Draft Animal Welfare (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

David Drew Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 General Committees

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. As always, I thank the Minister for his remarks.

I will start with the usual caveat. At one level, this is one of those Committees where we are merely nodding through something that may, in due course, become just a series of technical changes. However, this SI includes live exports, the pre-stunning of animals, journey times and other things that—if my postbag is anything to go by—people care passionately about in their own right, so we are nodding through something very important.

The Minister will come back with the usual proviso that the Government are not making any changes to the legislation—I will come on later to people who wish that the Government had made some changes to the legislation, particularly given their commitments to issues such as the banning of live exports—but as the Opposition, we have to do our best to ensure that what is passed is fit for purpose and gives us confidence that the situation will not change for the worse.

We are considering some difficult issues; I will mainly refer to what different groups have said about the regulations. When the Minister responds, it would be helpful for him to put on the record at an early stage where the Government are on their policy of banning live exports. They campaigned on the issue, and many Conservative MPs strongly support it, as stated in the 2017 manifesto, but there has been a rolling-back of the belief that it can be easily done.

We have not really touched on the difficulty that the different territorial Administrations have different views about the issue. For example, the Scottish Government feel that it should not be interfered with, because live exports into England, Northern Ireland and the south of Ireland are important for Scotland. We have to make sure, however, that when we pass the measure, at least the people responsible for undertaking those activities know exactly what the law says, and that the law is being enforced.

We as a Parliament have made many statements about how we want to ensure that journey times are kept to a minimum, and that animals are properly fed and watered—that word “lairage” appears—so they are taken out when appropriate and allowed to stretch their legs. It is the case that we cannot then control what happens in the EU, but we certainly must control what happens in the UK, so it is important that we get the regulations right.

As the Minister rightly said—hon. Members will be pleased to know that I will not say much about it—the statutory instrument refers to the regime for slaughterers’ certificates of competence. It sounds straightforward, but I ask the Minister which body will oversee that in the UK, because it will obviously have to comment on the suitability of other nationalities to do the type of work that they will be doing, which will depend on their qualifications in their own countries. We are losing the commonality of the EU, which was one of its great advantages, and which meant that there was at least some standardisation of qualifications.

As an introductory point, it is also worth noting the issue of third-country health certificates. Unless I am wrong, the draft regulations will permit meat produced in EU member states and in the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland to be accepted without a third-country health certificate. I would be interested to know whether such a certificate will be required of those countries with which we intend to sign trade deals, because there needs to be some consistency in what we put in place with countries that we deal with as members of the EU and those with which we would normally expect some form of import and export relationship. If and when such trade deals are passed in due course, depending on what happens on 29 March, will DEFRA have a say over the third-country health certificates?

I will not rehearse the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South about cost, but it would be interesting to know to what extent DEFRA has factored in the additional environmental impact and who will pay for it. Those costs will include collecting data, monitoring the effectiveness of the regulations and reporting regularly. We will lose access to the TRACES—trade control and expert system—database, which presumably we had particular access to in regard to such activities, so it would be interesting to know how far DEFRA has got in finding an alternative, running it and ensuring that it actually works.

No doubt the Minister has considered input from stakeholders, as I have. I make my usual declaration that I am an associate of the British Veterinary Association, which is reasonably happy with the draft regulations, bar the issue of certificates of competence. It is important that it be clearly spelled out how those certificates will operate, because—as I have said on numerous occasions—95% of our vets on the line in abattoirs come from outside the UK, and most of them come from within the EU. Without a vet on the line, it has to shut down. It would be interesting to know how the system will operate, at least in the short run; if we do not get it right in the short run, it will not work in the longer run. It would be useful if the Minister explained exactly how the one thing links into the other.

[Luke Pollard]

I have been reflecting on the Minister’s remarks about the number of people affected. I wonder whether it would be helpful for the Committee to be given the geographical breakdown of those figures, so that we know which regions of our country will be most affected by these changes and whether any of them are in the south-west, which my hon. Friend and I represent. That would help us to understand the impact on our regional economies as a result of the additional regulatory burdens for people continuing to do their job.

[Dr Drew]

That would certainly be very helpful. There are three abattoirs in my constituency; I could not say how many of them are personed by EU vets, but I know that that is common across the terrain, so I imagine that they are.

Compassion in World Farming sees the draft regulations as a missed opportunity. It would like the Government to go much further on tightening up pre-stunning, live exports, movements and other matters that we have discussed. It would be interesting to know by what process we will ensure that if and when we leave the EU, what we do in this country—hopefully we will at least maintain the same standards—will happen in the rest of the EU. One would not want to see any diminution of standards here, but if animals are being exported into the EU, clearly we need to ensure that standards there remain the same. It would be useful to hear from the Minister how we will continue negotiating with our colleagues—or, after March, our former colleagues—to ensure that standards do not decline anywhere. We pride ourselves on our approach to animal welfare; that is one of our arguments for not signing free trade deals with certain parts of the world.

