Member News
By Anne McIntosh MP - 13th December 2011
Anne McIntosh MP highlights UK businesses' disadvantage when complying with EU directives, unlike fellow member states.
I am delighted to have secured this debate, along with my select committee colleagues. We all put in for this opportunity to debate this important matter.
There is wide support for banning battery cages, and UK consumers have backed the EU Directive intended to improve the welfare of laying hens since it was approved in 1999.
Egg producers in this country, such as Yorkshire Farmhouse Eggs in my own constituency, have invested a massive £400m to comply with this legislation.
Egg producers across the EU have had 12 years to switch to the 'enriched' cages required under the new animal welfare rules.
It is therefore unacceptable that more than 51 million hens in at least 11 member states including Spain, Italy and Poland, are likely to still be kept in conventional cages when the ban comes into force on 1 January 2012. It is equally unacceptable for the agriculture minister, Jim Paice, to say that now we will simply check whether imported shell eggs have been produced in enriched or conventional cages, and that eggs that do not comply with the ban will be offered for sale to food processors.
The minister is relying on food processors and retailers to enforce this European legislation on the government's behalf, at a cost to those companies that will inevitably be passed on to the buying public.
What is expected of the minister is either to ban such products on the basis of the EU Directive itself, or to temporarily halt the import of such non-compliant products until they meet the provisions of the Directive. The minister should tour the capitals of those other compliant member states and urge them to join forces to enforce a ban on illegal eggs and egg products.
It is perverse that any animal products could be banned on public or animal health grounds, but apparently not under the legal provisions of this EU Directive.
In the EFRA committee report on the Directive we noted that it was the first piece of EU legislation intended to improve animal welfare to be implemented, and was therefore likely to be seen as a test case of how serious the Commission is about tackling poor animal welfare.
The EU will shortly implement another piece of animal welfare legislation – the ban on stalls and tethers. The UK's pig industry has, for several years, been at a competitive disadvantage because of our early adoption of this ban. If the Commission fails to tackle the enforcement of the conventional cage ban, it will send a message to EU pig producers that the sows and tethers ban can be flouted as well.
Anne McIntosh MP is chair of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. She has been the member of parliament for Thirsk and Malton since 2010 and was previously member for Vale of York (1997-2010).
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