Animal Welfare Strategy for England Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Edward Morello
Main Page: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)Department Debates - View all Edward Morello's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Animal Welfare Strategy for England
Edward Morello Excerpts(1 day, 10 hours ago)
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Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance this morning, Ms Lewell. I pay tribute to all the speakers, including those who have come here with much to say but have not managed to get in in this debate. I feel for them— I have been there. I offer a massive thank you to the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett) who led the debate with real distinction and great passion. She made an important series of points, many of them followed up with her own examples.
How we treat animals is an indicator of whether we can even call ourselves a civilised or humane society. Overall in the UK I think we treat animals relatively well. We are a nation of animal lovers. That is what we call ourselves and mostly that is true. Some 84% of us, for example, consider animal welfare when we act as consumers and buy food. Animals are sentient, but they do not have agency, although I can neither confirm nor deny that the size of our majority in Westmorland is down to the fact that we extended the franchise to certain woolly residents. Herdwicks are, after all, rugged individualists and are thus part of the core Liberal vote.
But animals do not get to decide how humane we are. That is for us to choose. We can choose to protect the culture and practices of how we care for wildlife, pets and livestock and not, for example, undermine those practices by undercutting our ethical British farmers with products from overseas produced in less than humane conditions.
The Government are doing some things right—it is important to acknowledge that. They are choosing to ban cages for laying hens and farrowing crates for pigs by 2032, but the strategy fails to adequately consider domestic food security and competitiveness, which are crucial to maintaining and extending our strong animal welfare culture in the UK.
If the Government propose raising domestic animal welfare standards further, which they rightly do, they must also take steps to ensure consumers are protected from imported food products that can be produced to lower standards. British farmers should not be asked to compete with imports produced at those lower standards, which would be illegal if they were produced here in the UK, and yet they are being asked to do so.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
We have seen reports about the US suspending the technology prosperity deal with the UK in an effort to force the Government to accept lower-standard imports in order to secure a trade deal with the US. Does my hon. Friend agree that these bully-boy tactics by the Trump Administration should not be kowtowed to, and we should not accept lower standards in return for a trade deal with the US?