Right, right, thanks for that introduction. OK, so I've got to make a difference on the numbers. Let's see how we, how we, how we go.

So, yes, I'm here to argue the case that the UK has the highest animal welfare standards in livestock, agriculture, and for the purposes of this debate, I, I have been, shall I say, selective on the evidence, so I'm very welcome that you challenge me during the discussion. That's absolutely fair and above board, but what I'm not gonna do is I'm not gonna dwell on the. The issues stuff, for example, so I think Kathy's presentation later about the Adelphi Review executive will go into more of those issues at the moment.

I'm looking looking at more shall I say at the policy and a vision of where we're at in UK agriculture, because basically I do think we have the highest animal welfare standards, but I do think we are only just good enough and there are clearly some opportunities and things we need to do. So I'm going to slightly morph the question a little bit and I'm gonna ask these three questions. Does the UK have the highest animal welfare standards?

Are we world-leading in animal welfare now, and do we want to be world leading in the future? So first one, this is in some senses you could look at politicians and see what they say. I'm afraid I have to mention the politician's word, and you can it's very easy to find quotes from UK politicians saying that the UK has high animal welfare.

So we have a nice quote there from the House of Lords report. Michael Gove linking linking animal welfare. Standards to trade deals and we're going to have to come back to that question very topical at the moment, of course.

And then we have Theresa May making the point that we have a high reputation for quality built on high animal welfare standards. So the politicians think that we have high animal welfare, and I think that's a useful thing to do because then you can hold them to account if they say that, then prove it. Let's make sure we deliver on that on that goal.

I, I would argue being an optimist. But let's explore a little bit about whether we are world leading in animal welfare now. We could go back to the history and we can talk about the first animal welfare legislation in 1822.

We talk about the Brown Bull Committee in 1965 and Ruth Harrison book, etc. That's all marvellous stuff and yes, we definitely were pioneering, but I think it's more relevant to talk about now and what we're, what we're doing now. And really those my understanding of those claims that politicians are making, they're, they're placing a lot of reliance upon a report as, as flagged by the NFU produced by the World Animal Protection.

They have produced a Animal Protection index, which try to systematically explore welfare standards and issues in different countries. I wasn't involved in this, so there might be others that there were, and I'm sure that they could talk about it in the. In the discussion, but they attempted to have a systematic approach and of course with these indexes, there's lots of things that go in it and of course we are not necessarily best in everything that's inevitable, but you can look at different countries and how they compare on different criteria and I have judiciously chosen the United Kingdom, Sweden and the USA USA because it's topical at the moment.

Sweden I think is an interesting comparison because as a, as a general principle, Scandinavian countries actually do have a very progressive approach to animal welfare on on high standards, etc. And so there's different criteria here, for example, about recognising sentience, universal Declaration where we score a B, Sweden calls an A, protecting animals used in farmers, farming, UK scores an A, whereas USA scores a D. So there's lots of different, different criteria which I'm not gonna go through through through them all comparing different countries.

But overall, UK is alongside other some other European countries. Germany, for example, is scoring a so that's the evidence there job done with the highest standards. No, I'm not going to leave it at that.

We're going to explore a little bit further to To see what else are we good on. And first of all, I want to start with how the industry has looked at this, and they have produced some interesting outputs. The National Pig Association compared standards across the world.

NFU funded a bit of work from the evidence group, which I think is an honest review of where the detailed legislation are flagging up differences. So there are things like tail docking in peaks where it's completely prohibited in Sweden and be trimming in hens, whereas we permit it even though EU legislation says it should no routine tail docking. So there, there are some issues in there that are clearly described in.

These, these reports and then we've had a benchmarking study from Red Tractor which points out that red tractor is is a world leading scheme and I think it is in many ways we can debate about what it does and doesn't do, but it does cover a lot of issues and is a good foundation for providing assurance to consumers and the market. But what do others think of us? Are we trapped in the EU's Museum of Agriculture?

So the US Ambassador was deliberately provocative. That's absolutely fine, and he suggests that the EU prizes history and tradition over innovation and science, but that American farmers are using all scientific and technological tools at their disposal to address the challenges ahead. And actually, if you're honest, then maybe UK farmers do need to apply a bit more science to technology.

I'm not making a point about systems because actually some of the most passionate farmers I've seen about tech are those organic farmers, for example. So using science and technology is a good thing, and probably in the UK we could do a bit better on that. So let's be honest about it, let's let's, let's learn, that's absolutely right.

But actually, if I was advising the US ambassador, I would actually flag, you're not talking about your consumers and your market. Then his speech there is all on the website. If you look at it, it's all talking about production, efficiency and sustainability and all this sort of stuff, not about the market, and the market in the US is, there is evidence that it's changing.

