Import and Sale of Fur

Debate between Giles Watling and Maria Miller

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Giles Watling]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. He is absolutely right: it does not matter where these skins come from, we should take it very seriously and consider legislating heavily against it.

Could fur production be made humane? The simple and truthful answer is “no”, because the fur trade’s economic model remains completely reliant on battery cages. There is no humane alternative to the fur trade’s model of intensive confinement. When the Governments of Germany and Sweden brought in laws requiring that foxes be given digging substrate and, in Germany, that minks be provided with swimming water, the respective segments of the industry in those countries closed down, as it was no longer economically viable to meet the requirements of those sensible laws.

It is not only animal protection organisations, such as the HSI and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, that are calling time on the fur trade. The former CEO of the British Fur Trade Association, Mike Moser, who was mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome), resigned after 10 years defending the fur trade. In September 2020, he publicly pledged his support for the Fur Free Britain campaign to ban fur sales in the UK. It is worth reading his statement again:

“Over time I realised that whatever soundbites we devised to reassure consumers, retailers and politicians, neither welfare regulations nor any industry certification scheme, would ever change the reality of these animals being stuck in tiny wire cages for their entire lives.”

That is a good point, well made. An estimated 95% of fur traded—the majority—is from animals kept on fur farms.

Let us move on to wild animals. Wild animals trapped for their fur suffer different but similarly awful plights. In countries including the USA and Canada, such animals are frequently caught cruel leg-hold traps that have been banned in the UK since the 1950s. Animals such as coyotes and racoons can suffer for days in those traps before they eventually succumb to the elements or dehydration or are killed. Horrifically, it is not uncommon for animals to rip or chew off limbs in a bid to escape. Such suffering is impossible to imagine, all for the purpose of a sentient creature ending up as the trim on a jacket hood or fur cap.

The case against the cruelty of the fur trade is straightforward. Less commonly understood, perhaps, is that fur farms can act as a reservoir for viruses and present a risk to public health, as the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) mentioned earlier. More than 480 fur farms across Europe and north America have been affected by outbreaks of covid-19 over the past three years, with six countries confirming spillover events from fur farms back to humans. Some 20 million animals were culled to protect public health, but mink farming continues in several countries across Europe and beyond.

An outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza on a mink farm in Spain last autumn further raised pandemic fears, with virologists from Imperial College, London, writing that it is “incredibly concerning” and “a warning bell” for humanity. A recent statement by the World Organisation for Animal Health warns:

“Some animals, such as mink, may act as mixing vessels for different influenza viruses, leading to the emergence of new strains and subtypes that could be more harmful to animals and/or humans. Recently reported infections in farmed mink are a concern, because infections of large numbers of mammals kept in close proximity of each other exacerbate this risk.”

By importing animal fur, we are importing cruelty, and we are facilitating a trade that could very well be the source of the next pandemic.

Lastly, let me outline briefly a final, compelling reason for the Government to act to end the UK fur trade: its sizeable environmental footprint. A new report published by Humane Society International has found that among the eight materials considered, fur from minks, foxes and racoon dogs had the highest air emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and water pollution per kilogram. The carbon footprint of 1 kg of mink fur was found to be 31 times higher than that of 1 kg of cotton, and the water consumption in fur production was found to be five times higher than that for cotton, with a kilogram of fur requiring a staggering 29,130 litres of water. The fur trade is bad news for animals, bad news for human health and bad news for the environment. An import ban, as they say in the vernacular, is a no-brainer.

[Dame Maria Miller (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to take part in the debate.