Starmer must protect UK farmers and animal welfare from trade deal betrayal

3 April 2025, 14:15

As the UK scrambles to avoid Trump’s tariffs we risk making a dangerous trade-off.

One that could undermine British farming and animal welfare standards for decades to come.

British farmed animal welfare standards are definitely not perfect, but they’re amongst the higher standards globally. The public, rightly, cares about how animals are treated.

But there is a problem: when we ban practices in the UK but allow products from animals raised with those same practices to be imported, we undermine both our commitment to higher standards and the livelihoods of British farmers.

That’s the risk with any rushed trade deal with the US.

The government insists it will maintain food safety regulations in any deal. Yet, it remains vague about addressing the glaring animal welfare gap between U.K. and U.S. agricultural practices. This is despite repeated promises to “protect farmers from being undercut in trade deals.”

The facts are stark.

In the US, sow stalls, which confine pregnant pigs in spaces too small to turn around, remain legal in 39 states. They've been banned in the UK since 1999. Battery cages for hens, outlawed here since 2012, are only prohibited in eleven US states. Painful procedures on farm animals – tail docking, castration – are routinely performed without pain relief in America. Meanwhile, US poultry aren't even covered by humane slaughter laws.

Ignoring animal welfare requirements widens an already dangerous loophole. British farmers who follow higher welfare standards mandated by UK law will be undermined by imports from production systems that would be illegal here.

In any trade talks with the US, the UK Government simply must avoid repeating the mistakes of the UK-Australia trade agreement. This deal opened our market to products from live-lamb cutting (mulesing), a practice we’ve banned, remains common.  It is unfair to British farmers to require them to meet certain welfare standards while allowing tariff-free access to lower-welfare imports.

A US deal risks negatively impacting the UK’s current animal welfare standards for decades to come – undermining our farmers and hard-won animal welfare improvements, jeopardising our food security and outsourcing animal cruelty.

It defies both logic and public sentiment to continue importing lower welfare products produced in ways that are illegal in Britain. To allow the situation to get a whole lot worse with a US-UK trade deal is ridiculous.

The public supports putting restrictions or bans on lower-welfare imports that do not meet UK standards. The Government should be reflecting that and requiring all imports to meet UK legal standards for animal welfare, positioning the UK as a champion of higher welfare farming.

There’s a simple solution: legislation to require all imports of animal products to meet the same welfare standards as we have in Britain, so that our hard fought animal welfare improvements are not negotiated away each time we have a leader like Trump pressuring the UK. This move is supported both by farmers and animal welfare organisations, like Compassion in World Farming.

Without such a law, British farmers, animals, and people will lose out as imports undercut our businesses and our values. Our laws will mean nothing if lower-welfare imports continue undermining the progress we’ve made.

It’s common sense: if it's too cruel to produce in Britain, then, it’s too cruel to import into Britain.

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Mandy Carter is Co-Executive Director of Animal Policy International, a trade and animal welfare organisation.

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