Government planning to repeal animal "welfare" codes

[Jeff Robinson]

Conservative ministers are planning to repeal an array of official guidance on animal welfare standards, starting with a move to put the code on chicken-farming into the hands of the poultry industry.

Liz Truss, the environment secretary, is overseeing moves to scrap the statutory codes on farm animal welfare and move to an “industry-led” guidance as part of her department’s deregulatory agenda.

Government planning to repeal animal welfare codes

The current so-called "welfare" (illfare is more accurate) codes are already a joke and under-enforced as they are. In the last few weeks a number of exposes have highlighted how barbaric the conditions are for laying hens even on RSPCA-approved "free range" and "enriched cage" farms. The current codes already permit a number of practices that would constitute torture in the human context, for example, "de-beaking" - the slicing off of the end of chicken's beaks with no anaesthetic.

And yet the tories see fit to delegate even more responsibility for animal "welfare" to the industry that profit from keeping them in terrible conditions. We can expect a further diminution in the already dismal standards of animals on UK farms.

 

[Pickman's model]

not to mention more 'horse' meat scandals. a nation of animal lovers

 

[brogdale]

Deregulation; worked well for the banks...what could possibly...

 

[J Ed]

So this weekend alone they have pissed off parents and now animal lovers..

 

[Jeff Robinson]

So this weekend alone they have pissed off parents and now animal lovers..

Gotta say, I'm not a fan of the label "animal lovers" - kinda conjures up an image of some sort of misplaced sentimentality. Human violence against billions of sentient creatures should be seen as social justice issue, not an idiosyncratic quirk.

 

[two sheds]

Dunno - I see it as a positive trait myself.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Dunno - I see it as a positive trait myself.

Fair enough, I wasn't suggesting J Ed was using the term maliciously, but I do find the term somewhat problematic. For example, you wouldn't call male supporters of feminism 'woman lovers' or hetrosexual supporters of gay rights 'gay lovers'. I think a lot of the language we use about animals contain a number of unconscious assumptions that we should think about.

 

[brogdale]

Gotta say, I'm not a fan of the label "animal lovers" - kinda conjures up an image of some sort of misplaced sentimentality. Human violence against billions of sentient creatures should be seen as social justice issue, not an idiosyncratic quirk.

Also danger of confusion with ideas like Peter Singer's "mutually satisfying activities".

 

[two sheds]

Yes there could be a better word - 'animal likers' sounds too close to 'animal lickers' though, which is worse