% RSPCA-assured pork and free range eggs, thus demonstrating that restrictive crates and cages are not the only options for our farms or retailers.

It is definitely time for the UK to catch up with the animal welfare standards of other countries. We call ourselves a nation of animal lovers, but are we really? People may be surprised to hear that the UK is now ranked 9th in Europe in terms of the percentage of cage-free animals, and a number of other European countries have already banned or are phasing out farrowing crates and enriched cages. For example, farrowing crates are now banned in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, and enriched cages, as we heard earlier, are banned in Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland, and will be banned in Germany from 2025, the Czech Republic from 2027 and Slovakia from 2030. France has banned the installation of new enriched cages, and the EU Commission has confirmed that it intends to phase out cages across the EU.

Loose farrowing systems have mainly been used in Switzerland since 1997, and studies there have again found that piglet loss in such systems was due mostly to sow-related characteristics rather than the farrowing pen. The reason that loose farrowing systems are not used in other countries is the fear of piglets being crushed by the sow, yet the research showed that the system did not increase pig mortality due to crushing.

On 17 February, the Government responded to this petition by saying that the use of cages and close confinement systems was being considered “very carefully” and that they are supporting the transition to free-range laying hens through grants. They reiterated the requirements relating to calves confined for rearing and fattening, as well as guidance on meeting welfare standards for game birds. The Government’s response also detailed the effect that ending the use of farrowing crates would have on trade, which was much discussed in the debate earlier this month, particularly in relation to phasing out low-welfare imports from the UK’s trading partners.

When looking at legislation related to this issue, it is important that we consider mandatory labelling to inform customers of the welfare of the animals they choose to eat. In addition, we need to ensure equivalence in animal welfare standards for imported products, in order to support our British farmers to adhere to higher standards. It is important that farmers are supported to make the transitions discussed today. We must urgently phase out low animal welfare imports that do not meet our own animal welfare standards, and British farmers must not be at a disadvantage.

In the response to the debate on animal welfare standards in farming earlier this month, the Minister confirmed that the topic of close confinement systems for farm animals was receiving careful attention and that he was well aware of the long-running campaigns on caged animals. I look forward to hearing from the Minister again today, as well as from other hon. Members.

Animal Welfare in Farming

Tony Vaughan Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Westminster Hall

[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.

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Member agree that, through the Government’s programme of planning reform, we must not create any loopholes that could be exploited to facilitate the destructive, large-scale farming operations that he refers to?

[Adrian Ramsay]

I strongly agree. As we all closely scrutinise the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, we need to look carefully at whether loopholes are creeping in that will allow horrific developments such as more mega-farms to happen at a greater scale.

Mega-farms are bad for animals, bad for nature and bad for people, and not at all necessary for food security—that is a key point. The UK already meets 100% of its recommended protein needs, so these mega-farms are surely being developed with exports in mind. UK pigmeat exports have grown by 4% in the past year, driven by increased shipments to China. Methwold was a line in the sand, a signal that local communities will not accept industrial so-called farming that sacrifices everything for profit. To stop its unchecked proliferation, we need the Government to put their own line in the sand and say, clearly, that this must stop.

To pick up on the point made by the right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale), as we debate domestic welfare standards, we must also remain vigilant about how international trade could undermine them. Since leaving the European Union, the UK’s rating in the World Animal Protection index has been downgraded, reflecting growing concern that our historical leadership on animal protection is under threat. In upcoming trade deals with the US, India and the Gulf, there is a real risk that our markets will be opened to products produced in systems that would be illegal in the UK.