UK to import high-carbon beef and low-welfare pork in trade deals
Post-Brexit trade deals with Canada and Mexico will include imports of high-carbon beef and low-welfare pork, the Guardian can reveal.
There are fears there could be a Conservative party revolt, with the former environment secretary George Eustice raising concerns over low welfare standards for pigs in Canada, and an influential group of Tory MPs and peers gearing up to oppose the deals.
The deals also go against the advice of the Climate Change Committee, which wrote to the farming minister, Mark Spencer, after he refused to rule out Mexican beef imports. The committee said the UK’s carbon targets could be “compromised by a decision to allow the importation of meat with a higher carbon footprint than our own”.
In Canada there are more than 7,400 pig farms, and animal charities in the country say pigs there face castration, ear notching, tail docking and teeth trimming. Sows are kept for long periods in stalls that do not give them room to turn around, a practice banned in the UK. Pigs are also often left to live on cold, damp, slatted floors with no room for comfortable bedding or straw, the campaigners say.
Those involved in the deal have consulted Eustice, who previously criticised the Australia trade deal, in the hope he will not make similar remarks.
He said: “I am hearing that the volumes on beef are low, and that in return they have also got some dairy access which makes it a more reciprocal and balanced agreement. So looks like [the business and trade secretary] Kemi [Badenoch] has taken a tougher line than her predecessors. Pork could be more contentious, mainly because of lower welfare standards in Canada, but we will see.”
Tory MPs in the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation (CAWF) are likely to raise concerns in
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