The Labour Party and Animal Welfare

Animal Protection Performance

Since the last General Election in 2005, PAD has promoted 16 Early Day Motions (EDMs) calling for improved animal protection in the House of Commons. Early Day Motions are like petitions for MPs.

Labour make up 55% of MPs, and accounted for 59% of the support for EDMs. In our index, the score 1 signifies the average animal protection commitment of the parties: Labour scores 1.07.

The Labour website’s animal welfare policy section lists a number of measures taken by Labour since they first came to power in 1997. However, the only forward-looking comment at the moment refers to the Conservatives’ threat to repeal the hunting ban. Overall, while Labour backbenchers are relatively sympathetic to animal protection, the Government has shown little substantial commitment, routinely sacrificing the wellbeing of animals for the sake of big business.

While the Animal Welfare Act 2006 provides welcome new protection for domestic companion animals, it does not cover the 1 billion animals who are subjected to the cruelty of intensive farming and experimentation every year.

At the current time, a draft set of animal welfare proposals for the election campaign is being considered by leading figures in the party. We await the final version with great interest and will update this page accordingly.

Hunting

Labour introduced the Hunting Act 2004 to outlaw hunting with dogs. Flawed or not, this is a vital piece of legislation that signals our society’s opposition to sadistic cruelty. However, it is interesting to note that it was Labour backbench MPs who finally secured the hunting ban. Labour elites, such as the-then PM Tony Blair, lacked any serious moral commitment to this measure, and had to be pushed by their rank-and-file MPs. This pattern of concerned backbenchers versus indifferent leaders encapsulates the Labour Government’s attitude to animals. Thankfully Labour now appears to be solidly committed to the hunting ban.

Democratic Reform

The Labour Government has been highly dismissive of our concerns about the systematic bias against animals in policy-making, refusing to engage in an open, reasonable discussion. In our lobbying on this issue, we have discussed the problems in the main areas of institutionalised cruelty – laboratory experiments and agriculture. In its reply, the Government has cited the Animal Welfare Act as an example of its responsiveness to animal welfare concerns. However, this reply is disingenuous because the Animal Welfare Act doesn’t affect the areas of concern. Ironically, this evasiveness and failure to take our concerns seriously rather sums up the problem!

Having said that, there is a possibility that Labour will support the idea of an Animal Protection Commission in its animal welfare manifesto. We will update as soon as this emerges.

Battery Egg Farming

The Labour Government deserves some credit for resisting industry pressure and sticking by its proposed ban on ‘conventional’ or ‘barren’ battery cages, due to come into force in 2012. This ban is also due to come in across Europe. However, the Government supports ‘enriched’ cages, even though they deprive hens of the ability to meaningfully fulfil natural behaviours, leading to abnormal behaviours, frustration, suffering and body degeneration.

Sadly, the Labour Government has now decided to postpone the ban on the de-beaking of laying hens, which was due to come into force on January 1st 2011, thus reversing one of their most significant animal welfare measures. This has happened despite farmers being given nine years to phase-out this painful mutilation. The egg industry has primarily used the phase out period to lobby against the ban rather than prepare for keeping hens without beak trimming.

Animal Experiments

This has probably been the greatest source of disappointment in the Labour Government. Labour has completely failed to get to grips with this policy area. Initial promises of tighter regulation and better scrutiny of applications to conduct animal experiments were soon dropped due to economic blackmail from the pharmaceutical industry. Consequently, far from reducing and replacing animal experiments, the numbers have risen from 2.6 million in 1997 to 3.7 million in 2008. The Government has gone out of its way to avoid regulating animal experiments and has covered-up illegal cruelty.

Likewise, the Government has sought to shield animal experimentation from democratic accountability by maintaining a veil of secrecy around the practice. This also hides breaches of the law. Instead of disclosing reliable information, the Government has published edited versions (‘narratives’) of animal research project applications which have been condemned by the courts for being little more than pro-animal research spin.

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