As an animal lover and a vegan myself, for animal welfare reasons, I care passionately about the welfare of animals and can assure you I support our new Labour Government’s ambition to provide the biggest boost to animal welfare in a generation.
I previously worked as a Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, where I was supporting our brilliant Secretary of State and Ministerial team on this agenda and others.
I was pleased to meet with a number of animal welfare charities – including Animal Matters – at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, where I raised my Written Parliamentary Question on the issue of animal welfare in the South West and discussed our shared commitment to ending incidents of animal cruelty. I also pledged to be a parliamentary champion for the welfare of animals, which – if of interest – you can see here.
I stand behind pledges to ban the import of hunting trophies. Our Labour government is currently considering the most effective way to implement this ban. While the last Conservative government failed to deliver the promised Trophy Hunting Bill that would have stopped the selfish hunters who slaughter then display endangered animals’ body parts, our new Labour government will ban the sickening import of these trophies.
As you may know, our new Labour Government recently signed the G20 Agricultural Declaration, reaffirming its commitment to sustainable agri-food systems. This declaration will help create sustainable and resilient global agriculture, essential to overcome poverty, climate change and biodiversity loss.
We have a strong vision for the future of the farming sector, which the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Steve Reed MP, spoke about in his speech at the 2025 Oxford Farming Conference.
This vision will first include: a farming sector that has food production at its core. Secondly, a sector where farm businesses can diversify their income to make a fair profit and remain viable in challenging times. Thirdly, a sector that recognises restoring nature is not in competition with sustainable food production, but is essential to it.
Our government is also endeavouring to work closely with the farming sector to deliver high standards, such as considering the use of farrowing crates for pigs.
This new Labour Government is committed to introducing the most ambitious plans to improve animal welfare in our generation and I look forward to helping it deliver this.
The Government has begun to implement the Animal Welfare Strategy which takes forward our manifesto promises through the most ambitious reform to animal welfare in a generation. It will be a comprehensive package of reforms that will improve the lives of millions of animals across the UK. It covers all our relevant manifesto commitments, such as the commitments to give farm animals greater freedom and dignity, and to protect our wildlife. By improving animal welfare standards, we are supporting healthier, more productive livestock that deliver better outcomes for farmers, farm profitability and food security, and the high welfare standards that British consumers expect.
The animal welfare strategy builds on this Government’s proven track record of delivering reforms for animals, including introducing new world-leading standards for zoos earlier this year and supporting the passage of the Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Act 2025, to tackle puppy smuggling, and the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Act 2025. Labour has always been the party of animal welfare. During our last term in government, we enacted the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and we banned foxhunting.
During the animal welfare strategy debate in Westminster Hall in January 2026, I thanked campaigners who have tirelessly worked for animal welfare reforms. You can find a video of this here.
I’ve been grateful to the many of you who have been in touch about the importance of improving animal welfare and this ambitious package will deliver some of the strongest animal welfare reforms in a generation – improving the lives of pets, farmed and wild animals.
Our laws will finally catch up with the evidence and close the loopholes that have allowed animal suffering. I will be very proud to vote for them as our MP.