---

Farm Animal Welfare

I intend to highlight the importance of public sector food procurement and the role it has to play in improving animal welfare standards for meat and poultry in the United Kingdom and abroad. I will concentrate on one key area of public procurement—eggs—although the argument could equally apply to pork or any one of a number of factory farmed products. I call on the Government to introduce legislation that will prohibit the public sector from buying eggs produced by caged hens and encourage the purchase of eggs produced to higher animal welfare standards, progressing on a sliding scale from barn eggs, to free range to organic, including eggs that are purchased individually as well as those used as ingredients. In doing so, I wish to make a larger point about public sector food procurement, which is that fine words and lofty sentiments are not enough. The Government must take the lead by introducing mandatory health and sustainability standards for all public sector food. I place on the record my thanks to those estimable organisations, Sustain, Compassion in World Farming and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for the part that they are playing in helping to achieve this goal. There are four legally recognised categories of eggs: caged, barn, free range and organic. Caged eggs are produced to the lowest standards of animal welfare, from hens in cramped, tiered cages with sloping mesh floors. Each hen has an equivalent living space of 550 sq cm, which is less than an A4 piece of paper. The strength of public opposition to cage-produced eggs resulted in a decision by the European Commission to outlaw the sale of caged eggs by 2012. Barn eggs, free range and organic eggs are reared to considerably higher standards: they come from hens that have access to litter and to the nest site of their choice. They can flap their wings, exercise and explore their environment. History shows that achieving real improvements in the health and sustainability of public sector food is only possible by introducing mandatory standards. The Government's success in revolutionising school food was achieved because legislation was passed to introduce mandatory nutritional guidelines monitored by the School Food Trust. Indeed, the problem with public sector food has not gone unnoticed by Government. There has been a rash of activity, which no doubt the Minister will tell us about in a moment, aimed at improving the nutritional and sustainability of public sector food by voluntary means. Although well-intended, such projects have failed precisely because they were introduced as voluntary initiatives and missed out on the concrete benefits that would have been achieved by introducing mandatory standards. Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been wasted on such initiatives. The £40 million spent on the better hospital food initiative in 2001, for example, which introduced new menus for hospital food devised by a celebrity chef, did not achieve a step change in the nutritional quality of hospital food. A more integrated attempt to improve public sector food under the six-year public sector food procurement initiative, managed by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which was introduced in 2003 and wound up this year, is another example of good intentions that did not lead to real change—at considerable cost to the taxpayer. An evaluation conducted by Deloitte tactfully concluded that""take-up of the initiative was limited."" Both schemes had some short-term successes, but they were expensive and did not achieve long-term change. The moral of the story is clear: voluntary schemes do not work; real change depends on introducing mandatory standards.