(Cambridge) (Lab):...It is
also vital that we ensure that any domestic production of animal
products, produced through higher welfare, cage-free standards,
is not simply undercut and replaced by imports from countries
that still use lower-welfare cage systems. Any conversation with
farmers at the moment leads very quickly to their concerns about
being undercut in trade deals. I think we may be discussing this
issue again later in the week but, to our eyes, the Government’s
long-delayed National Food
Strategy failed to include proper protections for
imported food. Henry Dimbleby, the author of the Government
inquiry that was set up a few years ago, said:
“Yet again the government has ducked the issue of how we don’t
just import food that destroys the environment and is cruel to
animals—we can’t create a good fair farming system, then export
those harms abroad. I thought the government would address this
but it didn’t.”
...Although I appreciate that there are concerns about the impact
that increasing animal welfare standards could have on food
prices—particularly at the moment, when many households are
struggling with sky-high inflation—the fact is that, as set out
in Dimbleby’s report, our food system is not working. It fails
animals, it fails the environment and often it fails the
consumer. In our view, the National Food
Strategy has not addressed those issues. We want to
see the Government work with the food sector to ensure that we
can improve animal welfare without pushing up the cost for
consumers. As I said two years ago, we need rock-solid
commitments that ending the use of cages on our farms is a
priority for the Government, and we need proper detail on how
they plan to do that through a proper farming policy...
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