Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation Meets Farming Minister
Lorraine Platt, Co Founder of Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation met with Defra Minister George Eustice at the Conservative Party conference to discuss objectives to advance farm animal welfare on the 3rd October.
Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, whose patrons are Sir Roger Gale MP and Lady Suzy Gale urged for an end to live animal exports, an end to cages for hens, farrowing crates for pigs, the introduction of CCTV in all slaughterhouses and for the introduction of method of production labelling on meat and dairy products including non stun slaughter meat.
The Minister was handed a briefing document from Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation on proposals for mandatory method of production labelling.
Lorraine Platt said ‘ It was good to meet with the Minister and discuss our aims to help advance farm animal welfare within the Conservative party. We discussed various animal welfare issues. We look forward to working with MPs on this. Tens of millions of animals are reared on intensive farms each year. Animal welfare is an increasing concern amongst the general public, who frequently look to Government to take the lead in both maintaining and improving standards.
We brought the Ministers attention to our focus that around 80% of UK animal welfare legislation originates from the EU with over 40 laws relevant to animal welfare. These laws cover all four groups of animals- farm, research, wildlife and companion and span over 40 years .The largest body of legislation concerns farm animals with 18 relevant EU law adopted.
At the very least, Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation would want to see all the existing legislation maintained and that opportunities are made to improve existing policies. We urge that animal welfare is not compromised as part of the process to leave the EU.
Our campaign objectives have been featured on Conservative Home website, Politics First magazine, in the Scottish Farmer, The Plymouth Herald, The Western Morning News and the Labelling Matters website which is a coalition of Compassion in World farming, The Soil Association, The RSPCA Eurogroup For Animals.
