Vikki Slade

I thank the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett) for securing this fantastic debate. My inbox is regularly more full of animal welfare issues than anything else. I have been contacted by residents such as Becky Wood, who invited me to her home to visit her rehomed donkeys and chickens and taste her vegan brownies, and many others who are really pleased to see this animal welfare strategy but are impatient for action to follow. I welcome the commitment to reform the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966. I will leave it to other Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers), who have expertise in this matter, to talk about that, but I want to make a plea on behalf of pets who are too old to insure or whose families simply cannot afford the premiums. My constituent Vivenne told me that “the whole business model appears to be set up to milk insurance companies but the ones who cannot insure their dogs have to find the ever increasing costs themselves. We will always find the funds as it is not our rescue dogs’ fault that they both need care but we object to being unfairly ‘fleeced’.” Concerns have been raised by vets in my constituency about their ability to operate alongside huge corporations. Given the changing landscape for our country, I hope that that will be treated with the urgency that it deserves. Many vets work in cattle and farming, and I welcome the proposal about caged animals and male chicks. My brother Spencer’s first holiday job in the 1980s was on a battery chicken farm. I do not think that any of us had any idea what that was, but I recall him lasting just a matter of days there, because the brutality of the place and the overwhelming stench of ammonia led to the very swift decision that he simply could not work there.