Animal Welfare in Farming

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I commend the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) for setting the scene so well. He mentioned some graphic things that get under many people’s skin. I declare an interest as a member of the Ulster Farmers’ Union, although we do not farm the land any more—the neighbours do that for us.

To illustrate the matter, I will say what my neighbours do in relation to it. The people I know who farm close to me—and many others too; it is not exclusive to where I live—love their animals. They have a commitment to their beef and dairy cattle and to their sheep. Last year, or perhaps the year before, they got a robotic dairy. For those who do not know what that means—I did not really know until I visited—the cattle are much calmer and they have access to food every time they want it.

Usually when you walk through a field of cattle, they scatter in all directions. I walked into those cattle along with the boys who own the farm and the cattle did not even budge out of the road. There was music going in the background as well—I cannot remember whether it was Tchaikovsky, Elvis Presley or whatever—and the cattle seemed incredibly calm. Was that their choice of music? I am not sure that they had any input into that, but they were the best looked-after cattle that I have seen for some time. The farmers that I see strive hard to do it right. I know the hon. Gentleman recognises that, but others do not, so it is important to say it.

I want to comment on the dreadful Windsor framework. Issues arose recently and the Ulster Farmers’ Union expressed serious concerns about the implications of the recently announced UK-US trade agreement. In other words: we keep the standards and do things right, but then they are going to produce some stuff in the USA where they do not have the same standards that we have. There will be a serious impact on our livestock and high standards. The Ulster Farmers’ Union president, William Irvine, said

“This is not a traditional free trade agreement and we recognise that it is an early-stage framework. But the fact remains—UK agriculture, including sensitive sectors like beef and cereals, is again being asked to shoulder the burden of securing trade wins for steel, aluminium and cars. That sets a worrying precedent.”

It also sets a worrying precedent for our standards, which I am very concerned about, but unfortunately I do not have the time that it needs to go into it.

US beef is produced on a scale and in a system that gives it a cost advantage. If the UK Government open the door further, we must be ready to protect our standards to ensure a level playing field. On the bioethanol element of the deal, Mr Irvine said that the Ulster Farmers’ Union will be seeking urgent clarity from the Government on the expected impact on Northern Ireland’s arable sector. In a conversation before the debate started, my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) referred to bovine TB.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Bovine TB across the UK is not just a farming issue, but an animal welfare one, and is causing a financial crisis. Thousands of healthy cattle are being culled and wildlife remains trapped in a vicious cycle of infection. The cost to the public purse in Northern Ireland is now sitting at £60 million a year. In England, there has been a science-led approach. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Northern Ireland Agriculture Minister needs to engage with England and do exactly as has been done here, with a wildlife intervention project that culls badgers, so that we improve animal health and protect our wildlife?

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend is wise in her intervention. In fairness to the Minister, he regularly visits Northern Ireland. We have had been fortunate to have him twice at Colin McKee’s in my constituency, because he loves the scones and the coffee. He also loves seeing how a farmer can look after his animals better than others. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the issue of bovine TB, and perhaps the Minister could tell us if he has had engagements, correspondence and discussions with the relevant Minister in Northern Ireland.

The Ulster Farmers’ Union is calling for the UK Government to provide greater transparency about how sensitive sectors will be protected in future. It is important to get that right. Northern Ireland farmers are proud to produce food to world-leading high standards of animal welfare, traceability and environmental care, but those standards must be reflected in trade deals. We should not be held to an example of European overreach. The effect of the US trade deal may be another example of how the special circumstances in Northern Ireland are especially difficult rather than especially beneficial.

There must be standards in place for animal welfare, and we must remove the EU overreach and have UK-wide standards. I ask the Minister to take that back to the Cabinet. We must all do better to support farmers in the same way throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I believe the Minister does that and I look forward to his response.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir John. I congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) on securing this important debate. I also congratulate all those who have contributed to what has been a thoughtful debate.

We are a nation of animal lovers, as has been made very clear to me since I became an Environment Minister. As Members would expect, animal welfare issues consistently form a significant proportion of the correspondence that comes across my desk. I want to start by saying a bit about people, because I have “food security” in my job title, and I take it very seriously. I am very proud of the people across our country who, at this very moment, whether on land or at sea, are producing the food that we absolutely expect to be available. It is an extraordinarily complicated and sophisticated system; of course it can be improved, and we have heard suggestions for improvement, but it is important that we register just how extraordinary the food system already is. When there are transgressions—it occasionally happens that people in this place transgress—we should not see people as guilty by association. We should celebrate the success of the system, as well as the challenges.

