Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to increase compliance with the ban on the routine tail docking of pigs; what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of pigs which have been tail-docked in the last 12 months; what steps farmers are required to take to prevent tail biting by pigs before resorting to tail docking.

We recognise the need to improve compliance with the ban on routine tail docking. We are currently preparing a new statutory pig welfare code which will strengthen the guidance on how to comply with the legal requirements in relation to tail docking and environmental enrichment and provide enhanced guidance on how to identify, manage and prevent tail biting. The new code will incorporate EU Commission recommendations which are intended to improve compliance with these provisions. All pig keepers will have to be familiar with the new code.

The docking of pigs’ tails should only be used as a last resort, after improvements to the pigs’ environment and management, including the provision of environmental enrichment, have proved ineffectual and there is evidence to show that injury to pigs’ tails by biting has occurred.

When carrying out an inspection of a pig unit, the Animal and Plant Health Agency evaluates the provision of enrichment material and whether pigs are routinely tail-docked without a justifiable reason, and will apply breaches where non-compliances are found.

Preventing tail biting is complex, with multiple causes associated with outbreaks.

AHDB Pork’s summary report on Real Welfare data: “Baseline report: 2013-2016 Measuring welfare outcomes in pigs”, published earlier this year https://pork.ahdb.org.uk/media/273110/real-welfare-report-2017.pdf found that 70% of pigs’ tails were docked.