Farmed Animals: Cages

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard. I thank the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) for his comprehensive introduction.

In advance of the debate, I was contacted by a number of constituents who expressed their disappointment that there was nothing in the Queen’s Speech about the sort of animal welfare reforms that will be the main part of our discussion today. They told me that, as we have heard, DEFRA’s action plan for animal welfare, published over a year ago, said that the Government are committed to issuing a consultation. We have heard that that will be on its way shortly, but the action plan also stated that

“we will introduce other reforms to improve farm welfare, including examining the use of cages for laying hens and farrowing crates for pigs.”

A year on, we are still waiting for that action.

Every year that passes without action means that millions more animals are kept in unnatural and often distressing conditions that we ought to be shamed into doing something about. I hope we will hear today about substantial progress, because some of the conditions are awful. I have heard about cages that are so small that pregnant mothers are unable to turn around and move for four or five weeks once a litter is born. Even DEFRA recognises that these conditions can restrict a sow’s normal behaviour, including nesting behaviour.

We know that the European Commission plans to ban cages for all farmed animals, hopefully by 2027. Significantly for us, it will also look to prohibit the import of food from caged systems. We no longer have to automatically follow what the EU is doing, but we ought to be using our new-found freedoms to go further and faster than the EU so that we can genuinely say that we are the world leader in animal welfare. Let us do that rather than go the other way.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Further to that point about our new-found freedom, many of my constituents voted to leave the European Union in order to enhance our animal welfare standards. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when we introduce new animal welfare legislation, we must ensure that we do not repeat the mistake, which my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) mentioned, of looking only at the domestic position and outsourcing poor practice to other countries? If we introduce a ban, we must ensure that we do not enable poor practice via imports.

[Justin Madders]

The hon. Member makes an important point. That should be said not just for animal welfare standards but for environmental standards and employment protections, all of which we used to have on a clear level from the EU.

Three out of four UK adults back a ban on the use of cages for breeding game birds, and a large coalition of animal welfare charities also backs a ban on cages. As I mentioned, the EU is the largest export market for UK farmers, so I hope we all agree that there is an economic case here as well as a moral one. If we are truly to call ourselves a progressive nation of animal lovers, we must phase out this outdated and cruel practice. The lack of action over the last year paints a very different picture from the commitment to keeping these reforms on the go.

The use of cages for breeding game birds should be also banned. Wider action against cages in farming should include the breeding of game birds to end cruelty and provide consistency across species. Figures from the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust show that more than 60 million non-native pheasants and partridges are released every year in the UK to be shot for sport. Many of these birds are bred in the UK using factory-style farming and raised laying cages.

Breeding birds are often kept in small wire cages for much of their breeding lives. As we have heard, those cages are incredibly small. They provide approximately 0.0011% of the space that a pheasant would typically enjoy in the wild, and 0.00004% of the space that a partridge would enjoy. We would not tolerate that for a dog or a cat, so why should we tolerate it for game birds?

Given the semi-wild nature of pheasants and partridges, the cramped conditions of the cages cause stress and injury, including painful open foot sores, exposure to extreme temperatures and injury caused by escape attempts. Aggression is also a common sign of stress in these birds, which can result in self-injury or injury to other birds. Given the conditions they are kept in, that is hardly surprising. It is also hardly surprising that most people, when told about these conditions, agree that as a nation of animal lovers we should not allow those kinds of things to happen.

I hope that we get agreement and acceptance from the Minister that this kind of treatment of any animal should be consigned to history, and that there is a clear road map and timetable for that to happen as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I join Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), who introduced the debate in a very measured way. I also thought he was very brave to mentioned Peppa Pig in his introduction. He set the scene very effectively for a debate on what is a large petition, with over 100,000 signatures. I congratulate Compassion in World Farming and others on securing such support. We know that the support is widespread across the country. I very much enjoyed addressing the rally by Compassion in World Farming outside Parliament last week. It demanded that the Government get on with ending the live export of animals. I will return to that issue.

We had a very similar debate on this issue just over two years ago in Westminster Hall. Members might reflect on whether much has changed in that time. I am sure the Minister would be keen to say that much has, but I am not sure that it has. I reflect on the very powerful contribution made by Sir David Amess that day. It was the most powerful contribution in that debate, I think. He made a plea to move things forward.

Members have noted that there have been improvements over the past few decades. We have seen the end of barren battery cages, veal cages for calves and sow stalls for pigs, but we still have a long way to go. Every year, we keep around 16 million farmed animals in cages. There are alternatives. I thought some of the points made by Government Members were very interesting. There is clearly not a settled position on the Government side on trade policy on this issue. There is absolutely no point making improvements here if we just export cruelty elsewhere. There is also no point introducing measures that our industry cannot cope with. That is why we must make changes in a sensible, measured way.