We are rightly proud that this country’s animal welfare standards are very high; in fact, they are one of the selling points of our agricultural sector. They are greatly valued by consumers at home and are part of our sales pitch to people abroad. We want to build on and maintain our world-leading record on animal health and welfare, and we are absolutely committed to ensuring that animals receive the care, respect and protection they deserve.

The Labour party has a proud history of improving animal welfare. Next year will mark 20 years since the previous Labour Government introduced the landmark Animal Welfare Act 2006, which still represents the most fundamental change to our animal welfare law in nearly a century.

All farm animals are protected by comprehensive and robust animal health and welfare legislation. The Animal Welfare Act makes it an offence to either cause any captive animal unnecessary suffering or to fail to provide for the welfare needs of the animal. The Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations 2007 set down detailed requirements on how farmed livestock should be kept. There is also legislation that sets out specific conditions that need to be met for permitted procedures, such as tail docking, to be performed on certain species of animals.

In addition to farm animal welfare legislation, my Department has a series of statutory species-specific welfare codes, such as the code of practice for the welfare of meat chickens, which farmers are required by law to have access to and be familiar with. That encourages high standards of husbandry. As we have heard, we want to do better, and I absolutely understand that the keeping of farm animals in cages and close confinement systems is a topic that has exercised many of us over many years in this place. It is one that I absolutely assure hon. Members is currently receiving my very careful attention.

I am well aware of recent and long-running campaigns that have urged the Government to publish consultations on phasing out the use of enriched colony cages for laying hens and farrowing crates for pigs. Many Members have spoken passionately about that. I am sure Members are aware that the Petitions Committee has selected a recent e-petition on the use of cages and crates for debate, and many of us will be back here in a couple of weeks’ time to discuss those issues.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) raised a series of points around those issues. She also raised the culling of male chickens. I followed that subject very closely. Clearly, the technology, as she rightly pointed out, now allows chicks to be sexed within the egg. We very much welcome the UK egg industry’s interest in the development of day zero sexing technology. This is one of the areas on which we can move forward.

I also want to address the points on trade, because that has been one of the key themes in this debate. It is very topical and there is a lot going on in the world. Ending the use of these systems is an issue that our European trading partners are also carefully considering. We heard a number of interventions, including from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake)—she and I have debated these issues on many occasions over the years.

I was also delighted to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer), who is a genuine friend. She raised a particular issue around decapod culling. My Department is talking to both the industry and relevant animal welfare non-governmental organisations on potential non-statutory guidance on which methods of killing decapods are or are not in line with the existing welfare at time of killing legal requirements. I hope she will find that encouraging.

As a number of Members have pointed out, with any change to our farming systems we need to evaluate the implications for trade. When considering welfare standards at home, it is crucial that we consider the potential for unintentionally replacing UK production with lower welfare production overseas—that point was well made by my near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling). Replacing a UK egg with an imported caged egg would be not only bad for the consumer and bad for the producers, but bad for animal welfare as well.

These are complicated questions. I am not going to go into the fine detail of all the trade points, but I will make a few observations. We have been absolutely clear as a Government that we will use our trade strategy to promote the highest food production standards. We are determined to prevent farmers from being undercut by low welfare and low standards in trade deals. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) and the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson) all raised those points. I will say a little about some of the recent trade deals with the United States, India and, of course, the European Union, which I think are to be celebrated, frankly.

The United States deal does not change our own sanitary and phytosanitary regime. This—and any future agreement—only concerns US food products that have existing access to the UK market. We are absolutely committed to our high welfare standards and high consumer standards. I assure colleagues that chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef will remain illegal in the United Kingdom.

On the EU agreement, the European Union has accepted that there will need to be a number of areas where we need to retain our own rules. It is still subject to negotiation, but we have been absolutely clear about the importance of being able to set high animal welfare standards, support public health and use innovative technologies. The shadow Minister raised the issue of precision breeding. We have clearly been closely involved in that debate over a long time. I am determined to ensure that we protect our position.

