Animal Welfare (Kept Animals)

Craig Mackinlay Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I pay credit to the Minister, and indeed to other Members, for outlining the huge number of animal welfare measures we have taken over our period in government, so I am a little disappointed that the Labour party says that we do not care about animal welfare. I give the Labour party credit for what it achieved in its years in government, but Labour is taking us and anyone listening for fools in saying the Conservative party is not interested.

This is an Opposition day debate. It is a day for fun and for Labour Members to do what they usually do, but I will not allow them to take over the Order Paper. We saw too much of that during the Brexit trench warfare times, when Labour tried exactly that. We did have a perfectly good animal welfare Bill, but I take on board what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) said: it had become a Christmas tree upon which too many new baubles could be dangled. So we find ourselves where we are.

I was most interested in clause 40 of that Bill, which was very relevant to South Thanet because Ramsgate port—a fairly small port in the scheme of things—had become the only port in the country from which live cross-channel exports were taking place. We had to suffer this foul trade. It became a true stain on our community for far too long. I pay tribute to Kent Action Against Live Exports and particularly an activist there called Yvonne Burchall, who campaigned year in, year out to try to stop the cross-channel live animal export trade.

Matters came to an appalling head at the port on 12 September 2012, when 43 sheep died. Many had to be euthanised; others drowned—a truly awful event. Following that, Thanet District Council, the port owner, unilaterally banned the use of the port for live animal exports, and the public agreed with that; they did not want the port used for that trade. Unfortunately, the council was taken to court by three Dutch companies in 2014. The High Court ruled that the council had acted unlawfully in stopping that use of the port, and £5 million of local taxpayers’ money had to be paid out in compensation.

It was clear that the basis for the Dutch companies’ successful High Court action was single market rules; it was EU membership. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) made the point admirably that single market rules required animals to be treated not as sentient beings, but as mere goods to be traded as you please. It is funny; the Labour party, joined by the SNP, did all it could in the Brexit period to keep us in the single market.

I tried to stop live animal exports by other means. I put forward a private Member’s Bill to amend the Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847—a rather peculiar bit of legislation from the age of sail and steam, which said that any harbour had to be made available to any ship, because of the dangers in those days. That still applied, but I tried to change that so that any port owner could stop a ship, or stop a trade being conducted. It was a back-door route through which I tried to stop this trade. Obviously the Bill was not passed, but it was at least an attempt.

Brexit gave us the opportunity to take control of these matters—to decide what we, our electors, the country and Parliament want to do; and what Parliament wants to do is stop this foul cross-channel trade in live animals. I am very pleased that the trade has stopped since Brexit, but it has done so really for administrative reasons—because the Calais authorities did not want to spend a huge amount of money on new facilities where vets and others checked the animals. It is great news that, administratively, this trade cannot take place, but I say to the Minister that I want it banned legislatively, so that it cannot take place again. That is what my electors want, and it is what dear Yvonne Birchall has been fighting for all these years. I certainly hope that we can bring in the measure in some other way before the election.