Live Animals (Exports) (Hansard, 14 March 1984)

§ Miss Janet Fookes (Plymouth, Drake)

It might appear that there is no connection whatsoever between the debate which has just been adjourned until tomorrow and the topic for tonight—the export of live animals for further fattening and slaughter. There is one common denominator—money. These wretched animals are exported live only because there is money in it for those who do the exporting. On every ground this is a detestable and disreputable trade.

The trade has been going on since the mid-1950s, with one short and welcome break in 1973 when there was such an outcry about breaches of the old Balfour assurances, which were supposed to protect animals in transit, that the Government of the day refused to allow further export licences to be granted. I regret to say that in 1975 the ban was lifted and the trade was resumed.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, with which I am closely connected, has built up a tremendous expertise in following consignments of animals from the port of disembarkation in France. Its testimony cannot be lightly disregarded. It has been built up over many painful years. On occasions there has been an element of near melodrama in its following of consignments.

I want particularly to draw attention to the latest inquiries that the RSPCA has made. They make sad reading. In late 1983 and the beginning of this year it undertook four trails, as it calls them. It is worthwhile explaining briefly what the trails consisted of. The first, in November 1983, involved a British vehicle which was followed to Mirande in the Gers region of south-west France for a distance of 694 miles. The journey took 28 hours 18 minutes. It was taken without rest or food for the animals. I believe that that is a shocking indictment.

The second trail in the same month involved a British vehicle, again containing calves. It was followed for a distance of 476 miles and kept under observation for 21 hours before the RSPCA unit lost contact. We do not know what happened in the end.

A third trail took place early in December 1983. Again, it involved a British vehicle which delivered calves to the same destination in Mirande. A different vehicle was used for following that transporter. The distance recorded on that occasion was 695.8 miles. The percentage point shows the meticulous way in which the RSCPA follows these vehicles. The journey time was 28 hours. Again—and it is horrifying to relate—there was no rest or food for the animals.

Another trail in December 1983 involved a British vehicle that was followed to somewhere in the Garonne region. That journey lasted 27½ hours over a distance of 646 miles—again with no rest or food en route. There has been another trail this year, but I do not have the details of that. The four cases that I have spelt out show that nothing has changed since the 1970s when the matters were looked at in detail by the RSPCA.

I fear that we are dealing with not just a few animals. I asked my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in a parliamentary question to give the statistics for 1983. At 484 the risk of boring the House, I want to show the scope of the trade in that year. I have rounded up the figures for ease. Calves for further fattening numbered 210,000; sheep, 10,000; pigs, 14,000 and sheep for immediate slaughter—a rather different category—nearly 35,000. We are dealing with a sizeable export trade.

This has come about despite the EC directive that was supposedly intended to cover the welfare of these animals. Yet the five trails undertaken by the RSPCA show that the directive has been ignored. It is against that background that I felt real anger, amazement and horror when my right hon. Friend the Minister announced in January that there was to be a resumption in the granting of export licences for veal calves going to Italy by road. Previously, that had been permitted only by air.

I am indebted to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for telling me in answer to a parliamentary question that the journey from a port of disembarkation in France to the Italian border is no less than 600 miles. That excludes any journey that might have been undertaken in Britain. Although the animals are rested for 10 hours, the calves may have a long journey in this country, a 10 hour rest in a lairage at the port of embarkation, the sea journey to France, the journey across France to Italy, and then who knows what—how many more miles before they reach their destination where they are to be fattened before slaughter? That happens to animals which, on average, are about three to five weeks old. Until that time, they would have been accustomed to regular feeding and quiet conditions, but suddenly they are subjected to all the strains of transport.

What is worse, and what worries me even more, is that we do not know whether the actual rearing of the animals until they are slaughtered is carried out in a way that would be acceptable in Britain. There is a fondness in Italy for white veal, and that involves methods of keeping the animals that I find horrible, wholly unacceptable and that would probably lie outside our welfare codes. There must be a very real risk that these unfortunate little beasts will be kept in conditions that would be unlawful in Britain.

I am primarily concerned tonight with the question of transport, for which we are asked to place reliance on an EEC directive. In my view, it is not worth relying on because the relevant section says: During transport, animals shall be offered miner and appropriate food at suitable intervals. Animals shall not be left more than 24 hours without being fed and watered. This period may, however, be extended if the journay to where the animals are unloaded can be completed within a reasonable period. There is no definition, however, of what is reasonable. There is a second directive which refers to licensing provisions. Thus, the basic directive is feeble. Whatever safeguards we endeavour to place on animals before they leave this country are not enforceable under our laws once they get abroad, and we must rely on the EEC directive.

