Adrian Ramsay

Thank you Sir John, Mr Vickers, and everybody who has contributed this afternoon on this important topic. We have seen how much interest there is across the House in driving up the animal welfare standards and I very much appreciate the Minister’s response, which set out the plans he already has in train. I want to respond briefly to some of those points. On the Minister’s plans to review farrowing crates and cages, I look forward to seeing the outcome of that—I think everyone here today does—and I hope there are some big steps forward as a result. I was pleased to hear the answer in relation to maintaining standards in trade, but I did not quite hear the Minister go so far as to say that the Government will not allow imports of products that do not meet UK standards. I would invite him to do that. On enforcement, I did not quite hear the Minister address the need for higher penalties, independent inspections and proper resourcing of agencies for when standards of welfare are breached. That is critical. Lastly, on size: I take the Minister’s point that it is not the only factor, but look at the size of the Methwold application—it would have involved 870,000 chickens and 14,000 pigs. How could welfare be maintained at that size, with a tiny handful of staff and a huge impact on sewage and pollution? Given the proliferation of mega-farms, those issues must be tackled. Question put and agreed to.  Resolved,   That this House has considered animal welfare standards in farming.