Importation and Sale of Foie Gras

Debate between Rebecca Pow and Bob Stewart

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. If she will bear with me and listen to my speech, I think she will see that so much proposed in the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill has either already been brought forward in legislation or is in the process of being brought forward, so great is our commitment to animal welfare. I will list some of those things.

Since 2010, we have raised animal welfare standards for farm animals, companion animals and wild animals. We have banned the traditional battery cages for laying hens and we have raised standards for chickens reared for meat. We have implemented and upgraded welfare within our slaughter regime, including introducing CCTV cameras in slaughterhouses. We have revamped the local authority licensing regime for commercial pet services, including selling, dog breeding, boarding and animal displays, and we have banned third-party puppy and kitten sales through Lucy’s law, which we particularly worked on all those years ago in the APPG on animal welfare. We have also introduced protections for service animals through Finn’s law and we have introduced offences of horse fly-grazing and abandonment. Some colleagues in Westminster Hall now were involved in those pieces of legislation. We have also banned wild animals in travelling circuses.

Our manifesto commitments demonstrate our ambition to go further on animal welfare. In 2019, we committed to bringing in new laws on animal sentience; to introducing tougher sentences for animal cruelty; to implementing the Ivory Act 2018 and extending it to other species; to ensuring that animal welfare standards are not compromised in trade deals; to cracking down on the illegal smuggling of dogs and puppies; to bringing forward cat microchipping; to banning the keeping of primates as pets; to banning live shipments of animals; and to ensuring that farmers, in return for funding, safeguard high standards of animal welfare.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Ducks and geese are sentient animals; they have feelings. Imagine all of us stuck in a cage with someone opening our mouths and stuffing stuff down our throats—God, how awful that would be! We have to get rid of this stuff.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention and I am not going to disagree about the horrible cruelty—that is why we have banned the practice in this country. I think he makes the point exactly.

Those are the manifesto commitments but I would like to list the things that we have already delivered, to make it clear how seriously we take animal welfare: we have increased the penalties for those convicted of animal cruelty from six months to five years; we have passed the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, which has just been referred to, and we have launched the dedicated Committee to work on it; we have made microchipping compulsory for cats as well as dogs; and we have announced the extension to the Ivory Act 2018, which came into force last year, to cover five more endangered species—hippopotamus, narwhal, killer whale, sperm whale and walrus.

On top of our manifesto commitments, we published our ambitious and comprehensive action plan for animal welfare in 2021. The plan set out the work that we are focused on pursuing, to deliver a better life for animals in this country and abroad. The commitments in the action plan last through this Parliament and beyond it. Our action plan relates to farmed animals, wild animals, pets and sporting animals, and it includes legislative and non-legislative reforms. In addition, we have provided for penalty notices to apply to animal welfare offences; introduced new police powers to tackle hare coursing—that needed tackling and we have worked hard to bring forward a better crackdown on hare coursing; we banned glue traps; and we have supported the private Members’ Bills to ban the trade in detached shark fins and to ban the advertising here of low-welfare animal experiences abroad.

This debate, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton, deals specifically with foie gras. As hon. Members will know, the production of foie gras by force-feeding is banned in the UK because it is incompatible with domestic legislation. Foie gras production is covered by the general provisions in the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which make it a criminal offence to allow an animal to suffer unnecessarily and place a duty on people responsible for animals that requires them to do all that is reasonable to ensure the welfare of their animals. That includes an animal’s need for a suitable diet and to be protected from pain, suffering, injury, and disease.

While we have domestic restrictions on the production of force-fed foie gras, it is of course possible to import foie gras from abroad—clearly, there is a market trading in that. It is absolutely vital that we develop any future policies on the basis of robust evidence in line with the Government’s commitment to improving animal welfare standards as set out in the action plan for animal welfare. We are committed to building a clear evidence base on foie gras to inform our future decisions, and we are looking at what other countries that have banned it do. As my hon. Friend will know, a certain number of countries have banned the production of foie gras just as we have—Germany, Italy and Luxembourg. As he will also know, the EU does not have an overall ban. We are also looking at how the World Trade Organisation operates if a ban is introduced.

All those things need to be considered carefully. One of our strongest levers is the work that we do on the international stage to influence the strengthening of animal welfare standards across the globe recommended by the World Organisation for Animal Health and other global organisations and applied to different countries. As my hon. Friend will know from his work on dog meat—we did some work on that jointly as Back Benchers—that is a strong way to influence and encourage other countries not to use these methods. All that will be looked at in the evidence base, and we will work with relevant Departments on disease—he mentioned disease and avian flu—as part of the evidence building.

I am standing in for my right hon. Friend the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, and I will make sure that comments made in the debate are passed on to him, as he was unable to attend. My hon. Friend the Member for Clacton will know that some supermarkets have banned foie gras and, as he said, King Charles does not allow it to be served. Customers already have a choice not to buy it and certainly not to eat it—I would certainly never buy it.

Draft Air Quality (Designation of Relevant Public Authorities) (England) Regulations 2022

Debate between Rebecca Pow and Bob Stewart

Thursday 24th November 2022 General Committees

[Rebecca Pow]

I commend the Committee for that report. Air quality is the biggest threat to human health, and it often seems to get overlooked. It is by working together that we will tackle it.

The Act already requires all tiers of local government and the Environment Agency to work together, where appropriate, to meet air quality objectives and also requires them to co-operate with neighbouring authorities, because air does not stay in one place. Indeed, Dover has a lot of pollution coming over from the continent, which is a serious issue and difficult for us to control.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

On that point, will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

May I get to the crux of the matter first, before I take my right hon. Friend’s intervention?

Critically, the Act sets out powers for the Secretary of State to designate other relevant public authorities as air quality partners. Traffic on the strategic road network, for which National Highways is responsible, has, in many cases, resulted in local authorities not meeting their air quality objectives, which gets to the heart of the Dover problem. Following overwhelming support from a public consultation, the SI would designate National Highways as an air quality partner, requiring National Highways to collaborate with local authorities to address local air quality problems. National Highways will be the first “relevant public authority.”

[Bob Stewart]

I feel for the local authorities. They do not have any control over National Highways, and yet they are going to be planted with responsibility to get the air quality up and pollution down, but how the heck do they do that? How do they practically do that? It is all very well our mouthing off here that they have responsibility for it, but I feel sorry for the local authorities.

[Rebecca Pow]

The whole point of the SI is to make a difference. In all honesty, it was frustrating that although National Highways has been working with local authorities in many cases, there has been no consistency to that. The regulations will enable that more consistent approach because National Highways must be brought into discissions about the air quality action plans with which each local authority is tasked, if there is a problem with the air in their area. That will make a big difference. In my time as Minister, consistency has been constantly raised with me as a tricky issue, and I am certain that the regulations will definitely make a difference.

National Highways will determine the actions it takes, which will also have to be consistent with its responsibilities under the road investment strategy. Bearing in mind that National Highways is responsible for 4,300 motorways and A roads, a significant network of roads will now be included in considerations relating to pollution. Practical actions that National Highways could undertake include speed restrictions, which can help reduce pollution, and improvements to road infrastructure or signage to improve traffic flow.