Written evidence submitted by Viva! (AWB0004)

Animal Welfare () Bill

Viva! is the UK’s leading vegan campaigning charity, specialising in undercover investigations and high-profile animal campaigns. Founded in 1994 by Juliet Gellatley, we have spent more than 25 years creating a kinder, more sustainable world for humans and animals alike.

The proposed terms of reference for the inquiry are addressed below:

1. Will the (Sentience) Bill ensure that animal sentience is properly taken into account in both new and existing government policy in England?

Animal sentience refers to the ability of animals to feel and experience emotions such as joy, pleasure, pain and fear. It is animals’ capacity to feel both positive and negative states that drives the animal welfare movement and is the reason why animal protection laws exist (Procter et al., 2013). According to the government, animal welfare relates to both the physical health and mental wellbeing of the animal. This has been encapsulated by the “Five Needs” as documented in the 2006 Animal Welfare Act:

 the need for a suitable environment  the need for a suitable diet  the need to be able to exhibit normal behaviour patterns  the need to be housed with, or apart from, other animals  the need to be protected from pain, suffering, injury and disease

Brexit and farmed animals

It can be argued that the five needs (described above) are not being met under current legislation. Leaving the EU has provided the UK government with a unique opportunity to extend and improve existing animal welfare standards in accordance with the evidence. The government says the new Bill will be introduced as part of its Action Plan for Animal Welfare, which proposes to improve welfare for farmed animals by:

 ending the export of live animals for fattening and slaughter  introducing new measures to improve welfare during transport  giving the police more powers to protect farm animals from dangerous or out of control dogs  examining the use of cages for poultry and farrowing crates for pigs  improving animal welfare at slaughter  incentivising farmers to improve animal health and welfare through future farming policy

Viva! says:

1. The government needs to ensure clarity by providing a clear definition of what a sentient animal is. Fish sentience is still a hotly debated topic for example, despite ample scientific evidence that the biology of their nociceptive system is “strikingly similar to that found in mammals” (Sneddon, 2019). There is currently limited legislation to protect fish welfare in most countries. Within the UK, the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and the Animal Health and

June 2021 Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, afford fish a basic level of protection (due to a duty of care requirement and prevention of unnecessary suffering), but fish are excluded from the more detailed Welfare of Farm Animals (England) Regulations 2007 (and similar legislation in Scotland and Wales) and the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing, 2015. Aquaculture is on the rise and legislation to protect fish welfare on farms, as well as at the time of killing, is long overdue.

2. Viva! calls for a ban on all live exports, not just some. No animal born on a farm in the UK should be subjected to gruelling long journeys overseas to continue their lives in conditions that fall below UK welfare laws. Permitting this to happen denies animals the protection of the five needs set out in the 2006 Animal Welfare Act. This new bill provides the opportunity to correct that failure.

3. It is vital that the government bans the importation of live animals too. In 2020, pigs valued at £70 million were imported into Britain (Shahbandeh, 2021). It makes no sense to protect animals within the UK but not those travelling here from elsewhere. Do we only attach importance to the sentience of animals in the UK?

4. The law needs to extend to include animals all over the world, not just those in the UK. The UK could have considerable influence over animal welfare in other countries. We have an opportunity to promote animal protection by using our new independent voice in international treaties and trade agreements. The UK could support other countries to improve animal welfare, encouraging them, for example, to enforce a ban on the trade of wild animals, or address the suffering of animals in factory farms via the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE; the intergovernmental organisation coordinating, supporting and promoting animal disease control).

5. Viva! calls for a ban on the use of cages for poultry. Chickens confined in caged systems never see the sky, feel fresh air on their feathers or grass under their feet. Caged hens currently make up 42 per cent of the UK market (British Egg Information Service, 2021). Caged hens are the only major group of farmed animals in the UK to remain caged for all of their productive lives. This contravenes at least three of the five needs documented in the 2006 Animal Welfare Act. Unable to escape the proximity of other hens or fulfil natural behaviours, life in enriched cages is one of boredom, desperation, frustration and suffering. The now-mandatory provision of enrichments – such as nesting boxes, perches, dust baths, litter areas and scratch pads – is intended to allow hens to fulfil their natural behaviours of scratching, foraging, roosting and dust bathing. However, in many farms, although the hens technically have access to enrichments, they’re still not able to use them. With up to 80 birds per cage, and aggressive territorial hens guarding enrichments, many hens never get access. Enriched cages do not satisfy even the hen’s most basic behavioural and physical needs such as ground scratching and wing stretching, or activities such as walking, running, jumping, fluttering and flying. In short, there is no meaningful “enrichment” in the enriched cage at all.

