Thank you, Jim. Thank you both speakers for those wide ranging presentations. So we now have roughly an hour to have some questions submitted both by Slido and a debate from the from the floor.

So on that note, just can I just let the IT people know that I'm just seeing the full list of questions here now I'm not seeing what's displayed on the screen. So I don't know if you can able to mimic that for me. Otherwise, I'll end up turning around.

But if we start off with that top question there, how important is it for vets to speak publicly about moving towards systems that don't use tail docking or beak trimming? So we get our speakers to maybe comment on that. Yes Yeah, I mean it's on on the on the first point is, you know, the what does society think vets are for, and vets are advocates for animals, I think is what society thinks they are.

So if that requires speaking uncomfortable truths to their client base, that's what the veterinary community needs to do. But at the same hand, of course, the veterinary community can help. The industry move in that direction and help with the with the space for that.

So yes, it is important that we do that and we speak honestly and we speak the truth. I agree it's massively important for veterinarians to speak out on these issues. That's what we are supposed to do.

Society looks to licenced people to to take care of that part of society for for them or for us. And when we don't speak out for the animals in these cases, then it's a problem, and it's particularly a problem in North America. Veterinary groups refuse to accept criticism from any of any kind, so we'll find that even though there's Consensus to to not do tail ducking or be trimming in pigs and chickens, we just can't get a veterinary group to make that public, and it would help a lot because the legislative bodies wait until they follow the veterinary groups.

If the veterinary groups in the state don't. Speak out and and have a consensus on these issues, then the legislative body cannot have a consensus on it either. So, so it's, it's important.

So I get the sense you both think we should, but maybe we don't speak out. We should, but at least, at least most, most veterinarians around the world, I think that happens more here from what I can what I follow and read in the welfare world. OK, looks like we probably have some comments from the floor.

So where am I there we go, the Pig Health and Welfare council. And I'd just like to say that we have got a voice out there. And we have a 2020 vision and that had looking at tail biting.

We're writing the 2031 now, and that has a definite, we will not be having tail trimming by the time we get to 2030. But welfare is getting the balance between the two. So we don't want to ban it and find that we've got a massive welfare problem because we still have tail biting.

So it's finding the answer to that produces the answer to the other. But we are a very big voice for making sure that it is eliminated. Thank you.

I've got a comment on the working? Yeah, John Fishwick here from BVA. The comment I would make on that is I think veterinarians have a very important role in explaining why some of these procedures take place.

Nobody docks tails or trims beaks because they're sadists. There's very good reasons for that which have built up over many years, and I think explaining that and explaining the difficulties of just eliminating them overnight is a very, very important role we can play in informing the debate for the general public. Thank you.

Cat McLaughlin from the National Farmers Union. I'd I'd like to thank both speakers for their their really informative talks. You're both on my Christmas card list.

Thank you very much. The one thing that I would say that I think the vets absolutely have a role in getting the science message out there about welfare. We have massive tensions in the UK around how we're going to produce food going into the future, how we can maintain sustainable businesses, things like No, kind of your slides on kind of scale.

In the UK, one of the problems we have is just actually getting planning applications through because there's such a dearth of truth, evidence and science around welfare. So we end up having to kind of go along with the The kind of the emotional arguments rather than the scientific one. And I think to be honest, that's where I would welcome a lot louder veterinary voice coming from the industry myself, because I think, you know, kind of, you can actually put the scientific arguments in, which will then hopefully avoid some of the precautionary principles being introduced into it and that and some of the emotional arguments.

So vitally important, please. OK, thank you. Thanks a comment next Adele Waters from Record and Professor Reynolds, you spoke a lot about good practise in the US and you also talked about some states being more progressive in their welfare regulations.

Could you talk about some of the states that aren't so progressive and perhaps some examples of some poor welfare standards that you've come across? And the, the questions about states in the US that are not progressive in animal welfare, I think. .

That's probably a lot easier than finding the ones that are progressive, but, an example that that might be informative for this discussion is, again in California where we're from, we passed an initiative, a ballot initiative or a referendum where, where the voting part of the 40 million Californians can vote and, and we, and in 2008, of the voters of California. Prohibited gestation stalls and battery cages and veal crates, and that was one of the first times in the country that somebody had done that. Now it had no teeth because we don't actually have pork in California that comes from Iowa and other states.

We have, we have 300,000 sows. Iowa has 16 million sows. So it's easier to do politically, but what it does is it drives the national discussion and it drives because we are the largest market in the United States, it drives the retailers and their programmes.