I am sure that tonight my hon. Friend the Minister will be at pains to explain the so-called safeguards embodied in the export licences. Frankly, I shall not believe one word of it, because enforcement is the key. In the light of what the RSPCA has discovered, I do not believe that there is any likely enforceability. In those circumstances, I shall be far from satisfied, whatever my hon. Friend tells me about good intentions. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I refer the Minister to what I believe is the overriding principle that I should like to see written out and placed 485 on her desk and, above all, the desks of Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food officials at Tolworth. It is the principle, enunciated by the British Veterinary Association, that animals should be slaughtered as near as possible to the point of production. By that standard, sending animals overseas cannot be justified.

It seems all the more strange when one considers that there are in this country adequate means of slaughtering animals to the requirements of overseas customers. There are good methods of refrigeration and good facilities for transporting animals when they are dead rather than when they are alive. I cannot believe that that could not be undertaken if there were the political will to bring it about.

It saddens and shames me that a nation which is supposed to love animals can permit this trade—which must bring considerable stress, even under the best conditions—to continue. What is more, it makes no allowances for inclement weather conditions and other difficulties. Consider, for example, that extraordinary spectacle when the whole of France seemed to grind to a halt in the recent troubles. What would happen to unfortunate animals caught up in such a predicament, when our own lorry drivers were in difficulty? What help would there be for these unfortunate beasts in such a situation? We should never allow them to be placed in that position.

I appeal to the Government to take the action that they have resisted for far too long—to ban the export of live animals for slaughter and further fattening, and to do it soon.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mrs. Peggy Fenner)

I appreciate that, in recent weeks, much public concern has been expressed about the welfare of food animals exported from this country. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Drake (Miss Fookes) for raising this matter now, because I believe that much of the concern has arisen because the background to recent events and decisions has not been widely appreciated. I am glad to have the opportunity tonight to present a fuller picture.

To put things in perspective, I shall first outline briefly the important ways in which the measures that protect the welfare of animals exported from here to the Continent have been developed in recent years. My hon. Friend has recalled that between 1973 and 1975 there was a complete prohibition on the export of food animals from this country. I held my present post for part of that time. After that—following the report of the O'Brien committee—this House on a free vote favoured a resumption of the trade on the basis that common European regulations would be developed to protect the welfare of animals during international transport and at the place of slaughter.

Subsequently, Community directive 77/489, to which my hon. Friend referred, which entered into force in 1978, laid down various requirements on the conditions for animals during international transit. Prime among these were the requirements concerning pre-export veterinary inspection, and one on feeding and watering, which runs as follows: During transport animals shall be offered water and appropriate food at suitable intervals. Animals shall not be left 486 more than 24 hours without being fed and watered. This period may, however be extended if the journey to where the animals are unloaded can be completed within a reasonable period. My hon. Friend made a good point about that reasonable period. This requirement is based on international veterinary opinion on what is needed to protect the welfare of farm animals in transit. The provision for the 24-hour period to be extended reflects the view that, if the animals' journey is largely complete, it is better for them to be taken straight to their destination without a stop.

When we came to office in 1979, as we promised, we reviewed this trade and decided that it should be allowed to continue subject to added legal safeguards. To make in particular the feeding and watering controls more effective, we pressed for and secured a further Community directive—81/389—which came into force in 1982. Under this, every consignment of food animals exported from Great Britain is accompanied by an international certificate in the form prescribed by the directive. The details on the certificate include veterinary certification of fitness and, most importantly, the time of loading as certified by an official. Obviously, the fact that this certificate accompanies the animals and must be taken into account by the authorities at frontiers greatly enhances the enforcement of the Community requirements.

As hon. and right hon. Members will appreciate, member states are legally obliged to implement these directives on their own territories. To discharge fully our obligations where exports are concerned, we made the Export of Animals (Protection) Order 1981. Apart from implementing the strict requirements of the directives, this lays down that food animals may not be exported, as my hon. Friend said, unless they have first been rested for at least 10 hours at an approved export lairage. During this period they must be offered suitable food and water. The order also introduced new licensing arrangements under which no consignment of cattle, sheep, goats or pigs may be exported except under licence, and my right hon. Friends may not grant a licence unless they are satisfied that the arrangements for transporting the animals to their final destination are such as to protect them from unnecessary suffering. Thus, animals exported from this country not only have the protection of the Community directives when they reach the Continent, but our own licensing arrangements allow us to ensure, before permitting an export to take place, that it has been planned in a way that will meet the directives and protect the animals.