I thought the point made by the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), was powerful. These are not easy issues. There are easy slogans, but these are hard issues. Those who saw the article in The Times on Saturday will see that the current Secretary of State is perhaps at odds with other members of the Government on this. It is an ongoing discussion. There can be no solution to this problem unless we can work with others.

I will not repeat a lot of the statistics that have been mentioned about egg-laying hens. These points are probably the same ones that I and others made two years ago and which others have made today. It is interesting to see the supermarkets moving in response to consumer demand, but it is not just the retail sector that uses eggs, and not all supermarkets have come to the same conclusion.

When consumers are hard pressed, price does matter. There is no point denying that. There are extra costs, particularly at a time when we are suffering huge problems with avian flu, which has created difficulties for the sector. Earlier this afternoon, I was talking to people in the industry, who warned me that some egg producers are within weeks of having to make some big decisions. That is bad for them, but it is also bad for us, because later in the year there is a risk that we will suddenly not have a regular supply of eggs. These are complicated questions.

[Tracey Crouch]

Does the hon. Member agree that as the UK continues to be gripped by the cost of living crisis, it is really important that retailers—especially ones that pride themselves on offering less expensive food—embrace the drive to be cage-free, so that all consumers can benefit from better welfare standards?

[Daniel Zeichner]

Indeed. That goes to the heart of some of the difficult issues in the supply chains. It is also the case that the Groceries Code Adjudicator has seen more claims in recent times because of the pressure in the supply chain. We can all understand that. It goes back to some fairly basic questions about how we address rising energy prices, but that is a debate for another day. The knock-on effect through sectors like this is very real. I fear that it will be difficult for some in the supply chain. We have problems in the poultry sector, but we have also seen huge problems in the pig sector over the last year or two. The Minister and I have exchanged strong words about this many times at the Dispatch Box.

Leaving aside the issue of the cages, some of the ways in which we have had to cull healthy pigs are not great, nor are some of the conditions that pigs have had to be kept in, as they get too big for the space. There are problems throughout the sectors. We have heard about the problems with cages, and the distress that that can cause by stopping pigs engaging in out their natural behaviours, such as nesting. I have been on pig farms and must say, when I see biting behaviour, it worries me, because they are clearly intelligent animals and, sometimes, they are stressed.

The cages can lead to higher stress levels, longer farrowing durations and higher stillbirth rates. Again, I understand the arguments from the industry about why it thinks it needs those things to prevent the deaths of piglets by accidental crushing. However, I hear what other Members have said, and when I look at the evidence, it seems that there are other ways of doing it in other places, and I think that we must move on to loose-housing systems.

In passing, I would mention the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and others about the fact that other countries are moving forward on these issues. The EU’s 2027 target may be optimistic, but I think that there is sometimes a danger that Government Members that the world is standing still out there—it is not. The automatic assumption is that we will be in a better place—not necessarily. It would be sensible, I would say, to move at a similar pace, because then some of these problems could be resolved sensibly.

There are also, of course, concerns about calf pens. Although veal crates are banned, young calves can still be kept in solitary caged hutches for the first eight weeks of their lives, as soon as they have been taken away from the mother cow. The logic for that is said to be that young calves are highly susceptible to disease. I was on one of my local farms the other day and witnessed exactly that. However, again, it is pretty clear that cattle are social animals, and there is evidence that calves are more stressed and fearful when caged individually in that way so soon after birth. There is also research that shows that housing calves in pairs leads to a number of positive outcomes without compromising health or production, so there are things that can and should be done.

We have also heard that cages are not only used for animals farmed for food. The issue of the millions of pheasants and partridges that are mass-produced to be shot still raises serious issues and concerns for many of us. Our worry is that they live in so-called raised laying cages that can be left outside, exposed to the elements and to extremes of temperature, with the birds suffering from feather loss, scalping and injuries inflicted by their stressed cage mates.

The regulatory system for that seems not to be up to date. The current code of practice for the welfare of game birds reared for sporting purposes is, I am told, not legally binding, and was due to be reviewed a few years ago, but that did not take place. I am also told that the Minister has indicated, in response to parliamentary questions, that the Government are examining the use of cages for game birds, so I am sure that she will be able to confirm that. As an observation, there seems to be a lot of examining going on in the Department these days; we need action rather than examining. Will the Minister confirm that, as previously stated, DEFRA will be calling for evidence later this year as part of the investigation into the welfare of game birds?

The Opposition watch these developments with some interest. Two years ago, when we were scrutinising through the Agriculture Bill we tabled a number of amendments to increase the maximum stocking density for chickens reared in barns and to end the use of sow-farrowing crates. We did so again in the Committee that scrutinised the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill. Sadly, the Government chose not to support those amendments, but I am rather hoping that, over time, they will come round to our way of thinking. The Kept Animals Bill seems to be a little delayed, I think it is fair to say.