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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the comparative costs of transitioning from farrowing crates to (a) temporary crating systems and (b) free farrowing systems, and if she will ask the Animal Welfare Committee to consider the relative animal welfare outcomes of each system.

As stated in the Animal Welfare Strategy, the Government wants to work with the industry so that it ends the use of pig farrowing crates. There will be a consultation on transitioning to alternative systems which will include an assessment of the costs and benefits. The Animal Welfare Committee’s predecessor, the Farm Animal Welfare Committee, produced an Opinion on Free Farrowing in 2015 which considered conventional farrowing crates and alternative systems.