Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Bill

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 14th March 2024 Grand Committee

I urge my noble friend the Minister to agree to the reviews set out in Amendment 2 on the impact of the import of livestock, and to the review requested in Amendment 3 of the impact of EU trade balance between Great Britain and the EU in relation to livestock. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 4 but first I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for her remarks. I very strongly support her amendment and the amendment that will be spoken to in a moment or two.

The only interest I have to declare is that I was born and reared on a small organic farm. It is so long ago that the word “organic” was not used and had not even been thought of, but it was an organic farm. I brought many little piglets into the world, being left to look after many sows in their own homes. They got out every day and had a lovely life, and I would very often accompany my favourite to the local abattoir —and it was local—so I am not speaking on this because I do not accept that animals have to be killed. In fact, I would not be here if my family had not been able to sell animals and so on, so I am very keen to see this from a real welfare point of view.

I tabled my amendment because I simply do not accept what is going to happen—we will talk about it later—with Northern Ireland being left out. That could be avoided, but if it cannot, then at the very least His Majesty’s Government need to look over a short period of time—I have said 12 months but it could be less—at the effects of the trade situation between Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the European Union. It is really important to point out that the trade at the moment, as many Members said at Second Reading, is going from Northern Ireland. Yes, of course a lot of it is staying in the Republic of Ireland, but we really have no idea just where the 17,000 pigs, 3,500 cattle and 337,000 sheep that crossed the border ended up. We now know that that will continue.

I thank the Minister, because he has engaged with me and written a very interesting letter, which I got yesterday, which explains again in great detail why Northern Ireland cannot be included. However, although the reality is that the animals that go from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will have to stay for a period of time before they can be moved on, what is happening to the animals already being moved that are in Northern Ireland and are going to go over? There is no idea whatever in Defra or DAERA, whichever is responsible, about where those animals will end up. Very often, they will end up, as the noble Baroness said, going down to the south of Ireland—a long journey—and then across to France, another long journey. Many of them will probably then go on to even worse conditions in north Africa.

I want this amendment to be put in. I genuinely cannot understand why the Minister cannot accept all three amendments. They seem perfectly sensible and perfectly common sense about how we look to the future when the Bill becomes an Act. Then we can say, “We are going to look at this and see what is happening”.

I have one final question for the Minister: how are we going to monitor this? Does he personally care about what is happening to those animals leaving Northern Ireland? How will the department monitor it, and how can we ensure that the welfare of those animals will be protected when we are washing our hands of part of the United Kingdom in this law as we put it through?

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 5, which aims to support the farming community. At Second Reading, Members recorded that the NFU was not overwhelmingly in favour of the Bill. There were several reasons for this. First, there was concern about the importation of animals that were not raised to the same animal welfare standards as those which pertain in the UK. This argument has been raised many times since Brexit, particularly in relation to the various trade agreements the Government have entered into and are entering into with countries outside Europe. This is an extremely valid issue and although various Ministers have given reassurances from the Dispatch Box, they have not satisfied the farming community.

Secondly, there is the financial impact. Although I fully support the Bill’s aims, we cannot get away from the fact that the export of live animals for fattening and slaughter was a considerable part of some farmers’ income. The NFU estimates that, in 2022, the UK exported a total value of £751 million-worth of live animals. Farmers are concerned that imports of New Zealand and Australian lamb during the British peak season will reduce the domestic demand and price for their animals.

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Moved by

[Baroness Hoey]

7: Clause 7, page 5, line 17, leave out subsection (1)
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would remove the extent provisions from the Bill to probe the implications of the current extent provisions for Northern Ireland.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, Amendment 7 is the only way that the Bill Office was able to agree that I could raise some probing issues about the implications of the current extent of provision to Northern Ireland. Noble Lords will know that, in the other place, there was a move to include Northern Ireland; I was not able to put that in as it was not possible but this amendment gives us a short opportunity to discuss this. I will not be giving my normal 25 or 35-minute speech on how dreadful the Windsor Framework and the protocol are because I think that, on this occasion, most Members here who want to see the Bill go through recognise that the protocol has caused problems on things such as this. In my view, animal welfare should not be devolved; animal welfare is animal welfare wherever it is and whatever part of the United Kingdom it is in.

When the Minister responds, I know that he will say, “We would love to do this. We think it is really important that animals can move for slaughter from Northern Ireland to the Republic”. It is a very important trade for farmers in Northern Ireland, and no one wants to stop that, but we want to prevent those animals being taken any further. Everything that has been said today has been about GB to Northern Ireland or GB to the Republic, and the safeguards that this will give, but, as I said earlier, there are no safeguards whatever for animals already in Northern Ireland, where they are being moved to and the distances they will have to travel.

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[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and others for their engagement on this Bill.

Let me first address the issue of the stepping stone from Europe to Ireland. What I would prefer to do, if I may, is take that outside of this discussion and the Bill today because it is not entirely connected. Perhaps I could come back to the noble Baroness separately on that.

I am very aware of the strength of feeling here and of the wider political issues so I shall stick to my script on this and not ad lib it, otherwise I shall get myself into terrible trouble. The Bill will prohibit the export of livestock and equines for slaughter and fattening from Great Britain to destinations outside of the UK and Crown dependencies. As the noble Baroness knows, none of the provisions affect Northern Ireland so there is no need for the Bill to extend to it; that is why the extent provisions are drafted as they are.

I understand the noble Baroness’s desire, through this probing amendment, to debate the implications of the Bill’s extent in relation to Northern Ireland. The Bill does not apply in Northern Ireland because of the vital importance of livestock movements for slaughter and fattening to the Republic of Ireland. Farmers in Northern Ireland routinely move animals in this way. The noble Baroness recognises this fact and has queried why we are not proposing a ban on exports from Northern Ireland with a targeted exemption for movements ending in the Republic of Ireland. A range of international agreements—I am waiting for a list of them—and their core principles, including World Trade Organization rules, would prevent an exemption of this kind, as the noble Baroness said.

The noble Baroness asked whether exceptions to the WTO requirements, such as that for measures to protect public morals, could apply in this case. Crucially, those exceptions cannot apply in a manner that would constitute a means of arbitrary discrimination between countries where the same conditions prevail. Any measure based on the exception must be applied in a consistent fashion to comparable trading partners. It is therefore not possible to make an exception for the Republic of Ireland on animal welfare grounds without extending the exception to other comparable countries outside the United Kingdom.

I understand the noble Baroness’ wish to explore whether the Bill could be extended further so that it applies across the United Kingdom. However, any such proposal would be either damaging to the Northern Irish economy or incompatible with our international agreements. The provisions that this amendment seeks to remove are necessary to set out the territorial extent of the Bill. I therefore respectfully ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that. I am fond of him, and I know that he is fairly new to his position, but I have to say that I am not sure that he believes what he has been reading out on certain aspects of this. It would be very helpful to have the list of international organisations put in the Library, or perhaps in a response to me.

I know that it is not specifically related to the Bill, but I am also not terribly happy about the bluetongue issue. There is a similar aspect there, with farmers in Northern Ireland in a way being discriminated against. I think that the Minister should be able to answer on that very soon. On the issue about bluetongue and transporting from the EU direct to Northern Ireland through Great Britain—to Scotland or anywhere and then to Northern Ireland—I think probably all noble Lords would like that not to be possible. That should go into the Library as well, so that noble Lords can see it.

I will simply say that I do not think that I have learned anything particularly new in the arguments that the Government have put for this, and they have been very weak on it. I do not criticise the Minister or even his department; other forces are at work. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 7 withdrawn.