9 May 2023

BORN FREE TELLS GOVERNMENT TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO DELIVER ON ANIMAL WELFARE

Born Free has signed an open letter to the Conservative Government, decrying the lack of progress made by this Government on animal protection and welfare since the publication of its Action Plan for Animal Welfare.

The following letter has been co-signed by Born Free and 24 other animal welfare organisations, urging action from Rishi Sunak’s Government.

Dear Prime Minister,

On 12th May 2021, the Conservative Government published its Action Plan for Animal Welfare to a chorus of approval from our organisations. In its foreword, then-Environment Secretary George Eustice set out a simple principle on which the plan was built: “The way we treat animals reflects our values and the kind of people we are.” The plan includes proud reflections on our 200-year history of animal protection laws, the oldest in the world, and very welcome intent: “We will continue to raise the bar, and we intend to take the rest of the world with us.”

This week marks the second anniversary of the Action Plan. Since its publication, our organisations, our millions of supporters, the animal-loving British public, and the animals they and we care so deeply about, have been badly let down by your Government.

Of the more than 35 ‘game changing welfare measures’ pledged in the Plan to protect companion animals, farmed animals and wildlife, both at home and overseas, only around a quarter have been delivered. And some of the parts that have, such as flagship legislation recognising animals as sentient beings and requiring Ministers to safeguard animal welfare, have yet to come into force a full year after Royal Assent.

Your Party’s manifesto promises, including banning live exports and stopping the cruel trade in puppies, have been left languishing as the Government’s Kept Animals Bill has not been given Parliamentary time for over 17 months. If not resurrected before summer recess, it will fail to pass into law.

We have recently learned that Defra Ministers are minded to dismantle the Bill, apparently paranoid that it could be hijacked for an uncomfortable debate on issues such as the Hunting Act. Such concerns in no way legitimise the derailment of this vital legislation. It is likely that a new set of Bills would not receive sufficient time to deliver the key contents of the Kept Animals Bill in any case.

Over the past 18 months, dozens of Parliamentary questions have sought assurance on whether the Government intends to honour its commitments to animal welfare, and to voters. The Government has responded that action for animals, including the vital Kept Animals Bill, may be forthcoming ‘when Parliamentary time allows’.

Meanwhile, in less than a year your Government has found the time to both introduce and pass the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act, legislation that creates serious animal welfare risks and ethical concerns. And despite commitments in both your Party’s manifesto and the 2021 Action Plan that ‘in all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high…animal welfare…standards’, your Government has sold out our country’s animal welfare principles in trade deals that will liberalise market access for products of cruelty from overseas.

Action to end the UK’s involvement in the global fur trade, an inherently cruel industry that poses serious disease risk and could very well be the source of the next pandemic, has ground to a halt. A ban on fur imports is supported by 77% of British people and backed by more than 150 cross-party MPs, but the results from Defra’s 2021 Call For Evidence remain unpublished, and the Government’s policy in this area is apparently instead determined by the personal views of a small number of MPs.

Our patience, and our trust, has now been exhausted.

The Kept Animals Bill, and the majority of the Action Plan, now appears to be little more than an inconvenience to a Government that believes it can quietly abandon its promises. Animal issues matter to voters.

In 2021 the Government committed to introducing ‘tangible, enduring change… as a key government priority’ and pledged to ensure that the UK offers animals ‘the care, respect and protection they deserve’. You have the power now, as the clock runs down on this Parliamentary session, to honour that commitment.

The sentiment in the Action Plan is sound and correct: the way we treat animals does reflect our values and the kind of people we are. Please show us, and our supporters, that yours will not be the Government that abandons the world-leading progress for animals that so many millions of British people are waiting for.

Signed by the following animal protection organisations:

• Animal Aid
• Animal Defenders International
• Animal Equality UK
• Animal Interfaith Alliance
• Animal Protection Agency
• Born Free Foundation
• Catholic Concern for Animals
• Compassion in World Farming
• Crustacean Compassion
• Focus on Animal Law
• FOUR PAWS UK
• Freedom for Animals
• Humane Society International/UK
• IFAW UK
• League Against Cruel Sports
• Naturewatch Foundation
• OneKind
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
• RSPCA
• Scottish SPCA
• The Shellfish Network
• Whale and Dolphin Conservation
• Wildlife & Countryside Link
• Wild Welfare
• World Animal Protection