June 2021 6. Viva! calls for a ban on the use of farrowing crates. These metal frames or cages are only centimetres larger than the sow’s body. She will remain confined for up to five weeks after giving birth to her piglets. She is unable ever to turn around, can scarcely take a step forward or backwards, and frequently rubs against the bars when standing up and lying down. Farrowing crates are used for around 60 per cent of all British sows (RSPCA, 2021). Pigs are naturally active and sows would usually build a nest in the weeks before giving birth, yet in a farrowing crate, she can fulfil none of her natural nesting behaviours. Again, contravening a number of the five needs documented in the 2006 Animal Welfare Act. When her babies are born, she is unable to mother or nurture them and they find it almost impossible to nestle beside her, only able to reach her teats for milk. Newborn piglets have no ability to regulate their temperature and in a natural environment, the nest would provide the warmth they need. In intensive farming, it is provided by heat lamps inside the stall, which draw the piglets away from their mother’s side in the early days after birth. The sow will remain like this for up to five weeks, until her piglets are artificially weaned at around 21 to 28 days. The pig industry says that the reason for using farrowing crates is to “protect piglet welfare and stock person safety”. However, this is disingenuous as piglet mortality is roughly the same in outdoor units where farrowing crates are not used (Edwards, 2011).

7. Viva! calls for an end to subsidies to farmers and more financial support for farmers moving over to crop-based sustainable farming practices. Animal agriculture contributes more anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions than all the world’s transport put together – yet the government continues to turn a blind eye to the problem. The government must invest in more sustainable agriculture; moving away from livestock towards crop farming (alongside reforestation and afforestation to capture carbon and encourage biodiversity). The British Isles with its temperate climate and ample rainfall is an ideal growing region. There is enough arable land in the UK to provide for the protein, calorific and nutritional needs of our entire population. Sadly, 55 per cent of our arable land is used to produce animal feed (Harwatt and Hayek, 2019). More than half of all , pulses, and oil crops grown are destined for livestock (de Ruiter et al., 2017). Today, 91 per cent of UK cropland is occupied by just seven crops (wheat, grass/forage, barley, rapeseed, sugar beet, potatoes, and oats) – the majority of this produce going to animal feed (Harwatt and Hayek, 2019). A future farming policy needs to encourage the move away from livestock farming for the sake of our health, the environment and the animals.

8. Viva! calls for a ban on the sale of fur and foie gras. Viva! calls for a tightening of the (Prohibition) Act 2000 to close the loophole that allows for animal pelts and fur to be sold as a by-product of the meat trade (like those sold by T&S Rabbits) as well as a complete ban on the importation of fur and fur products. The UK does not permit cruel farming methods used to produce fur and foie gras, so banning both the import and sale of all these products is the moral, ethical and logical choice.

9. Pandemic threat and One Health. The government’s ambition to be a “global leader” for animal welfare should see them making the connection between animal and human health. As the World Health Organisation and many other groups have warned, we ignore at our peril the public health risk that presents when animals are confined, crammed in together in

June 2021 factory farms and markets, stressed and suffering. Animals reared in high-stress environments, such as factory farms, are more susceptible to infectious diseases (EMA and EFSA, 2017). A large body of scientific evidence shows that factory farms are breeding grounds for disease. Three in four new and emerging infectious diseases come from animals (CDC, 2017). Most farmed animals in the UK are reared intensively in huge numbers, thus increasing the risk of disease: “Intensification of livestock production, especially pigs and poultry, facilitates disease transmission by increasing population size and density” (Jones et al., 2013). Intensive livestock systems generally have high density populations of low genetic diversity, which may favour increased transmission and adaptation of disease pathogens. According to scientists, there is: “Strong evidence that modern farming practices and intensified systems can be linked to disease emergence and amplification” (Jones et al., 2013). Covid-19 may have come from a wet market, but many scientists fear the next pandemic will be caused by a bird flu virus emerging from a pig or poultry farm.

The way the 2009 swine flu pandemic would occur was predicted in a review published just months before it occurred: “…recent events resulting in the establishment and isolation of reassorted, mammalian-adapted H2N3 viruses from pigs in the US should remind scientists, medical doctors, veterinarians and farmers that the creation of novel reassortant swine influenza viruses with zoonotic and pandemic potential could also happen in modern swine facilities in the backyard of a highly industrialised country in North America or Western Europe” (Ma et al., 2008). Within a few months of this review being published, the world faced an influenza pandemic for the first time in 40 years. The next one could be a lot sooner, according to some scientists.

Viva! calls for the Bill to enforce the “Five Needs” as documented in the 2006 Animal Welfare Act and apply them to all sentient animals to lower the risk of disease transmission between animals and from animals to humans.

2. Are there sufficient safeguards to ensure that the proposed Animal Sentience Committee will be (a) independent (b) have the necessary expertise and (c) have the necessary powers to be effective?

This will largely depend on who the Secretary of State appoints to be on the committee. How effective the committee will be will depend on how the government responds to reports raised by the committee. It is important to note that the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) panel on Animal Health and Welfare (AHAW) provides scientific advice on all aspects of animal diseases and animal welfare. Its work chiefly concerns food producing animals, including fish. AHAW Panel Members are scientists from across Europe with expertise in: risk assessment, quantitative risk assessment and modelling; microbiology and pathology (applied to infectious diseases of food- producing animals, including aquatic animals); epidemiology, animal welfare and so on. It is hoped that the Animal Sentience Committee will include similar experts.

