Blog written by Claire Hamlett, a freelance journalist and contributor

Animal advocates have been left bitterly disappointed after the Government scrapped the highly anticipated Kept Animals Bill last week. Decades of campaigning to end live animal exports from the UK were about to pay off, with the bill making its final passage through parliament after long delays, when Minister of State for Food, Farming and Fisheries, Mark Spencer, announced it would be scrapped. But he insisted the government remained committed to improving animal welfare – through the piecemeal strategy of leaving individual measures in the bill to be taken forward through Private Members’ bills.

Live animal exports

The Kept Animals Bill, which would have ended the live export of animals for fattening or slaughter, was by no means perfect; poultry were excluded from the live export ban, as were breeding animals, which together comprise the majority of British animals subjected to gruelling journeys abroad. But it still would have saved thousands of animals, including young calves, from hellish experiences.

It also would have set an example for European countries, which collectively are the biggest animal exporter in the world. The European Court of Auditors has recently proposed reforms to Europe’s live export trade, indicating the growing awareness that animals are thinking, feeling beings. Meanwhile, New Zealand became the first country to end live export by sea when its long-awaited ban came into force in April this year. So why, when the Kept Animals Bill was finally gathering momentum towards the finish line, did the government kill it?

Spencer said it was because “it risked being extended far beyond the original commitments in the [Conservative] manifesto … And in particular, Labour is clearly determined to play political games by widening the scope of this Bill.” Reports indicate that what this actually means is the Tories feared it would lead to a push for a ban on so-called trail hunting, which has been exposed multiple times as a way for hunters to continue terrorising and killing foxes. As Claire Bass of Humane Society International said to ITV, “"Vital protections for dogs, calves, sheep, primates and other animals have been sacrificed today at the government's altar of self-serving political convenience.” Possibly the move is also an attempt to help placate the British farming industry, which never wanted a live export ban in the first place.

Puppy smuggling

It isn’t just animals who are farmed that the government has betrayed by dropping the bill. It was also supposed to bring in measures to tackle puppy smuggling by reducing the number of animals that can travel under pet travel rules, restrict the import of pregnant dogs and dogs with mutilations such as cropped ears and tails, ban the private keeping of primates, and make sure zoos do more to contribute to conservation. 

While there was some concern that the measures relating to dogs with cropped ears and tails – procedures which are illegal to carry out in the UK – would make it hard for rescue dogs who had been mutilated from finding a home and stigmatise people who do adopt these dogs, the bill overall would have been a big step forward for captive and companion animals. 

Primates and zoos

Keeping primates as companions is deeply cruel to both the baby monkeys and their mothers, as well as being dangerous and helping to fuel the exotic pet trade. Up to 5,000 of them are already living captive in people’s homes around the UK. The Kept Animals Bill would have helped to stop this number from rising. For zoos, the bill would have enabled the Secretary of State to specify conservation standards, and make it a licence condition for those standards to be met. According to Born Free Foundation, zoos in the UK often have enclosures that are inadequate for meeting animals’ needs, and spend an average of only 4.2 percent of their revenue on conservation projects.

It’s deeply frustrating that the government would ditch a bill that would have raised the bar for how animals are treated across a wide range of contexts in one fell swoop, relying instead on individual MPs or Lords to table bills for each problem separately. While the Tories claim that Labour wanted to “play political games” with the bill, this is clearly exactly what the government itself is doing, pandering to its base of hunting enthusiasts to shore up votes ahead of next year’s General Election. But we aren’t giving up. Our ‘Lives Not Stock’ campaign to end live exports continues.

As always,

For the animals.