So, and then, and then so, so those of us who were supportive of that referendum found that it actually, we thought it applied to product coming into California, but because we're you know, a an interesting country of states, but federal stuff too. It didn't, so we just passed last year, last fall, a referendum, and and they're both passed by 2/3 margins. So in anywhere in the in the United States where we see this go to a referendum in a in a in a state, any of these welfare issues, it's always a 2/34 and 1/3 against referendum to to support animal welfare.

But this time we passed a referendum to. Require product coming into California from anywhere to meet that standard. And now that's about to go to court and be challenged because the lesser states, Iowa, don't want to, to do that.

And, and so it seems so, so we're in the process of doing that. Another one just quickly is is what are called ag gag laws or most of our push for farm animal welfare improvements come from undercover videos from animal advocates. There was just one released yesterday from a Midwest dairy.

They continuously be released over time. People mistreating animals, cows, calves, and so that spurs some movement in that state or region or certainly by the retailers to improve the programmes and improve the auditing or the confidence in the programmes. And, and, and, but some states, to, to directly to your answer your question, some states have passed laws to prohibit people taking pictures on their farms.

So instead of actually addressing the problems, I mean, most of us would say thank you for presenting that information. I don't want that to happen to my animals. We'll go fix that.

The states where the animals are actually produced, the Midwestern states have passed laws that are called ag gag laws so that, so that a person can't misrepresent themselves to get hired to do this, and they cannot take videos or pictures if they do, it's a criminal offence. And so, so that's, those are examples. There's more.

Hopefully that's sufficient examples to get you started to tell right down at the front here. Hello, thank you very much for your speeches. I just want to comment or just want to ask because we talked about how the veterinary community and veterinary voice is.

Necessary for this movement for like better welfare. I was wondering what you think about incorporating this movement and like this these considerations into veterinary education for like the students from like when they're like learning about the animals and like the conditions and everything, the diseases, how can it be like incorporated to like make these students think about these questions before they even entered the veterinary. But yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Do you have any comments on that? I mean, I have been involved in that when I was at the Bristol ett School, you know, we we we we did bring about a change in what was taught to the vet students and that has happened in in the other vet schools too, but I, I, I want to go back to more recent graduates and think so do you think there's a problem?

Do you think it's not not enough cover and in what areas, what do you think should be? Oh unfair at the front, so maybe that's a conversation for over lunch. Well, yes, well, anybody else does anyone else have any opinion on that has any thoughts because I think I would just want to put it on the table as our welfare Foundation has done great stuff on that and has funded it.

And it's important to hear whether that has had the right effect. The comment. Hi Hannah Fitzsimmons from the Association of Veterinary Students.

And just a second that students are actually quite proactive in sort of welfare discussions anyway at university. So it is being integrated into our teaching more, and especially at University of Bristol. But there are societies at our universities that will hold lectures outside so like get its external speakers in and have debates as well.

So we are sort of progressing in the right direction and our teaching for welfare as well. OK, thank you. Do you have any comments from the US perspective there, Jim, on how integrated it is in the curriculum.

It's not integrated in the curriculum in the US at all. We have rare animal welfare courses. They tend to be a lecture or two here and there.

We don't have very few schools have actual courses where I work at Western University, we have problem-based learning and we do have a vet issues course students take for the 1st 2 years, so they're exposed to advocacy and things like that. The problem for, for, for us in the US is our veterinary students tend to have very high loans. When they come out of veterinary school, they're between $150 and $300,000 in debt, and that's pretty serious, and so they tend to go straight into practise and make money, put their heads down to make money.

I think they'll come out later and a bit more advocus than than my generation was. They're more interested in it. OK, thank you.

Back there and health professionals and past president of BVA. Thank you very much and very interesting. Well, some of the examples, particularly in China showed with no sickness in the cars, and we showed how we can fulfil physical health.

And yet wellbeing is more than just physical health. And so we need to include mental wellbeing. How do we get the balance of those?

And is it Acceptable to have lower physical health to actually improve mental well-being and welfare across the board. And if we can't balance those, and we can't meet the other aspects of welfare, such as mental wellbeing, while maintaining such high physical health, should we actually be doing that procedure in the first place or encouraging that kind of system? OK, Jim, do you want to go first with that?

And if, if I understood the question correctly because my dialect is a little different, sir. So, . Yes, and I'm glad you picked up on it.