So, a couple of journal articles in animals which talks about changing consumer attitudes in the US and a change in policy and production shifts towards cage-free systems, less restriction in pigs, etc. And it's all happening because of what's happening in the marketplace, nothing to do with legislation. So things are happening in the US.

I think the US has been shall we say, a bit of the butt of jokes in the animal welfare community in terms of standards, but actually I think I'll be interesting to hear from Jim later. I think they are coming on board. But I think we have to talk about the trade issue.

The trade issue really, really matters, so. I think the, the, the, the, the argument from the US is that we should just give consumers choice and the and the market will decide. We have different standards, so what?

As long as they know it's from America, that's, that's fine. Whereas I think the point about our citizens, and I make this point very clearly, citizens, our citizens expect a certain minimum standards for production. Surely our citizens expect the same standards for selling products.

It seems to me logically that the two are completely linked, so you can't, you can't separate. The production and sale, it has to be. We do need to have consistent minimum standards for products that are sold in this, in this country.

And our politicians have been saying that, and we need to hold them to the fire on that. My point is, actually, yes, there's lots of good stuff happening on consumers, but citizens do count and citizens have made their voice heard. We had the discussion around the sentience bill.

I won't go into the history of how that came about, but the bottom line is there was political pressure. The politicians got involved and there was a call to arms. It just reflected that citizens, their voice does, does matter and the UK citizens are still bothered about animal welfare, which is a, which is a good thing.

What about the consumer side, that's moving to the consumer side, Are we world leading on the consumer side? Well, animal welfare is definitely available in the UK. This was just a little student project, complicated Venn diagram here, but it shows this is information that's available on UK sausages, 229 packs of sausages, and it shows what.

Information is available, often overlapping information is available on sausage products. We have an industry code defined terms, outdoor bread and free range. We have assurance schemes such as red tractor and RSPCA assured.

And organic And the take home message to me that is there's a lot of information available there and a lot of choice available for consumers, which is a good thing. So yes, we have choice. But some retailers, some offerings don't offer choice, and that's also a good thing.

So for example we have McDonald's, we have Waitrose which are making explicit. You can't buy the other stuff, you can only buy this stuff because it recognises that consumers actually their main choice that consumers make is what door to walk through. And so that that's important for the brand reputation of these of these businesses.

So yes, higher animal welfare is definitely available in the UK. And a lot of this information, you can have different information from schemes, production system, marketing claims, and different words, different logos available. I'm not going to go through all the details, but my point is often this information is verified.

There is independent certification available, sometimes regulation. There is mandatory labelling for eggs. There's industry code for pigs.

There are advertising Standards Authority worrying about marketing claims. And we have some element of public scrutiny in terms of policy. So yes, there's information available and often it is verified.

Not always, and there are examples of poor labelling practise out there. I hear you crying and it comes up and I'm sure it will come up, but are UK consumers willing to pay for it? In the Eurobarometer study of European attitudes, a lot of consumers say they're willing to pay more.

Interestingly, if you look at different countries, Sweden, I'm using Sweden as an example, 93% are willing to pay more, 72% in the UK, 22% in Portugal. So there is a difference in perception. In different countries.

My argument is that they actually often don't need to pay more. Coming back to sausages, this was this, this same study we just looked at what price sausages were, and if you look at different products which are not British, British, or labelled with red tractor or RSPCAA assured. The price of sausages per kilo of sausage, pretty similar between those four not British, British red tractor or British RSPCA assured.

Organic gas is more expensive in this situation is that it is a different production system, so it is more expensive. But you can buy RSPCA assured pork sausages similar price. What's more interesting and more fun if you look at the price of pork within those sausages.

And the most expensive way to buy non-organic pork is not British sausage. And yet, a lot of not British sausage is sold. So to me it highlights there's other issues affecting their their choice, and again, the most, the best, the cheapest way to buy Hawkins sausage is RSPCAsured or red tractor.

So the consumers don't need to pay more for sausage. I I agree I appreciate in other systems, so chickens, for example, there quite clearly is a. It is a more direct correlation between what consumers need to pay for pay for the high, higher, higher product.

So yes, we have choice and you can buy it and it doesn't necessarily cost you more, all good. Oh sorry, and the reason for that, same with the obvious, is that these ones, this is because the, these sausages are often 40% sausages, and not many people look at the detail to see how much pork is in the, in the sausage. So Not only are they available, but they are sold.

