UPDATE: After we published this news below, on 7th April 2016 the Government announced it was abandoning its plan to abolish statutory codes. A news update will appear on our website shortly.
On Saturday 26 March 2016, the Guardian’s front page announced ‘Farm animal welfare codes to be scrapped’. Our Centre warned about these developments some 18 months ago. But, in fact, this news marks the culmination of a process going back at least six years to the Labour Government, who set up an ‘Advisory Group on Responsibility and Cost-Sharing’ in the field of animal health. That in itself was part of the government’s lengthy struggle to develop a coherent response to the devastating Foot and Mouth disease outbreak in 2001. The reason for focussing on ‘animal health’ was largely because of its economic consequences – the productivity and hence profitability of farming. This was reflected in the Advisory Group’s terms of reference: ‘The membership will consist primarily of representatives of the livestock industry…’
So, although the term ‘welfare’ is sprinkled around in their report (for little more than PR reasons), the main focus of the Advisory Group was to figure out how the government can reduce incidents of – and public expenditure on – animal diseases issues such as Bovine TB and BSE (‘mad cow disease’). A primary theme was to give ‘animal keepers’ – mainly farmers – more say over policy. In return for farmers gaining more responsibility and influence, the government has hoped to pass some of the costs for dealing with animal diseases to the industry. In this bargaining relationship between industry and government based on money and self-interest, there has been little room at the table for animal welfare as an intrinsically-important consideration.
The Coalition Government responded to the Advisory Group’s report by setting up a new body in 2011 called the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England (AHWBE) which was heavily dominated by industry interests. By now the scope of the agenda had widened beyond industry participation on disease control. Thus one of the first actions by the AHWBE was to recommend in February 2012 that the government ‘should not update the statutory codes but should move to non-statutory guidance in future’. Saturday’s news heralds the first concrete outcome of that process.
The government, to be precise, is repealing welfare codes that used to be written by Defra officials in consultation with all stakeholders (though the farming industry tended to get their way), and had official legal standing. Instead, they will be replaced with non-binding guidance written by industry. This is as blatant a dereliction of duty by the government as you could see, ditching even the pretence of neutrality or protecting the public interest.
The chicken industry is first, with a code produced by the British Poultry Council due to be published on 27 April. The industry has consistently argued against stricter welfare standards because they believe it will cost them money and make their products less competitive. This has meant, for example, that they are able to breed types of chicken that grow so quickly that 25% of them – over 200 million a year – experience severe suffering due to leg injuries and heart and lung problems. Professor John Webster, one of the UK’s leading animal welfare scientists called this ‘the single most severe, systematic example of our species’ humanity’s towards other animals’.
Now the industry is in control, the new rules are almost certain to become even weaker, vaguer, harder to enforce and make it even more difficult to prosecute apparent breaches of the Animal Welfare Act. This is one of the most disastrous developments in the history of animal protection. Moreover, self-regulation in farming was one of the key factors that caused the BSE/mad cow disease crisis – so this may also endanger the public’s health and lives.
What is frustrating is that this has been brewing for years and despite our warnings, not enough has been done by the animal protection movement to realise and tackle the underlying problem. There seems to be an inability in certain quarters to recognise that a policy process that systematically ignores animal welfare will tend to deliver painful outcomes for animals. It’s a case of not being able to see the wood for the trees.
The root cause of this weaker animal protection comes back to the fundamental political problem identified by our Centre – the lack of any representation for animal welfare in government. This has meant that the commercial interests of industry are the only consideration that registers with the government. The main way to reverse this cruel, dangerous and undemocratic set-up is to follow our proposal for a dedicated government Animal Protection Commission.