I, I kind of purposefully left in the morbidity rate mortality rate as a as a measure of animal welfare, and that grates on my nerves. I don't like that as a measure. I don't like production as a measure of animal welfare, but that's, that's where we tend to do it in North America because that satisfies profit and and the the regulations at the same time.

. Again, like I said, what we, what we're seeing, there, there's, it, it is true as was stated in Doctor Maine's presentation. In a commodity, when when when a food product becomes a commodity, it can become a race to the bottom. And what happens is the retailers want a supply chain, and the simplest way to fill their supply chain is with really large farms.

And so we're seeing, like I said, I put up the example we're seeing group housing on really large farms that's working really well. And so if you're, if what we, what we'll see is the vice presidents of of large corporations attaining putting food into to stores and restaurants will, will just gravitate to these really large places where they can pick up the phone and get truckloads of whatever they want all at once that that satisfies all the requirements. So, so it forces all the dairies in our case or or pigs are much slower in our, in our country to, to come around to, to to start.

Getting more of the good life aspects of animal welfare into it. So, so it's it's complicated and this, I love to talk about it all day, but yes, you're right. I agree with you.

David, any further comments from you in terms of versus to link those two questions actually because I think on the education front, the point about mental, physical, and naturalness is is a key aspect of the veterinary teaching now and and I think is more, more focusing on the mental aspects is is a key outcome of of of those of that teaching and to me the solution is of greater. What the industry needs to do is have a greater link with their customers because they think about welfare in terms of mental or natural state rather than the physical state and actually I think this debate might come again to the fore with the sentience conversation which I think is going to come from a policy point of view it's going to come out again you know we have this taking out the . With the EU withdrawal bill and Michael Gove wants to bring back the sentence debate and positive welfare, for example, is quite clearly part of the sentence conversation.

So it's another opportunity to focus on the thing that matters to animals, which is their mental state. Just take a couple more comments on this first question. There's one there and then one there and then we'll move to the second question.

So the lady over here's been waiting very patiently. Fianna Fail, I'd like to ask the speakers, what do they think will improve animal welfare in farmed animals in the medium and short term will be we have a lot of knowledge already about animal welfare. Will it be translating that research into cost effective solutions?

Will it be regulation and standards? Will it be that that social licence, what's actually going to trigger and actually deliver an outcome which is improved welfare. Take that one first, David.

I think the industry is trying as hard as it can on the so we say the soft levers of power of trying to get knowledge changing all those sorts of things, and I think it should and and the strategies that we talked about are are good to a point, the, the, the big changes, I think are. There's a big change there. That first question there, we have 25% of lay cows, you know what is going to make those big big sort of changes, and I think there is an opportunity in the UK agricultural policy to focus on the good stuff and to try to encourage system level change.

And the other big, big change, let's just be honest about it, is eating. Less meat is part of the discussion, and we do need to eat less but better, so that's a big change. Thank you, Jim.

Any further comments on that? I agree with Doctor Main, interestingly, and I won't be able to go home for this, but we need to eat less. We just need to do better with the animals we have and, and, and not consume as much, .

I just, just to throw this out as a thought. I recently spent 2 years in a startup company. We travel across the United States providing welfare services, training and things and programmes to areas across the United States, and at the end I had given up talking about animal welfare and I simply talked about emotions.

I was training people to understand when animals had emotions, when their emotions were good, when their animals animal emotions were negative or in trouble, including the workers, and then, and then, and then realising that they would solve those problems on their own. We can make all the rules and regulations. Coming from academia, I'm, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a clinician in academia and had been in private practise for a long time.

. More research is rarely the answer. We just need to execute what we already know. We know what the animals want.

We know what they need. We know why they get lame. We just can't make people change their behaviour.

So again, some of us working in the US, when we do our meetings, we're not talking about welfare, we're talking about the social aspects of how do we change people's behaviours. Because we need to motivate people to change things. So, so I agree.

I think. Thank you. A question here and then we'll move on to the next.

Thank you. Emily Coughlin from the RSPCA farm animals department. I just wanted to second a point that was actually made earlier about, you know, should vets be speaking up about these things.

Yes, and but also, you know, the necessity of these procedures, you know, we can't just stop them. But why have we got to a point where we can't just stop tail docking in pigs and the risks associated with that? Why do we have systems where these where These procedures are necessary.

