Farmed Animals: Cages

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[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.

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

indicated dissent.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The Minister is shaking her head. In that case, I am sure that she can give us a good timetable. That will come as a relief to many of us. It has been carried over; let us hope that we see it soon. As has been said by many others, we need action now to bring an end to the cage age.

It is also vital that we ensure that any domestic production of animal products, produced through higher welfare, cage-free standards, is not simply undercut and replaced by imports from countries that still use lower-welfare cage systems. Any conversation with farmers at the moment leads very quickly to their concerns about being undercut in trade deals. I think we may be discussing this issue again later in the week but, to our eyes, the Government’s long-delayed national food strategy failed to include proper protections for imported food. Henry Dimbleby, the author of the Government inquiry that was set up a few years ago, said:

“Yet again the government has ducked the issue of how we don’t just import food that destroys the environment and is cruel to animals—we can’t create a good fair farming system, then export those harms abroad. I thought the government would address this but it didn’t.”

Well, perhaps the Minister can do so today.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I, too, thank the Petitions Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), and all the people who signed the petition and enabled us to debate this important subject.

I agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) that these are not easy issues to resolve. I think everybody in this room shares the goal of working to improve animal welfare, but we also live in a world where we are conscious that such improvements may increase the price of production of our food. I am committed, as are the Government, to working with producers and the food sector to raise standards across the board, and it is important that we set my remarks in that context.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South introduced the debate very well by emphasising that we need to work with, not against, the farming industry. I hope that my remarks will give him some reassurance on that. My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) called for honesty in the debate, which is critical. Many of us do not really know what we are eating or where it comes from, and nobody could have lobbied me more heavily than he did on behalf of chickens during the winter. There is nothing about his now sadly demised flock of chickens that I do not know, and I am sorry that they spent their final winter housed because of avian influenza.

I reassure my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) that improved animal health and welfare is integrated into all our farming schemes. There is very good news—I would be delighted to discuss it with her in greater detail—on the vet visits that are being rolled out next year, which will specifically target cattle, sheep and pigs. Those will be a good way to provide farmers and vets with a safe space to have a discussion that is not reported to me or the Department afterwards, and they will lead to some really sensible and long-term improvements in the health of the national flock.

I reassure the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) that animal welfare is right up the agenda when it comes to forging trade deals. I think everyone in this Chamber is of one mind that animal welfare is important and needs to be improved. Most of us are also aware that this is an extremely challenging time for Britain’s farmers, with enormously increased input costs—of food, fuel and fertiliser—affecting almost all production systems to a greater or lesser extent.

The UK has a strong record of banning battery cages for laying hens, sow stalls for pigs and veal crates for calves. What have the Government been doing in recent years? The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 was given Royal Assent in April, and provides legal recognition that animals are sentient, and that general Government decision making should continue to reflect that sentience. The Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021 increased the maximum sentence for the worst animal cruelty offences from six months to five years in England and Wales. The Animals (Penalty Notices) Act 2022 will, I hope, support transparent enforcement and encourage good behaviours in husbandry generally.

I reassure everyone here that the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill remains a priority for the Government. As soon as the business managers can find us time in a busy parliamentary schedule, we expect a date on which we will debate the Bill on Report. That Bill will, alongside other measures, deal with the issue of excessively long journeys for slaughter and fattening. As I have discussed with Members in the Chamber whose names I will not mention for fear of giving their age away, many of us have been committed to campaigning to end animal exports since we watched those pictures on “Blue Peter” as children.

I am pleased to say that moving away from cages is the direction of travel for the egg industry, so 60% of our hens are now kept in free-range systems. Supermarkets are playing their part, with the major supermarkets pledging to stop selling eggs from the remaining 40% of hens in colony cages by 2025. Some supermarkets and other retailers have gone further to extend that pledge to include processed products; that is to be welcomed.

So what is the plan? We are almost ready to go with a consultation on the caging of laying hens, but we must recognise that the transition must be done with, rather than against, the industry. As we move away from cages, we need to continue to work with the industry on improving feather cover and keel bone health, and reducing the amount of beak trimming that is done. The challenges for the sector in recent times—covid, staffing and, of course, the largest ever avian influenza outbreak—have been significant, but we will continue to take steps forward.

Broiler chickens perhaps do not fall quite so neatly into this debate, but they comprise a significant proportion of the animals reared in this country, so it is important to recognise that almost all of them—nearly 95%—are reared in barns, in confinement. Although we have better stocking densities than much of the EU, there is a great deal more to do in this area, some of which I will set out later.

As the hon. Member for Cambridge acknowledged, it has been an extremely difficult year for pig farmers. When we look at welfare in global pig systems, some 40% of our pigs are kept outdoors, so those sows have outdoor farrowing systems. The pig sector also gives us the clearest evidence of what happens when we ban a system without having a plan to help the industry through it. The ban on sow stalls 23 years ago led to a 40% decline in the UK’s pig production statistics, which, truthfully, we have never recovered from.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) put this point extremely clearly: we must not offshore our animal welfare harms, because that would do the pig world as a whole no good at all. There are difficulties—we are bound by World Trade Organisation rules, of course—but active work is being done to establish how, if we banned a system here, we could ban imports from that system. We are working hard on that, but these things are not easy.

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

It would be much easier if we had honesty in food labelling, because then at least as consumers we can make a choice.

[Victoria Prentis]

I will get to that point.

Our consultation on pig farrowing crates is not quite ready, particularly the impact assessment on costs, and this is an industry that has really struggled over the past year. The consultation is still being worked on and clearly further work is needed. I am very much in touch with the pig industry, as we come through what has been a very difficult period. We continue to work collectively to try to solve its problems. We are also in the middle of a serious supply chain review, looking at how contracts could be made to work better for the industry as a whole.

In order to raise standards, it is important that we have other tools at our disposal; it is not just about banning systems. I very much refute the allegation that no action has been taken over the past two years. It is important that we put this in context, because probably not since the last major period of rationing have a Government been so involved in ensuring that the food supply system remained operational, and that good-quality food was available on the shelves. I absolutely refute the suggestion that nothing has been done.

Our action plan for animal welfare was published in May last year, when we committed to working with the farming sector to support higher welfare conditions. The animal health and welfare pathway is being used to raise standards all the time, not just through banning things, but through a three-pronged attack. It states that financial rewards will be available for farmers who use higher welfare systems. It also sets out a plan for stimulating market demand—that is the labelling point—and, working hand in hand with that, for strengthening the regulatory baseline.

On pigs specifically, through the animal health and welfare pathway we will continue to improve biosecurity in order to control endemic diseases, and of course the vet visits will help in that area.

On meat chickens, through the pathway we are encouraging producers to implement the Better Chicken commitment, which requires the use of slower growing breeds and lower stocking densities. Only 5% of chickens are produced to higher standards. Frankly, we all need to interrogate where our meat comes from.

Labelling obviously plays an important part in enabling consumers to interrogate where our meat comes from, and we know that it works to stimulate market demand for higher welfare products, as we have seen with shell eggs. We have issued a call for evidence on animal welfare labelling, and last week affirmed our commitment to working on this issue in the food strategy. The food data transparency partnership will help, because the way we work with retailers is critical to changing their behaviours and forcing change from the consumer end up.

In conclusion, the Government are committed to phasing out confinement systems and supporting the industry to do so, not least to underpin UK food security. However, we need to work carefully and sensitively with the pig and poultry industries, which are both struggling with some difficult input costs and other challenges at the moment.