Dame Angela Eagle

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for securing this debate. She raised this issue in a Westminster Hall debate on animal welfare standards in farming in June, and I am grateful to her for giving us the opportunity to focus on the subject in more detail today. I fully recognise that there is strong public feeling on the routine culling of male chicks, as highlighted by the breadth of support that the Vegetarian Society’s “Ban Hatch & Dispatch” campaign has attracted. My hon. Friend has spoken passionately on the subject this evening. As a nation, we are rightly proud of the high animal welfare standards that underpin our high-quality British produce. This Government want to build on and maintain our world-leading record on animal health and welfare, and we are absolutely committed to ensuring that animals receive the care, respect and protection that they deserve. I completely understand that the culling of day-old chicks is a process that many, including someone not far away from this Dispatch Box, may find incomprehensible and wasteful. I assure my hon. Friend that all farm animals are protected by comprehensive and robust animal health and welfare legislation, including when they are killed. Regulations set out strict requirements to protect the welfare of animals at the time of killing, which includes male chicks in the egg production sector. As she pointed out, the permitted killing methods for chicks, such as gas stunning, are based on scientific research and assessment to ensure that the birds are spared any avoidable pain, distress or suffering. All laying hen hatcheries in the UK use argon gas mixtures as their stunning method. That is a much more humane method than other gases, such as carbon dioxide, which is routinely used in several European countries and elsewhere in the world. However, as has been commented by the Animal Welfare Committee—an expert committee advising the UK, Scottish and Welsh Governments on animal welfare issues—the routine killing of chicks is principally an ethical issue, rather than a welfare problem, because it does not lead to direct welfare harms. Of course, that does not mean that we should not work to see if we can move away from it in the future as quickly as is practical and possible. Being able to do that relies on viable alternatives being developed; my hon. Friend talked about some of those in her remarks. The Animal Welfare Committee reviewed the alternatives to culling newly hatched chicks and published its independent opinion on this issue last year. In its report, the committee recommended that chick culling should be banned as soon as reliable, accurate technologies were available. It also highlighted that several consequences would arise from such a ban, and as such it would be crucial to learn from those countries that have already committed to move away from the culling of male chicks. My hon. Friend mentioned that Germany, France and other European states have banned the culling of male chicks, but some European states have encountered issues following a ban. In some cases, in countries where there is a ban in place—Germany, for example—male chicks are merely transported to other member states prior to being killed, which is not the welfare gain one would want to get from such a ban. Any ban on the culling of male chicks needs to allow for the rearing and processing of those male birds that hatch despite the use of in-ovo sexing technology. Another issue flagged in the Animal Welfare Committee’s report is the fact that male chicks provide a whole food source for exotic animals and raptors.