CONTENTS

politics first | Corridors
September / October 2016 | www.politicsfirst.org.uk
Bringing compassion
to animal farming
Undemocratic, unaccountable
and out of touch: the reality of
the House of Lords
Sir David Amess, Conservative MP for Southend West
Ronnie Cowan, Scottish National Party MP for Inverclyde
Since first being elected to Parliament in 1983, I have
always taken a very close interest in animal welfare
matters. That is borne out of my own personal love of
animals, going back to my childhood. Over the years, I
have been involved in many campaigns to improve the
welfare of animals.
Parliament should reflect the society that it wishes to
create. However, the House of Lords does not reflect a
society that I wish to be part of.
So it goes without saying that I am a strong
supporter of compassion in animal farming.
I am not silly about the issue; I appreciate
that not that many of us are vegetarians and
that the majority of the population eat meat.
However, I also strongly believe that the mark
of any civilization is how we treat animals. This
country, by and large, has a first-class record in
animal welfare.
Only this year, the Conservative Party has set
up the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation,
with the objective of raising awareness of the
lives of literally billions of animals reared on
intensive farms around the world and how
this impacts on animal welfare and impacts
on the environment and peoples’ health. The
organisation highlights how people can help
to advance animal welfare. The Conservative
Party manifesto actually promised to uphold the
highest standards of farm animal welfare.
Each year, about 70 billion animals are
farmed for milk, eggs and meat worldwide,
with about 25,000 slaughtered every minute.
There is great variety in the conditions under which
the animals are raised. Whilst standards in the UK
are high, elsewhere they are often lower, leading
to significant unnecessary pain and suffering
for millions of animals. The media will report
on those stories when they uncover something
that is particularly gruesome. In February 2015,
the government’s five year progress report on
international animal welfare was published. It is
important that our country shares the knowledge
of best husbandry and veterinary practice
internationally to raise standards.
The stalls which keep sows caged, so
they cannot move during their pregnancy,
were banned for cruelty reasons in the UK
in 1999 but, today, six EU countries are still
non-compliant. Consumers’ growing interest
in how animals are treated on farms and in
livestock facilities has created a strong demand
for further information, so the public are rightly
concerned about the rise in factory farms where
animals are crammed together, where sow pigs
are locked into farrowing crates, where cows
never see the sun and chickens are crippled
with no room to move in cages.
All farm animals used for food should be
treated with respect. Farm animals in intensive
farms are crammed together in sheds and
are de-beaked, castrated, tails docked, dehorned
and have their teeth clipped, artificially
inseminated and their mating is controlled.
The animals not only endure those painful
procedures but also suffer from fear and stress.
Intensively reared farm animals are controlled in
every aspect and denied their natural behaviour
to form bonds with their young and each other.
They have little space to move around and never
smell fresh air or feel a blade of grass beneath
their feet.
Whilst there is some improvement in
animal welfare, we could be doing so much
more to eliminate cruelty to animals. Livestock
production, fuelled by factory farming, is
responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions
than all the worlds’ trains, airplanes and cars
put together, yet there has been little focus on
these astonishing facts. Industrial livestock
production generally uses and pollutes more
ground and surface water than grazing or mixed
systems.
Veal crates were banned in the UK in
1990 and today the practice is outlawed in
all countries in the EU. Many MPs are calling
for CCTV to be installed in slaughterhouses
to ensure that proper procedures are carried
out to reduce the suffering of farm animals.
Other MPs are calling for an end to the longterm
distance live transportation of animals
and the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, yet
progress is frustratingly slow, for instance with
the implementation of legislation to ban beak
trimming of commercial hens being constantly
postponed.
We consumers have the power in our hands
to make a real contribution to the quality of life
of farm animals. Animal welfare should be at the
core of our food choice; we can decide not to
purchase factory farmed meat, milk, poultry and
eggs and, in contrast, buy products from farms
with high welfare conditions, where animals are
reared cage free and cows graze on pastures. So
let us seize this opportunity that we now have
following the country’s decision to leave the EU
and source our food from countries which treat
their farm animals with respect.
For information on the Conservative Animal
Welfare Foundation, visit:
www.conservativeanimalwelfarefoundation.org/
Unelected, bloated and out of touch, the
House of Lords is only surpassed in size
by China’s National People’s Congress, a
legislature that represents over 1.3 billion
people.
The Lords should, in practise, work in
tandem with the House of Commons to make
laws for the benefit of the people.
Yet for many, the House of Lords has
simply become a political retirement home
for politicians rejected at the ballot box, party
appointees, unelected bishops and fourth
generation offspring of long forgotten land
owning aristocracy.
There is no doubt that there are capable,
compassionate people who do make it to the
House of Lords. People who care, can help to
govern and, indeed, would be chosen if the
upper chamber was fully elected. However,
those people only end up in the Lords by
accident, rather than design, and without a
mandate from the people.
I want to see a modern parliament that
is fit for purpose and works as a functional
centre of governance. Some might argue
that the House of Lords already fulfils its
role of holding the Government to account.
Unfortunately, all I see is centuries of
accumulated privilege and unaccountability.
I can accept that while other parliamentary
systems may work more effectively, no
system is perfect. If there is a problem
within our political structure, it should have
the opportunity to reform and to meet the
demands of a modern society.
Yet over a century after the process of
Lords reform was initiated, we are still waiting
for any kind of meaningful rehabilitation of
our upper house. Too much of that reform
process has related only to the relationship
between the Lords and Commons, rather than
a more fundamental debate about why we
even have an unelected chamber.
In the recent European Union referendum
campaign, Brexit was predicated on a belief
that we are being represented by unelected
and unaccountable European politicians.
Those same Brexiteers are strangely
inconspicuous about a lack of democracy
closer to home.
They are welcome to join the debate at
any time, and it is not beyond the realms of
possibility that, together, we can all think of
a more effective way for our upper house to
operate.
I want to see a second chamber that
is elected - not allocated on the basis of
political favour - and a chamber that is
accountable for the behaviour of its members.
Our second chamber should also be secular
and not allocate privilege and entitlement
to a particular religious denomination, as it
does now.
More importantly, women remain
significantly underrepresented in our
parliament, despite the record high number
that are now sitting in both chambers. An
increased number of women in parliament
will bring a welcome challenge to the existing
parliamentary rules and a reformed upper
house could benefit from more convenient
working hours and the development of a less
combative debating culture.
The SNP has a long standing view that the
House of Lords, in its current format of being
unelected, should be abolished and replaced
with an elected second chamber. In our age
of political cynicism, I am also proud that my
party continues to maintain its longstanding
principle of refusing to sit in the House of
Lords.
As long as Scotland is part of the UK, I will
use my parliamentary voice to argue in favour
of reform. Sadly, over a century of failure tells
us that substantial reform of the Lords will
probably never happen.
If we cannot secure reforms, then the
House of Lords will continue to be as
practical as using a horse and cart to travel
down a motorway.
Only once we have a parliament that
reflects our society can we truly be proud of
our parliamentary democracy. If Westminster
is incapable of that change, then Scotland
must look to its own parliament for the
answers.
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