Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. My interest in animal welfare and good-quality meat comes from the south-west and talking over many years with the butchers who supply good meat. The two problems which noble Lords have identified are: the distance of travel, which is a very serious animal welfare issue; and the fact that over the last 20 or 30 years the supermarkets have put pressure on government to close as many small abattoirs as possible, so that they can get a greater share of the market. Also, as we have discussed in your Lordships’ House before, you must have a vet to witness the abattoir’s work, yet there is a shortage in the competitive supply of vets. One company appears to have a very large share of the market. I wonder whether Ministers should not go a little further and look at the whole question of competition in this field and, most importantly, the distance of travel.

I live on the Isles of Scilly. We have some very nice farmers there and some very nice cattle—which taste extremely good too—but they have to go to the mainland. On a small ship going up and down in the waves, these animals are pretty unhappy. For years, the farmers there have been lobbying to have an abattoir on the islands. Finally, after years, the new Duke of Cornwall has agreed to provide some land on St Mary’s where an abattoir can be built. It will therefore be a much shorter journey from the off islands to the abattoir. All the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has mentioned are still there, but it is a much shorter distance. I hope that that the Government will look at all these things and make sure that we have a competitive market for this which is also very animal friendly.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, there are 100 million animals killed for meat in the UK every month, which is quite a statistic. There are 75,000 people who work in abattoirs and associated institutions. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord, Lucas, raises an important issue. Whether this is the right way to address it I am not quite sure because, as other speakers have said, we are talking about a systemic issue here. I often speak about our broken food system. At the heart of that broken food system is factory farming and the giant chicken and pig institutions which are associated with giant abattoirs, logically enough. We are approaching a land use framework, to be coming from the Government. Many noble Lords think that this does not get mentioned enough. If we think about land use and abattoirs, this all needs to fit together in a systemic way, whatever model you think should apply. Obviously, I have views on that.

I want to cross-reference what I was doing in your Lordships’ House about 12 hours ago. I was talking about the climate emergency and the impact of rising temperatures. I note that in 2022, the Government produced guidance that animals should not be transported except in temperature-controlled environments when the temperature—or the perceived temperature, taking account of humidity—is higher than 30 degrees Celsius. That might not historically have been much of an issue in the UK, but it is only going to continue and become a larger issue if you are moving animals. The longer the distance, the more you are unable to do it in the cool hours of the day.

We need a much more localised food system, which means small independent farmers and small independent abattoirs. Five small abattoirs closed in 2024 alone, and the figure is down to 49 from 64 in 2019. There is a real issue here, but it must be looked at systemically in the round, not just as abattoirs on their own. We have a huge animal welfare issue here. We also need to think about workforce. I found some statistics suggesting that the average age of a slaughterer is 63.