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Farm Animal Welfare

My hon. Friend makes an entirely valid point. I know that his position is that we should travel down the route of compulsion. He is correct to say that I am trying to make a case for the good progress that has been made, and to outline what we are trying to do through encouragement. As I shall explain, we are trying to approach procurement in a quasi-voluntary way, but with a clear identification of higher standards that can be measured by those in public procurement positions. That is on top of measures introduced through the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and measures that we are securing in the EU, through our discussions about cages, stalls and the rest of it. That is a multifaceted attempt to drive up standards by means of the carrot and the stick—through voluntary as well as legislative measures. I shall say more about that in a moment. The healthier food mark will indeed be voluntary initially, but in 2012 we will review the scheme to see whether we could and should make it mandatory.