Opinion: Animal welfare can’t be ‘collateral damage’
Chris Bennett © Johnny Houston The UK public has a long history of being animal lovers, perhaps more so than anywhere else in the world.
We are home to the oldest and largest animal welfare charity in the world, the RSPCA, founded more than 200 years ago.
We even passed laws preventing cruelty to animals before we had decided that preventing cruelty to children was worth putting into law.
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We love our animals and, as a result, have developed arguably the strictest animal welfare regulations in the world.
As rumours swirl about the impending trade deal with the US, we need our politicians to commit to upholding our high welfare standards in any trade deal to avoid us being undercut by US produce that would be illegal to produce in this country.
Their use of chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-treated beef is well publicised, but these headline-grabbers are simply emblematic of a difference in attitudes on animal welfare.
Should a trade deal be rushed through in an attempt to avoid tariffs, I fear our politicians would see agriculture and our animal welfare standards as acceptable collateral damage.
Labelling
Some say food labelling would give the public a fair choice between products, allowing those produced to higher standards to attract a premium.
We need to fight against this claim.
Labelling is unlikely to be clear enough for a time-poor consumer to understand and, in many cases, meat is consumed in ready meals, restaurants or takeaways, where even the most discerning consumer would do well to know the origin.
There is a new report out called Closing the Welfare Gap. It was produced by Animal Policy International, Compassion in World Farming and the RSPCA, and aims to highlight animal welfare issues with trade deals.
The report explains how the UK is effectively outsourcing animal suffering by ignoring the welfare gap between our country and those we import from.
They are calling on the government to introduce legislation making market access conditional on meeting UK standards or equivalent.
There is precedent for this kind of approach as it would mirror existing provisions for humane slaughter that require imported meat to be slaughtered in a way consistent with UK law.
To ban something domestically on the grounds of animal welfare and then to import that same product from abroad is simply wrong.
It is hard to see how a politician, or anyone, can disagree with their argument when presented with the facts.
To ban something domestically on the grounds of animal welfare and then to import that same product from abroad is simply wrong.
It leads to animal suffering by the back door and simultaneously risks putting our own farmers out of business by undermining profitability.
In fact, a survey in 2023 showed 84% of British people support restricting or banning low-welfare imports that don’t meet our UK standards.
Let’s hope the other 16% don’t include our trade negotiators.
Production standards have been a sticking point in previous trade negotiations with the US.
Defra has promised to “protect farmers from being undercut by low welfare and low standards in trade deals”. However to say its track record on keeping promises to farmers is eroding would be putting it politely.
It is ominous but perhaps more telling that our chancellor Rachel Reeves recently refused to back a “Buy British” campaign, describing it as “insular” and “narrow-minded”.
Is this her way of telling us that chlorine-washed chicken will be on our shelves soon?