Tim Farron

Of course. What is the point in having these standards if we give them away to those who put us under extreme pressure? I completely agree with my hon. Friend and urge the Government to take the same position. We are seeing the UK outsourcing its egg and pig production abroad, to lower standards—it has already begun. In 2024, the UK imported 109,644 tonnes of eggs, equivalent to the output of approximately 8.5 million layer hens. The previous Labour Government banned sow stalls in 1999, and this Government are now proposing to phase out farrowing crates, yet in the last year the UK imported just shy of 600,000 tonnes of pork—6.4 million pigs—mostly from countries where these practices remain, and are likely to remain for some time, utterly legal. More than 90% of UK citizens believe that UK animal welfare standards should apply to imports, and so do I. The UK needs to protect those high welfare standards, for ethical reasons of protecting animal welfare but also to ensure that we do not harm our domestic agriculture industry and therefore reduce our food security even further. Farmers in Cumbria and across the whole United Kingdom are vital to food security. It is time we listened to them and made Government a help, not a hindrance. It is not right to put them in a position where they are forced to compete with cheaper, less ethically produced imported food. I am a free trade liberal, but free trade is not free if it is not fair. We need a level playing field, especially on animal welfare practices. It is right that we celebrate Britain’s high animal welfare standards, but we should do more than just celebrate them—we should put our public money where our public mouths are. Public sector procurement policy should ensure that the majority of food we purchase comes from the UK, because buying British is not just patriotic; it is the surest way we can know that the food we eat will be ethically farmed. Across the 1,600 farms in Westmorland and Lonsdale, farmers take great pride in the high animal welfare standards they implement. The Government need to recognise and reward that. The Liberal Democrats will not punish farmers by importing animal products with low welfare standards. Sadly, the Government continue to do that. On 9 January, the Government lifted reinforced import controls on consignments of beef, poultry meat, meat products and meat preparations exported from Brazil to Great Britain. That change means that Brazilian shipments will no longer be subject to the additional checks that were previously imposed, reducing inspection intensity. That is clearly a backwards step. The Liberal Democrats have a clear vision for how we would tackle these issues more broadly. Trade deals must never undercut UK animal welfare. We will sign a veterinary and phytosanitary agreement with the EU, restoring co-operation and alignment on food and welfare standards. We will ban the import of food produced with antibiotic growth promoters and ensure that no product illegal to produce in Britain can be sold here, and we will support farmers directly to help them lead the world in high standards of animal husbandry. Because animal welfare matters to us, we would ensure that the regulatory and economic levers that Government can pull will be used to not just protect Britain’s high welfare standards but advance them further. The animal welfare strategy, welcome though it is, must be far more comprehensive in scope, recognising that our approach to trade, public procurement and our domestic economy can have huge impacts on improving or worsening the collective welfare of animals. I urge the Government to be fully aware of those impacts and learn from the failure of the last Government, whose rush for politically convenient trade deals led them to throw our farmers and our animal welfare standards under the bus.