My hon. Friend is right. I do not want to divert from this debate, but in all the international wildlife conventions, we will regain our voice, our voting rights and our seat at the table.
Most importantly, leaving the European Union gives us the opportunity to deliver the second manifesto commitment that I mentioned at the start of this debate, by placing animal welfare at the heart of the design of future agricultural policy. We should recognise that there are some limits to how far increased regulation can go. As a number of hon. Members have pointed out, there is no point raising standards here so high that we effectively end up exporting our industry to other countries because we have exposed producers here to unfair competition from countries with far lower animal welfare standards.
We are seriously considering the possibility of introducing incentives to encourage and support higher animal welfare standards and different approaches to animal husbandry that can reduce our reliance on antibiotics, improving animal health while delivering animal welfare outcomes. In the past couple of years, a number of countries have been doing interesting work in the area. Denmark has developed a voluntary three-tier system for its pig sector to reward producers who show commitment to higher animal welfare standards. The Dutch have a similar system called “the better life system”.
Germany is particularly interesting. It has something called the Tierwohl system, which financially rewards farmers who adopt standards of animal welfare that go above and beyond the regulatory minimum. I have had representations from organisations such as the RSPCA and others that would like us to explore similar options here in the UK. As part of our policy development, we are considering all those ideas. As I said earlier, we have a manifesto commitment to place greater emphasis on animal welfare in future policy.
I turn to a few of the points made by hon. Members. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet raised the issue of trade and the context of the World Trade Organisation. As a former Minister who understands the issues well, she will know that yes, there are WTO rules. There have been disputes about the degree to which reliance can be placed on animal welfare standards in trade negotiations, but equally, there are legal precedents and case law to support the use of ethical bans on certain practices and the reflection of animal welfare in trade agreements. I do not believe that anything along the lines that we would propose will cause any difficulty whatever with WTO rules.
My right hon. Friend mentioned farrowing crates. It is a complex issue. We led the way in banning sow stalls. I declare an interest: my brother has a pig farm, and raises a rare breed of outdoor pig. There is a danger of sows lying on their piglets; I put it to hon. Members that that is not great for the welfare of the piglet concerned. It is a genuine management challenge, and it is not straightforward. She also mentioned the possibility of offering incentives to encourage free-range systems and perhaps pasture-based grazing systems. Those are exactly the kinds of idea that we are at least willing to consider as part of our work.
Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), raised the issue of zero grazing. There is some academic research showing that by a small margin, depending on the weather, cows prefer to be outdoors in pastures rather than housed indoors. More importantly—I used to run a farm where we had livestock—any farmer
who has turned cattle out to grass in April and watched their reaction knows that cattle prefer grazing, all other things being equal.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) raised trade, which I believe I have addressed. My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay), a long-standing campaigner on the issue, mentioned live exports, as did others. While we are in the EU, it would be against free movement rules to place an ethical ban on the export of live animals, but once we leave the European Union, we will be free to do so, if that is the decision of the UK Government; there will be nothing to stand in our way. The only thing that I would say is that it is a little more complex than one might think in that we export breeding stock, pigs in particular, and that is a different issue. There are also matters to do with different animals travelling better than others. The area is complex, but certainly one that we would be free to look at after leaving the EU.
Finally, a number of hon. Members mentioned CCTV in slaughterhouses. A report by the Farm Animal Welfare Committee, which advises all the Administrations in the UK, highlighted some of the benefits of CCTV. Method-of-slaughter labelling, however, is contentious. The European Union did some research and we are waiting to see the next steps. We have always been clear that we do not rule out looking at some kind of labelling for method of production or slaughter, although again the issue is complex.
We have had a fantastic debate, with many interesting contributions. I hope that I have been able to reassure Members that the Government take the matter very seriously.
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