I come now to our recent decision, to which my hon. Friend referred, concerning overland trade in food animals to Italy. I should first make it clear that food animals—actually calves—have in recent years been exported to Italy for further fattening. However, we have been prepared to issue licences only for transport by air. It is important to understand that the distance involved has never in itself constituted a welfare problem for farm livestock, provided that the animals are carried in the conditions laid down by Community directives.

When the live export trade in food animals to the Community was resumed in 1975, overland transit to Italy was permitted in only a very few exceptional cases. Those all concerned adult cattle for fattening, and no calves were involved. However, the experience of these consignments raised doubts as to whether satisfactory mechanisms existed to ensure that the Community requirements could be met on overland journeys to Italy involving two frontier 487 crossings. In the absence of these mechanisms, successive Governments have since insisted that all food animals consigned to Italy must, without exception, travel by air.

We could have abandoned our insistence on air travel on the strength of the existence of directive 77/489, but we did not. We could have abandoned our insistence on the basis of the entry into force of directive 81/389, but we did not. We could have abandoned it on the strength of the adoption by Italy in late 1983 of national measures implementing directive 81/389, but we still did not.

Before making our decision we discussed and agreed with the French and Italian authorities a special system for our respective veterinary services to monitor any resulting exports, which will involve in some cases my own veterinary staff accompanying consignments right through to their final destinations in Italy. That will have two very important benefits. First, a great deal of information will be available to us on the conduct of this trade. I can give the House my categorical assurance that if this information suggests that animals in any future consignments will be at risk of unnecessary suffering, for any reason, export licences for such consignments will not be issued. The second, and equally important, benefit will be that we and our French and Italian colleagues will collect scientific and technical information on the transportation of animals, which will be of great value in the development of Community measures.

My hon. Friend also made particular mention of the public allegations that have recently been made by the RSPCA about export consignments of calves being carried across France without stops for food and water. I am pleased to say that on Monday this week we at last received details from the RSPCA—I had asked before—of four of the reports to which my hon. Friend referred and which underlay these allegations. One of the reports, incidentally, concerns a consignment on which my officials and the French authorities have already been in contact.

I know that the House would not expect me to have reached conclusions on this information in the time available to me since Monday morning. However, I can say that my officials have already relayed the substance of the allegations to the French authorities for them to consider whether there are any contraventions of the directives on their territory and what action is called for. It will be apparent from what I have already said that good co-operation exists between my officials and their French opposite numbers, and contacts will be maintained on this.

Meanwhile at our end we shall, of course, need to check whether there is any discrepancy between the plans that were declared to us by the export licence applicants in the cases concerned and what is alleged actually to have taken place. The action that we shall need to take will, of course, depend on what we find and on what explanations are given, but it would be an offence for anyone to make a false declaration for the purpose of obtaining a licence, and the outcome of our investigations may be highly 488 relevant when my right hon. Friends have to decide whether they are satisfied with any subsequent related export licence applications.

I appreciate also that there has been much concern recently about the possibility of export animals having suffered in the recent hold-ups both at the Italian frontier and on the roads in France. I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend, first, that no licence applications have yet been received to export food animals overland to Italy, so no food animals exported from here will have been on the approaches to the Italian border during the recent blockades.

Further, during the French lorry drivers' action. my staff at ports of export advised anyone still planning to take farm animals to or through France to contemplate travel only if their French customers or agents could assure them that they could reach their destination without difficulty. No export of farm animals took place for a period at the height of the action. When it was reported that the situation had generally eased, we delayed issuing export licences until we had confirmed very thoroughly through official channels that difficulties were really over.

My officials were in touch with the French authorities, and they were able to advise that no animals exported from Great Britain were involved in incidents arising from the blockades. They also indicated more generally that reports of incidents involving animals on French roads were much exaggerated, that no animals died in the delays and that in the few instances which arose involving animals special arrangements had been made to let them through.

I have served in the House for exactly as long as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Drake and I know well her concern about animals. For part of that time I have had the privilege of serving in this Ministry. My hon. Friend knows that I share her views about the care of animals. She will also know how surprised I am at the number of Conservative Members present today and the absence of any Opposition Member, although one is sometimes led to imagine that the Opposition hold a special brief on caring about both animals and people.

I assure my hon. Friend that I saw the RSPCA reports only on Monday morning, so she will understand that I have not had time to have them thoroughly investigated. I assure her that that is now being done. I hope that she will accept that it is even more valuable for us, as members of the Community, to ensure that care is taken of animals over a wider area, among more people and in a larger number of countries, rather than to be concerned only about animals in our own country.

I appreciate my hon. Friend raising yet again a matter about which she feels very strongly, as she has made clear throughout her entire parliamentary career. I hope that I have been able to reassure her today.