Charlie Dewhirst

Absolutely. It is important that everybody works together, whether that means the pressure groups, the farmers or the Government. Sometimes, the two extremes of the debate need to understand each other. These things often seem simpler than they are. We do things on a farm for good reason, and often it might be for better welfare when people might not perceive it in that way. Another great example of the overall perception of pig farming is outdoor versus indoor, whereas indoor is far better for the environment. There is a big problem with the environmental impact of outdoor pig farming, which is often forgotten because we talk about welfare, and welfare clashes with environmental impact. That all comes together and means that we have to make balanced decisions about how we support farmers across the country. To conclude, we need to make sure that we bring the farming community along with us in this conversation, whether it is about pigs, poultry or anything else that we are discussing. Let us not do stuff to them, but work with them. Let us work out a plan that ensures that we can achieve what we want to in terms of better animal welfare, but not at the expense of British farming, British food security and British jobs and without ending up replacing our own great British produce with imports produced to lower standards than we would expect.