New law placing an finish to the export of reside animals for slaughter and fattening from Nice Britain was once offered in Parliament on Monday.
The Animal Welfare (Cattle Exports) Invoice bans the export of reside animals together with livestock, sheep, and pigs. In apply, the Invoice could have minimum have an effect on at the pig sector as pigs aren’t exported for slaughter from the United Kingdom.
Defra mentioned this law will ‘forestall animals enduring useless rigidity, exhaustion and damage on lengthy trips’. The Invoice will make certain that animals are slaughtered locally in prime welfare UK slaughterhouses, reinforcing our place as an international chief on animal welfare, boosting the price of British meat and serving to to develop the economic system.
Defra mentioned the Executive is dedicated to prime animal welfare requirements and making sure all animals are handled kindly in any respect phases of existence. “We now have been transparent that animals will have to handiest be transported when important, and if conceivable will have to no longer trip lengthy distances to be slaughtered,” it mentioned.
Reside exports in different particular cases, for instance, for breeding and competitions, will nonetheless be allowed equipped animals are transported in step with prison necessities geared toward protective their welfare. Alternatively, these days it is vitally tough to ship reside pigs to Europe for breeding on account of a brand new requirement to have Border Keep watch over Posts in position for inspections at issues of arrival.
Defra Secretary Steve Barclay mentioned: “We now have one of the most best possible animal welfare requirements on this planet.
“This Invoice uses post-Brexit freedoms to make stronger those requirements via fighting the export of reside animals for slaughter and fattening, which we all know reasons animals useless rigidity and damage.
“The law follows a 2020 session on finishing reside animal exports by which 87% of respondents agreed that cattle will have to no longer be exported for slaughter and fattening. This Invoice additionally follows a manifesto dedication and Motion Plan for Animal Welfare pledge to prohibit the export of reside animals for slaughter and fattening.”
Kerry Postlewhite, assistant director of campaigns and prevention on the RSPCA, mentioned: “After fifty years of campaigning to finish reside exports, it’s so vital, and welcome, that the United Kingdom Executive is performing to prohibit the reside export of animals – outlawing the lengthy, crowded trips, psychological exhaustion, bodily damage, dehydration and rigidity which are a truth for cattle on those useless trips.”
Defra mentioned the Invoice was once ‘only one a part of a much wider Executive effort to support our present world-leading requirements’. It highlighted the creation of recent statutory welfare codes for pigs, laying hens and meat chickens, a ban on using standard battery cages for laying hens and making CCTV obligatory in slaughterhouses.