Calls for investment in abattoir network after live export ban consultation launched

Phil Stocker, chief executive of the National Sheep Association, told Farmers Guardian he was not sure there was any point ‘wasting ink’ on responding to a consultation on an issue which the Government had already taken a decision on.

“Although the consultation is broader than live exports alone, it is live exports that Government is headlining its press release with, underpinned by supporting statements from two animal welfare campaigning organisations with no balancing comments,” he said.

“It ignores the fact that the industry has offered to work with Government on an assured routes export scheme, based on the fact that for animals in the South East of England, journeys can be shorter going across the Channel than to our own domestic abattoirs, and chooses not to talk about internal UK trade between mainland and Northern Ireland (NI) now NI controls are the same as for trading with the EU.

Invest

“With this ‘consultation’, along with tighter restrictions on foreign labour to work in our abattoirs, the Government must be gearing up to invest heavily in hundreds of small and local abattoirs, with localised domestic labour and a restructuring of our supply chains.

“I look forward to seeing the plans.”

Christopher Price, chief executive of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, echoed these remarks, saying the proposal to ban live exports ‘highlights the need to address the crisis in the abattoir network’.

“If we have 6,400 animals being transported to the EU each year, that is 6,400 which will now need to be slaughtered in the UK,” he said.

“We desperately need a comprehensive network of local abattoirs which can cater for the full extent and diversity of our livestock sector.”