Labour Party's Plans for Animal Welfare

[Bald Rick]

Today sees the launch of the Labour Party's Animal Welfare plan.

https://labour.org.uk/issues/animal-welfare-plan/

Of most interest to us farmers is this (but those in to hunting etc have their own bit too):

The majority of British farmers take pride in their high levels of animal welfare. However, we have an obligation to ensure that best practice is adopted right across the board in farming and that outdated and cruel practices are phased out or removed completely. Several high profile instances that have been exposed through CCTV have revealed poor practices and have raised questions about culture and practice in some slaughterhouses.

Labour is committed to promoting best practice in cruelty-free animal husbandry and to ensuring better enforcement of agreed standards. Labour will seek to end the ‘cage age’ of outdated farming practices that cause animals distress and restrict natural behaviour. Our steer on the direction of travel on farm animals will aim to provide the clarity to farmers to invest in higher animal welfare standards in the long term.

• Ban live exports for slaughter or fattening. This would include an exemption for breeding animals providing provision is in place ensuring they are transported under genuinely high welfare standards. This would also include an exemption for livestock transported across the Northern Ireland border.
• Mandatory labelling of meat, both domestic and imported. This would include details on country of origin, method of production and method of slaughter (stun or non-stun).
• Total ban on imports of Foie Gras so as to restrict the market for this cruel and inhumane product.
• Issue new guidance to end the use of antibiotics for routine, preventative purposes with farm animals. Anti-microbial resistance is becoming an increasing problem leading to antibiotics being less effective.

• Introduce mandatory CCTV in all slaughterhouses, including where horses are slaughtered, and make this footage available to the Food Standards Agency and/or other government departments where there is a clear case to.
• Introduce a formal whistle blowing procedure through the Food Standards Agency to enable employees to report bad behaviour and practice within abattoirs.
• Review of training and standards within slaughterhouses.
• Increased accountability of poor employment and management practices that drive down working culture.
• Introduce phased ban on sow farrowing crates with a reasonable phase-out period, replacing with safe, free-farrowing systems.
• End use of cages on British farms.
• Consultation on the expansion of ‘megafarms’ to detail their effects on animal welfare standards. The recent increase in industrialised farming under this Conservative government poses serious questions in relation to animal welfare post-Brexit.
• Design post-Brexit farm subsidies to move away from intensive factory farming and bad environmental practices

Interestingly there is no definition of "Megafarms" which, I would contend, generally have very high welfare standards because they have the employees to delegate these tasks to or indeed may even directly employ a vet

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Can't argue with much of that.
But as always, the devil will be in the detail.

 

[Woolgatherer]

It sounds ok to me, as above though, depends on the detail. I would have been interested in their plans for imported meat, whether there was to be regulations in favour of high welfare countries or anything goes?

 

[Werzle]

Nothing said about trying to stop non stun slaughter, so if all of the above was carried out in the name of religion they would let it all carry on as usual, ruddy hypocrite's. Rules only for those that will obey.

 

[Woolless]

Banning (tariff free) live exports may not be a help after Brexit. Would want to see the detail on their policy regarding antibiotics.

 

[Yale]

Nothing about restricting imports not certified to ‘labour’ standards.

Probably end up with labour double standards,UK farmers with extra red tape and free market imports for the working class to buy.....just forget about the welfare and pesticide use.

 

[Treg]

What's foie gras?

 

[Sharpy]

Pate made from the fatty liver of force fed geese.

 

[Agrivator]

They don't mention free-range poultry on an industrial scale - probably the least welfare-friendly way of producing eggs.

 

[nelly55]

Has the Labour Party got the balls

 

[phillipe]

Also the immediate end of badger culls

 

[vantage]

Has the Labour Party got the balls

They did have until he lost his seat!

 

[TheTallGuy]

Has the Labour Party got the balls

Recent history shows that they make loads of promises that quietly get forgotten the moment that they win an election.

 

[Werzle]

Recent history shows that they make loads of promises that quietly get forgotten the moment that they win an election.

Thats a disease all politicians suffer from

 

[Bald Rick]

Pate made from the fatty liver of force fed geese.

Aye. According to The Times, ducks & geese have a metal tube about 6" long forced down their gullet & then food pumped in x3/day for 12 days to ensure that the liver cannot cope with this amount of nutrition and is forced to lay down fat.
Interestingly, India is the only country in the world to actively ban the stuff.
Personally I wouldn't mind if we followed suit although we are, apparently, one of the biggest consumers of it.

 

[Dr. Alkathene]

Nearly all the Labour voters that I know want cheap food, as cheap as possible and don’t give a f**k where it comes from, how it was reared, how far it was transported, how well it was treated. All that matters is that it is cheap.

So given my propensity to believe everything politicians meddle in ends up worse. I can see UK farmers tied up in a huge amount of red tape, rules, regulations, eco waffle and legislative diarrhoea. While supermarkets import ever more cheap food from abroad that circumvents Labours proposals. They don’t have the cojones to mention non stun slaughter either.....

 

[Henarar]

They don’t have the cojones to mention non stun slaughter either.....

just asked them about that

 

[nelly55]

I’ve just sent a long email ,and haven’t minced my words on the subject.I did manage to keep balls out of the reply.

 

[Danllan]

If Mr Corbyn genuinely thought that it would get him sufficient votes to win an election, I believe he would promise to ban the sale and / or the consumption of meat, full stop.

Having examined these suggestions in full, it is pretty clear that many of them have been lifted from current government proposals, which Labour criticised... Many of these, and of the remainder, are entirely reasonable and laudable but, as has already been pointed out, it is the glaring absence(s) that stand out more than anything else.

The philosophical contortions that Labour are going to have to attempt to reconcile animal rights with the religious slaughter methods required by a) the Muslims, who they seem so to love and b) the Jews, who they are desperate to seem not to antagonise any further, are going to be very entertaining to watch.

The plain truth is that they can't be reconciled, they are mutually exclusive.

 

[organicguy]

Its all pretty muddled up.
Ban on intensive rearing of game birds and the next section on pet welfare shows a pug or similar. WTF