Iqbal Mohamed

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones) for securing this important debate. I think that we will rightly repeat several of the key issues and reasons why the import of fur products should be banned in the UK and those points are absolutely crucial. As we have heard, the United Kingdom banned fur farming over two decades ago because Parliament rightly recognised the extreme and unnecessary cruelty it inflicts on defenceless animals. Yet today we continue to allow the import and sale of fur products produced using precisely the same methods that we judged unacceptable within our own borders. That contradiction is simply impossible to defend. If fur farming is rightfully recognised as too cruel to permit in this country, then it also should be considered too cruel to profit from its proceeds. Every year, tens of millions of animals across the world are confined to small wire cages or trapped in the wild solely for their fur. An estimated 85 million to 100 million animals globally are farmed or trapped for their fur. Investigations and scientific assessment have shown repeatedly that such conditions fail to meet animals’ most basic behavioural needs and cause severe and inhumane suffering; but do we really need scientific studies to prove that the way in which fur is farmed and animals are trapped is inhumane and causes suffering? Of course not; we can see it with our own eyes. These are wild animals who should be allowed to roam free in the wild, but are instead kept locked up in tiny cages in deplorable conditions. Once their pelts are ready, they are gassed or anally electrocuted, as we have heard. Many of the animals are killed at about the age of one year, when their pelts are in their prime. That is the real nature of the system that continues to supply the global fur trade. While the UK banned fur farming domestically, we remain inextricably connected to the system through the import of furs. As we heard from the hon. Member for Newport West and Islwyn, figures from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs show that the UK continues to import about £30 million to £40 million-worth of fur products each year, which equates to an estimate of about 1 million animals annually. That raises an obvious ethical question.