And I think just from what Dr. Reynolds said about some of the states shutting down people videoing on farms and the rise in in veganism and activism that we're seeing from these farm exposes, and educating the public about these systems so they can make a more informed choice and The welfare outcomes assessment work that's happening on the UK farms and is increasing, I think is a really important way to show people what the different systems are and what their actual outcome effects are, and then follow that through with production labelling so that consumers can make an informed choice. And yes, they can eat less, they can choose a product that they know is better because it is followed up by a clear and transparent system.

Not just a set of standards, but the actual welfare outcomes on farm that we are seeing from this system compared to this one. OK, thank you. I see nods from the panel.

So if we go to another question from slider, which I think is very pertinent to the original poll that we had. So if you remember the poll related to whether the UK has the highest welfare standards in livestock agriculture, and the room was split pretty much down the middle. We've got a question from James Russell, saying that if 25% of the national dairy herd is lame at any time, up to 50% in some herds and sources reference there, can We claim that animal welfare is good enough.

So be interested to hear from the panel, and then maybe members of the audience who voted in favour of the poll, maybe in that situation, why we feel it's good enough. So maybe David first. I'm glad somebody's called that one out because as I said, I was expecting challenges and that's a really important challenge.

And so no, it's not good enough, but other countries have the issues. So you're comparing countries. You know, I think the industry action is is to be applauded, but what I would, I just want to flag them and us.

We don't want to say, our farmers are at fault. They're not doing it. They've got lots of cows.

It's all their fault. No, we're a stakeholder here. The vetter profession is part of this part of this issue.

And so are we as a veter profession doing as much as we can and should be about, say, the veterinary advice dealing with this complicated issue? Are we really sure that farmers are getting the best Veterinary advice, lameness in dairy cattle is a complex issue that that that you can give the wrong advice for, but bla blatantly. So are we doing our bit rather than just saying, oh yeah, farmers are not doing enough.

Come on, what are we doing? Are we doing enough? OK, Reynolds, that was a good challenge, Dave.

I think clearly veterinarians on farms tend to acquiesce and not not lead to the future enough with management practises and how to make change over time. I always try to get my clients to to understand we would have immediate and medium 2 to 3 year goals and long range 5 to 10 year goals and try to attain those and, and we don't really push hard enough. Lameness is a very interesting issue because it hasn't really changed over time.

Mastitis might be another one. Things can get better, but they tend to get better because animals are cold and not because we've improved. And so we simply get rid of the broken animals, and, and so we have to be careful again.

The basic issue is why dairy cows get lame, for instance, is pretty well understood. They're on concrete too long, they're wet too long. We're we're feeding them the wrong ways so that we, we have the acidosis model.

We make them thin so we're losing on the fat pad model. We do different things. Getting change in that system is hard because of all the economic factors and the peer pressure factors from other people.

I, I do want to point out something that's struck in this because it comes up with lameness and other things. I think overall for countries in Europe and the UK and North America, for cows on a dairy, for instance, if nothing goes wrong with you, you're probably living a pretty good life. I mean, it's probably not the greatest, but it's, it's a good, it's OK.

But if something goes wrong, it, it's pretty bad. We, our veterinary treatments need to be improved, how we interact, we, we tend at least in most places, not to use nursing care. So, so the first thing that happens with a lame animal of any other species is they get rest.

But if you're a dairy cow, you've got to walk in and out of the parlour twice a day, and then you're limited in your pain management. So so the rest of us would be laid up on the sofa watching television until we felt better, or the dog or the horse or anything, but, but we have to have better ways of integrating a holistic approach. I think I heard that earlier to treating broken animals on farms.

We tend to just view it as pharmaceuticals at this point, and that's not correct. OK, thank you. Got a comment at the back there.

Hi Dan Leonard, just on this, this idea of applying more standards to UK farmers, I think it's really critical that we don't then export our problems and just import the produce from somewhere else that's that's not observing our standards, and I was gonna ask also from from an American point of view, if we did have a trade agreement where the UK does set some high welfare standards. Rather than having an open free trade agreement to all farms in the US, in the, you could have US farms that are inspected to meet the same standards, so it could be an option for US farmers that wish to, you know, take advantage of the desire for the increased standards which you know you referenced to to actually open up trade for them as individual farms. Do you think that's a feasible part of a trade agreement?

. But yes, . I, I think if, if you're asking advice from an American on economics, On farm economics is don't give up what you have.

