Gove rubbishes ‘fake news’ slur on Tories over animal welfare Laws will be TOUGHER after Brexit, he pledges
MICHAEL GOVE said yesterday that animals will have better protection in Britain after we leave the EU following ‘ fake news’ internet claims that welfare standards will fall.
The Environment Secretary made the pledge after Tory MPs were accused on social media of voting last week that ‘animals cannot feel pain or emotions’.
Articles claiming animal welfare will suffer after Brexit were retweeted to more than two million followers by celebrities including Ben Fogle, Sue Perkins and Countdown’s Rachel Riley, as well as MP and Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas.
But Mr Gove said the welfare of animals would, in fact, be strengthened – for example by stopping the cruel practice of smuggling young puppies into the UK.
The social media storm was triggered after MPs voted down a part of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill which rules that animals are sentient. Yesterday Mr Gove made clear ‘it was not a vote against the idea that animals are sentient and feel pain’.
He said the Bill was not the right place to address the issue, and the vote was a rejection of a faulty amendment that would not have protected animals.
The Environment Secretary added that the Government’s policies do recognise that animals are sentient beings and ‘we are acting energetically to reduce the risk of harm to animals, whether on farms or in the wild’.
He also said the EU laws on animal sentience were not delivering progress on welfare, preventing efforts to crack down on puppy smuggling, ban the import of young dogs and restrict the live export of animals for slaughter.
Leaving the EU ‘gives us the chance to do much better’ in these areas, he said. One issue highlighted by animal welfare campaigners is that under EU rules puppies can be imported to the UK at 15 weeks under the pet passport scheme. The campaigners want this changed to six months.
Tory MP Henry Smith, a vegetarian, made the point that EU rules currently do little to stop many cruel practices.
He tweeted: ‘The EU protocol on animals being sentient beings allows bullfighting, veal farming, foie gras production, live exports for slaughter and cruel fur product imports.
‘British animal welfare laws are the highest globally and on Brexit we’ll be free to strengthen them further still.’ Another Tory MP, Zac Goldsmith, said claims that animal welfare would worsen were ‘fake news’ and ‘weird and dishonest’.
Last night Ben Fogle apologised for retweeting the ‘fake news’. He said: ‘I have now deleted the misleading threads and welcome the Government’s clear line on animal welfare.’
Gudrun Ravetz, of the British Veterinary Association, said: ‘While we are encouraged by Mr Gove’s statement that the Government intends to ensure legislative change to recognise sentience, we are concerned that there is no indication of when or how this will happen.’
Claire Bass, UK director of Humane Society International, welcomed Mr Gove’s ‘reassuring statement’.
She added: ‘Acknowledging that animals have the capacity to suffer and feel pain is absolutely fundamental to protecting them from harm, and we need a binding imperative enshrined in UK law that will hold government to account, ensuring that animal welfare is fully taken into account in all UK law and policy-making.
‘We can’t afford for this guiding principle to be thrown out with the Brussels bathwater.’
‘Many cruel practices’