On factory farming in general, I do not agree with some of the comments about large-scale production. The key issue is not size but ensuring that every farm complies with comprehensive UK law on animal health and welfare, planning, veterinary medicines and environmental legislation. Stockmanship and high husbandry standards are the key to ensuring appropriate welfare standards for all farmed animals. I appreciate the nervousness about large farms, but I have seen less than wonderful standards of biosecurity on smaller farms—although that has not always been the fault of the people involved. I do not think the issue is size; it is quality, and the ability of that business to carry out its work in a correct and safe way.

On the animal health and welfare pathway, I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Member for Epping Forest and his colleagues in the previous Parliament on this important point. Improving animal health underpins the welfare of farmed animals, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, slows the rise of antimicrobial resistance, better protects farmers and the public against the economic impact of disease, and helps to demonstrate a commitment to rising standards of animal health and welfare to our current and future trading partners across the world. It is really important, and we are good at it—we should be proud and celebrate it.

The pathway aims to promote the production of healthier, higher-welfare animals at a level beyond compliance with regulations, and to deliver sustained improvements over time, which address the challenges of the future as well as those of today.

[Carla Lockhart]

The Minister will be aware that access to veterinary medicines is key for animal welfare. He will know that Northern Ireland continues to face a cliff edge with regards to access to veterinary medicines. Will he commit to update hon. Members interested in this issue quickly, given its impact on the industry?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I assure the hon. Lady that we are very aware of that issue. I can also assure her in passing that I have regular dialogue with Minister Muir on the issues she raised.

I would like to say something about the funding that has been made available to help farmers. In early 2025, we announced £16.7 million of funding for a new round of animal health and welfare grants delivered through the farming equipment and technology fund. Applications are currently open, with livestock farmers able to apply for funding towards the cost of equipment and technology that delivers benefits for animal health and welfare.

On the poor behaviour that has been referenced, like all of us I have been shocked by some of the things we have seen. I listened closely to my near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy). He is absolutely right that such unacceptable behaviour must be taken extremely seriously. It is imperative that any suspicion of animal cruelty is reported to DEFRA’s Animal and Plant Health Agency as quickly as possible, so that timely investigations can take place and the welfare of animals safeguarded. I am told that there can be a gap between some of these incidents and the reporting, which makes it difficult to move forward.

More generally on enforcement, the Animal and Plant Health Agency inspectors and local authorities conduct inspections on farms to check that animal welfare standards are being met. The vast majority of owners and keepers both comply with their duty of care and follow the law, but there are occasions when some fail to do so. It is absolutely the responsibility of enforcement authorities to use appropriate enforcement tools to ensure that the law is upheld, to protect animals and people and to encourage animal keepers to be compliant now and in future. To ensure that we have a transparent enforcement regime, we are actively working with enforcement authorities to reform the way they collect and publish data of on-farm enforcement activities and the actions they take to support compliance and act on non-compliance.

I am aware of your strictures on time, Sir John, so I will finish by saying a little about the important points made by a number of hon. Members about labelling: my hon. Friends the Members for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) and for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan), and the shadow spokesperson, the hon. Member for Epping Forest. We are looking at labelling extremely closely. There are so many things that people want to know about, and I am talking to a whole range of stakeholders about how we can get the issue right and take it forward. The points that have been made are very important. There is a real opportunity to improve the welfare side, but there are many other things we can do with it as well.

I am also mindful of the points made about some of the farm assurance schemes. I think they are an extremely important tool and lever, but they are, of course, independent—and that is part of their strength and importance. We need to make sure that we can achieve, with them, the kind of improvements that we wish to see. I reassure the shadow spokesperson that £208 million has been made available to the National Biosecurity Centre; I am sure he would join me in being pleased to hear that. I also assure him that we are working very hard to ensure that the future is secure.

Let me conclude by saying that the Government were elected on a mandate to introduce the most ambitious plans in a generation to improve animal welfare, and that is exactly what we are going to do. Our farm animal welfare policy is backed by robust science and evidence, and supported and shaped by input from expert advice groups, including the Animal Welfare Committee, as well as funded research and development. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is currently undertaking a series of meetings with key stakeholders as part of developing an overarching approach to animal welfare. I very much look forward to coming back to talk to hon. Members in more detail about that in due course.