Animal Welfare (Hansard, 18 July 1991)

§ 2. Mr. David Evans
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action he is taking to improve standards of animal welfare in the EC.

§ 14. Mr. Burns
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action he is taking to improve standards of animal welfare in the EC.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. David Maclean)
We are pressing for the adoption of comprehensive Community rules setting high welfare standards for animals on farms, during transport, and at slaughter. In particular, we are seeking to have the United Kingdom's high welfare standards adopted on a Communitywide basis.

§ Mr. Evans
I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he assure me that animals with a militant tendency or left-wing views or which do not pay their community charge—[Interruption.]—will not receive any protection? Will he also give an assurance that the Government and our European partners will give adequate protection to the Leader of the Opposition—[Interruption.]—so that he does not end up before the election, as he will after it, in the knacker's yard?

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. That is well wide of animal welfare.

§ Mr. Maclean
I suspect that many animals would not behave like some Opposition Members.

§ Mr. Hardy
Does the Minister accept that his words and those of his right hon. Friend offering substantial support for the cause of animal welfare in Europe enjoy substantial public support? However, does he also accept that there is now significant doubt about whether the principle expressed in those words will be matched by action in the Community, especially in view of the fate of a motion to protect the smaller cetaceans, on which the Ministry does not appear to have acted accordingly to the Secretary of State's words.

§ Mr. Maclean
I entirely reject the last part of the hon. Gentleman's question. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was able to secure substantial protection for whales. He also managed to keep the motion to protect small cetaceans on the agenda of the international whaling conference. The British Government will stand by everything that we have said about the protection of animals. We are arguing strenuously in Europe for that and it would help very much if the Opposition would support us rather than carping in the House and trying to undermine our position at every opportunity.

§ Mr. Burns
I am sure that your failure to call me earlier was not personal, Mr. Speaker, although it has happened twice in the past few months.

§ Mr. Speaker
It was not personal.

§ Mr. Burns
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the action that his Department took last year to stop the use of crates for the production of veal and I urge him to use all his influence to prevent that obnoxious practice in the rest of Europe. In 482 the meantime, will he urge all consumers of veal in Britain to boycott mainland continental veal until that reprehensible system is ended?

§ Mr. Maclean
My hon. Friend makes a good point and highlights the difficulty of Britain taking unilateral action, as we rightly did last year, to ban veal crates because we believe that they are cruel. The net result has been that most veal eaten in this country is now imported—and produced under the very system that we outlawed in Britain. That is why we are arguing strenuously to have our high welfare standards on veal incorporated throughout the European Community. I strongly support the campaign of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to draw to British consumers' attention the fact that very little veal in this country is produced under humane systems and that if they want humanely produced veal they must seek it out in the shops, where they will find that humanely produced veal is nearly all British.

§ Mr. Tony Banks
I entirely endorse what the Minister says and I am glad that he is prepared to endorse the RSPCA's campaign, but how can consumers know that they are buying humanely produced veal unless the supermarkets and butcher shops tell them? I think that people should avoid veal altogether, because they cannot know whether the veal cattle have been exported from this country and kept in the crates that the Government have banned here—a ban supported by the Labour party.

§ Mr. Maclean
The hon. Gentleman raises an intriguing point. We can have a proper solution to this, and consumers will have the right to know exactly what they are eating, only when we have a Europewide solution and proper marking. We must also not forget that shops and supermarkets are the only places where consumers would know where the veal was produced, because some supermarkets are marking their veal as humanely produced in Britain or are selling small quantities of imported humanely produced veal. The problem lies in restaurants and cafeterias, some of which are not far from this Chamber, where veal may be on the menu, but we have not a clue where it has come from nor how it has been produced.

§ Sir Peter Emery
Will my hon. Friend tell the House exactly what measures he will be able to take concerning the export of live horses other than for breeding, as the practice of exporting horses purely for slaughter is obnoxious and unnecessary?

§ Mr. Maclean
We shall continue with the action that we have been taking since that issue first came on the agenda. We believe that the minimum values rules operated in this country are an excellent means of protecting horses. We do not want to have to resume the export of live horses and ponies. We shall continue to resist that strenuously and argue to that effect in Europe. Our policy will not change.

§ Dr. David Clark
Has the Minister seen the report by scientists commissioned by Greenpeace into French drift nets being used in the same fishery as our Cornish fishermen went to earlier this week? Is he aware that the scientists monitored three common dolphins and two striped dolphins that had been caught in the unacceptably 483 long drift nets? The Minister knows that the suffering of dolphins and porpoises is completely unacceptable to the British people, so what does he intend to do about it?

§ Mr. Maclean
Of course we are concerned about allegations from Greenpeace or anyone else of dolphins being caught in drift nets. I understand that as of this afternoon, in the first three days of fishing no dolphins have been caught. We shall monitor the position carefully, and we must find a Europeanwide solution to the problem. If the hon. Gentleman has any evidence, he should bring it before us.