3. Are the proposed requirements on the government to respond to an Animal Sentience Committee’s report sufficient?

June 2021 A concern shared by several animal welfare groups is that the Bill will not have enough “bite” and that the legal responsibility to defend the welfare of animals will be outsourced or shifted away from Ministers to the newly formed Animal Sentience Committee (ASC) who will then be held accountable to Parliament. However, if the ASC only has the power to make recommendations, but not enforce them, this would make animal sentience a side issue for the government and not a direct and judicially enforceable duty. Viva! recommends that the government implements direct and enforceable responsibility for animal sentience to Ministers to be supported by the ASC. Viva! also recommends that animal sentience becomes integrated in animal welfare laws so that sentience is taken into serious account when acts of cruelty and neglect and failure to meet the basic “Five Needs” are committed, and that prosecutions are encouraged and enabled.

4. How does the proposed Animal Sentience Committee compare to similar bodies, such as the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission?

The Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC) focuses on protecting wild and companion animals while also providing scientific and ethical advice to government. There is no mention of the ASC providing ethical advice in Lord Goldsmith’s statement. A committee set up to protect the moral value of sentient animals must have the power to advise on an ethical as well as scientific basis. Viva! recommends that this is written into the committee’s remit.

The SAWC provides a definition: “A sentient animal is one that can experience feelings such as pain or pleasure.” The ASC need to do this too.

The SAWC comprises of a total of 12 commissioners, recruited through open advertisement, who sit on the Commission in an individual capacity and not as representatives of particular groups or organisations. This would be a good model for the ASC.

5. Is the government correct to limit the scope of the Bill to vertebrate animals?

Viva! are calling for the definition of “animal” to be expanded beyond only vertebrates, to include cephalopods and decapod crustaceans. There is a wealth of evidence showing that these animals are sentient. Cephalopods exhibit impressive spatial learning capacity and their navigational abilities are widely acknowledged. In captivity, they have learned to navigate simple mazes, solve puzzles and open screw-top jars, while wild animals have been observed stacking rocks to protect the entrances to their dens, and hiding themselves inside coconut shell halves. Half a billion neurons put octopuses close to the range of dogs and their brains are large relative to their size, both of which offer biologists a rough guide to brainpower. There is now also good evidence that crustaceans can experience pain. In February 2021, the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission issued a statement recognising cephalopods and decapod crustaceans as sentient: “We consider that the animals for which the threshold for sentience has been exceeded, and thus for whom a consideration of animal welfare is important, include: vertebrates (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians), cephalopods (eg octopus and squid) and decapod crustaceans (eg crab and lobster)” (Scottish Government, 2021). It would make no sense, therefore, for Parliament to exclude these groups from the Bill.

June 2021 References

British Egg Information Service. 2021. https://www.egginfo.co.uk/egg-facts-and-figures/industry- information/data

CDC. 2017. Zoonotic diseases. https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html de Ruiter H, Macdiarmid JI, Matthews RB et al. 2017. Total global agricultural land footprint associated with UK food supply 1986-2011. Global Environmental Change. 43,72-81.

Edwards, S. 2011. Pigs. Management and welfare of farmed animals. UFAW Farm Handbook.

EMA (European Medicines Agency) and EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), 2017. EMA and EFSA Joint Scientific Opinion on measures to reduce the need to use antimicrobial agents in in the European Union, and the resulting impacts on food safety. EFSA Journal. 15 (1) 4666.

Harwatt H and Hayek MN. 2019. Eating Away at Climate Change with Negative Emissions, Repurposing UK Agricultural Land to meet Climate Goals. Published by Harvard Law School.

Jones BA, Grace D, Kock R et al. 2013. Zoonosis emergence linked to agricultural intensification and environmental change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.110 (21) 8399-8404.

Ma W, Kahn RE, Richt JA. 2008. The pig as a mixing vessel for influenza viruses: Human and veterinary implications. Journal of Molecular Genetic Medicine. 3 (1) 158-166.

Proctor HS, Carder G, Cornish AR. 2013. Searching for Animal Sentience: A Systematic Review of the Scientific Literature. Animals (Basel). 3 (3) 882-906.

RSPCA. 2021. Farrowing crates. https://www.rspcaassured.org.uk/farm-animal-welfare/pigs/what- are-farrowing-crates/

Scottish Government. 2021. Scottish Animal Welfare Commission: statement on animal sentience. https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-animal-welfare-commission-statement-on-animal- sentience/

Shahbandeh M. 2020. Live animals United Kingdom (UK) import value 2020, by type. https://www.statista.com/statistics/514722/live-animals-uk-import-value-united-kingdom-uk-by- type/

Sneddon L U. 2019. Evolution of nociception and pain: evidence from fish models. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences. 374 (1785) 20190290.

June 2021