This was the figures of penetration we say from RSPCA assured different markets, so relatively high salmon and laying hens over 50%, moderate penetration for pigs and turkeys, although there are some sectors where it's relatively low. So of course there are sector differences in how much our welfare products are sold in the UK. The other point I really do want to flag is the industry action on animal welfare.

Yes, there are more things that can be done, but I do think we should applaud what the industry has been doing, and, and I use the dairy cattle welfare strategy as an exemplar when I teach students about strategy development, because to me. It ticks all the boxes. It's an ongoing active process that has clear, specific, measurable targets.

You've got ownership by different groups, you've got time limited, it's regularly reviewed. I think this is an exemplar of what industries can and should do so. yes, there are issues, so lameness of course is, is an issue, but the industry is, is trying its best, I would say, to tackle a lot of these issues, .

And also it is world leading and animal welfare assurance. So the UK pig industry has put out claims in the past about high welfare pork. This was edited, shall we say, by advertising Standards Authority, but what it's actually done, if you look at the detail, it has introduced a world leading welfare outcome approach, which is actually delivered by vets on the ground, and they have published that information both in In a consumer more consumer friendly version and also in peer reviewed literature, so that is world leading, that, should be applauded.

So, yes, we're doing pretty well, I would say, but do we want to be world-leading in the future? Our current, I this is where I challenge the vision point. The red tractor, as I said, I think is, is a solid foundation and this is a sort of mission statement at the moment, world class standards.

Independent inspection and robust compliance. I have to say that's a bit underwhelming. I think that's a bit sort of, yeah, we do some stuff, we process and that's fine, that's what we're about.

Whereas actually I don't think it reflects the stuff that they are doing on welfare outcomes, for example, so I think they could be more ambitious. And an example of somebody being more ambitious is New Zealand. Dairy, the dairy industry has a world leading in on farm animal care.

They have this strategy called dairy Tomorrow, and one of their commitments is we will be world leading in on-farm animal care and their their task is to develop and implement a framework to ensure every animal's values and treated with care and respect. And we've been involved with a bit with them because they're using a positive welfare approach which I'll talk about in a minute. Why are they doing it?

OK, it's partly relevant for their export market, actually not very. The main reason why they're doing it is about social licence. They realise that the main threat to their business is the citizen.

It's their citizens that they are protecting against, and that is our issue too. We are able to produce stuff because our citizens allow us. And we've seen examples, for example, in Australia, where the citizens said we don't like the way you export, and it caused a complete nightmare and they had to stop it.

OK, so social licence really is our biggest issue that we should be worrying about and so New Zealand has gone, Social licence matters. We want to be world leading animal care, right, let's see what's about there, what research approaches we can use, how can we demonstrate this, and they're developing a strategy on the back of it, and I think that is where we should be. So it's not just about tidy, robust compliance with this, that and the other.

No, no, we want to be best at something, and that is what New Zealand is doing. So an example of how you could do that in 2009 talked about welfare and it talks about that animals should have a good life, and it talked about these having opportunities for a higher standard for animals' comfort, interest, pleasure and confidence, and an opportunity is something that is that would contribute to a good life would be a resource, a thing that an animal does not need for fitness but is valued. This isn't about moving the goalpost, this is saying.

Animals value these extra goodies. The marketplace values values the extra goodies. Our farmers getting the recognition and reward for those extra goodies.

And this is the framework that the New Zealand industry are looking about embedding. So yes, we need to manage the bad stuff, but also let's recognise and value. The good stuff and of course opportunities in the future UK agricultural policy to take these issues on board and deliver a sort of national claim for higher animal welfare, which is what we have the opportunity to do in the future.

We're doing a little bit of pilot some pilot work in laying hens. This approach is being. Used in a current study funded by ADB looking at continuously housed dairy herds, and we're working with Excel farm vets to assess positive welfare in dairy cows.

I mean, it's not the only approach that's out there, but I would just want to flag that my point is if we want to have this ambition statement, we need to move it on. So my time is up, so I'm going to flag these these are my. Leading questions and to answer them briefly, do we have, yes, probably yes.

Are we world leading? Yes, but of course there are some things we do. Do we want to be world leading?

Absolutely yes, definitely we do. So now is the time to have this collaborative industry, government, civil society approach to deliver on that. I don't want to put you off your lunch, but I'm gonna go back to a politician.

Oops, sorry. And, and, and whatever you say about politicians sometimes they come up with a nugget of a phrase that actually sums it up. And so Michael Gove says we will succeed in the global marketplace because we are competing at the top of the value chain, not trying to win a race to the bottom.

So when we have our great statements, we need animal welfare is great. Oh, it didn't come up. We need animal welfare is great as our claim in future trade negotiations.

OK, I'll leave it there. Thank you.