CIWF has also looked quite hard at some of the slaughtering methods. It is not happy with the current methodology for pigs, sheep or broiler chickens, which it felt should have been tightened up. It is not necessarily about just the method of slaughter, but the mechanism behind it. I have the figures here. A recent survey by the Food Standards Agency reports that in England and Wales 86% of pigs are slaughtered with high concentrations of carbon dioxide. CIWF argues that that is incredibly environmentally damaging, and something that should gradually be run down and replaced. It will be interesting to see whether the Government have that as part of their agenda. Likewise, the non-stunning of sheep is a problem that we have never really got into, because of the normal arguments about halal and shechita methods of slaughter—sheep tend to have been left out of that.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is disappointed that this SI does not go further, certainly in terms of managing live exports. It has asked, what happens in terms of additional border inspections posts? I have asked the Minister that on previous occasions. We have to be aware that at the very least, as an independent nation, we will have to have more independent border inspection posts. It will be interesting to see what contingencies the Government put in place to ensure that that is the case. If the exports go through even the existing ports, such as Dover, we will need to do more checking.

The Dogs Trust—interestingly—said that it did not have time to respond, because the consultation period was so short, but it is a pretty important organisation. It is worried about the transport of adult dogs. I had not realised how many dogs get picked up, literally because the method of transport is so poor that they are seized as part of that transit. The Dogs Trust regularly rehouses adult dogs and puppies that are taken in that way. It felt that this was an opportunity to look at the way in which we transport these animals, and to raise awareness about the diseases that animals can acquire. I am told that leishmaniasis and babesiosis are both rife among puppies—something which the Dogs Trust has to deal with when rehoming those animals. What mechanisms are the Government putting in place to try to bear down on disease, when things are clearly not right at the moment?

I think this is a missed opportunity. Although SIs are coming round with such regularity that none of us knows what we are doing, but we do the best we can, there are some reasons why we should set a standard—not necessarily a gold standard—at which we can feel confident that our animal welfare is the best in the world. If we are saying that we will not diminish that, we have to be confident that it is the best in the world, so when and if we sign these wonderful trade deals, we have to set that as the standard. If other countries cannot meet those standards, we cannot sign the deals.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that if we reduce our standards in any way, we will potentially cut off trade with the entire European Union? Furthermore, does he agree that any delays at the border, as we have seen this week, could be hugely detrimental to animal welfare and could actually increase the incidence of disease outbreaks?

[Dr Drew]

I agree, and that is why I am saying that we have to ensure that our standards not only stay high, but get higher. Therefore, we will find, hopefully, that countries that we trade with will want to reach those standards.

In conclusion, this is another piece of legislation that, at one level, is nothing other than the usual cut-and-paste job. However, it covers a number of hugely controversial areas, and if we do not get this right, we will have missed an opportunity. More particularly, if we get it wrong, we will all come to rue the day when we sat in this very interesting room—not one that I have been in before, but one that is no doubt fit for purpose, as we have seen today.

[David Rutley]

I thank the hon. Member for Stroud for—as always—his thoughtful contributions on a number of issues, and I will do all I can to address his points. There may be one or two issues on which I will need to get back to him in writing after this meeting; I hope he will understand, given everything we are trying to deal with today.

[Dr Drew]

I am still waiting for some written bits.

[David Rutley]

Again, I will pick that up afterwards, but I understand.

The hon. Gentleman’s first question, which has come up several times, is why we are not doing more within this SI. It is important for me to say at the beginning that under the withdrawal Act, we do not have the power to make changes to the current legal regime for live exports, welfare at slaughter, journey times, and the other things we have talked about. This SI is not the place to make those changes. However, the hon. Gentleman regularly holds my feet—and those of other Ministers—to the fire on those topics, and he is aware that we have made commitments to bring about changes and are absolutely committed to moving those things forward.

The Government’s manifesto made it clear that we will take early steps to control the export of live animals for slaughter once we leave the European Union. Last year, we sought evidence on how we could achieve that, including through a possible ban. We are currently awaiting advice on that issue from the Farm Animal Welfare Committee, as well as its advice on how we can improve welfare more generally for animals in transport. That advice will be available shortly, and will address both live exports and the transport issues that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.

The hon. Gentleman raised the question of which body will authorise the slaughter certificates: the Food Standards Agency will continue to do so post exit. He also understandably raised issues about slaughter, particularly religious slaughter. He and I were both at the BVA’s annual dinner recently—at which he was a welcome guest, given his contribution to that organisation—and he will remember that at that dinner, I was clear that the Government’s long-standing position is that we would prefer to see animals stunned before they are slaughtered. We accept the right of Jewish and Muslim communities to eat meat slaughtered in accordance with their religious beliefs; however, the Government believe that consumers should have available the information necessary to make an informed choice about their food. We will consider that issue more fully, and actively work on it, once we have left the EU.

[Dr Drew]

Given that so much halal meat, in particular, is exported—it is an important export trade—what additional requirements does that put on the Government to make sure that they effectively deal with this issue?

[David Rutley]

Clearly, we will need to assess the whole issue of food labelling more fully once we leave. The hon. Gentleman knows that we are already working on allergens, which are an important dimension. While we are in the EU, we are limited in what we can do, but when we have left, we can look at this issue in the round. This is not just about religious slaughter, although that is one key dimension, or the method of slaughter, which could include CO₂ concentrations; we need to think more broadly about sustainability and the welfare standards that are involved. All of those things will be reviewed fully once we have left the EU. The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of CO₂ concentrations as a method of slaughtering pigs. We are aware of that issue; we will focus on it, and trials are underway on potential alternatives, such as low atmospheric pressure stunning.

I will try to answer some of the hon. Gentleman’s more detailed questions. He asked about the geographic split of slaughterers who might be affected, prompted, I think, by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport—they were an amazing double act today. Unfortunately, at the moment, we do not have a breakdown of that concentration, but I will take a closer look at what information we might be able to provide to the hon. Member for Stroud.