Our system has, has changed over the years from a supply management system to, to a commodity-based system in which the profit margins are low, and when that happens, then you then you have to consolidate and sell more products to make the, get the living you want and you also have to expand markets. So what you have here from a welfare standpoint is a high quality market with a high value to, to your products. .

I would not, I hope you don't let that slip. And America is looking desperately to, to export though. Value products.

That's, that's how we make money. So, so keep your high value welfare things because that becomes something that we can attain. And if, and we have to have our welfare programmes stem from Europe.

They come from there to us. To us. Another thing that might be a useful recommendation perhaps is again like I like I said, in California, starting in 2022 we require pork to not have had any spend any time in gestation stalls and and eggs to come from furnished housing or different kinds of housing.

That capacity does not exist in the in the United States to supply the California market and will not exist before 192022. So, so it needs to come from someplace else. And, and hopefully we don't, water down our regulations just because there's no supply.

OK, thank you, John, at the front I'd just like to say two amazing presentations today, and thank you very much. One thing that I really, so many things I could pick up on, but one thing I thought really struck home was Jim's comment that it's the quality of the people on the unit which make all the difference. Forget about the size and the buildings, it's really the quality of the people.

But just going back to the point on lameness, we've had some really interesting comments about education just now and . Talking about lameness in dairy cows as an educator, that is absolutely key that that is welfare focused. So anyone who's left university, having been taught even the basics of bovine lameness, should be seeing that not really so much as a clinical problem, but a welfare.

And I think that's really important that that should be in everyone's thinking when they leave university. Bovine lameness welfare problem needs sorting. It's not good enough.

It's just a comment I would make, that's a great example of where we can bring welfare to the centre of the clinical teaching. Thank you. Thank you.

I think over there next. Thank you, Kate Richards RC council. Thank you very much for your presentations and specifically on housing, and we're talking about the cattle at the moment.

I'm just wondering what you think the impact of the housing for dairy cattle for both their well on welfare and also for their physical health. And the fact that for large portions of the year, they're forced to lie in cubicles and neat rules and often loses to news as well. Yeah again, I'm a little bit of a disadvantage here.

The, the housing is, is huge. That's why I always say it's a com welfare is a combination of housing and people are people in housing. and, and that the the.

For lameness, probably we'll use as a small example, lameness and dairy cattle are the highest predictor of health of feet and dairy cattle is how clean and dry they are. And then the next one is how much rest they get and how much rest they get depends on their housing completely. And so if the cubicles are older cubicles, mid-sized, difficult to get up and down.

And, and I haven't been on dairy. I will be on dairy, thank you, thanks to Matt Dobbs quite a bit in the next couple of weeks, but I haven't been for a while here. But in previous times there have been a lot of mats and, and they just don't work for cows.

So, so this is one of those things, and you see them a lot in Europe and and where Europe, European companies build the dairy in China or Turkey or anywhere else, you see mats and and you just end up with lame cows and broken cows. So, so the housing is Huge and recognising the interactions of all of the factors of of of lameness as an example is very powerful from a welfare stand because it is a welfare standpoint, a problem. And so to address it, you have to get to the cows resting.

You have to get a soft, clean, comfortable place. There's lots of research on that. We buy organic milk in the United States, my wife and I, and it's because that's the only system in the US that requires them to have some time on pasture.

And, and that's important to, to lameness just to get off of the the hard surfaces. . So, so housing is, is imperative actually, and, and to, to say things that are where, where things are going wrong in our system, we allow people to, of course, to, to be creative in, in the marketplace and find ways to solve problems.

And producing food cheaply is one of a problem, but we're seeing completely enclosed buildings for dairy cattle now where they're inside without any windows or access to the outside or even seeing the outside for their entire lives now where they're just cross ventilated because of the conditions in the upper Midwest, for instance, it's hot and humid in the summer and blizzard conditions in the winter and so now they're just enclosed forever. And, and I'm, I, I'm not struggling with that. I don't like it at all, but we have no mechanism to, to do anything about that.

I just want to make the point that I mean housing per se isn't necessarily of course a welfare insult. We're keeping cows in 6 months a year in any system, but the larger economies of scale issue comes into play when farmers put in new housing systems which really do cater for the size and comfort of the cows. My experience at the University of Bristol when they did that, it had very significant health blameless benefits, but on the other hand, they do also want to flag the fact that cows do choose and would want to go out at different times.

So there's some nice work in Canada looked at how hard cows would work to do to go out, and they do exhibit a preference for going out at certain times. It's difficult to predict, so the best solution is to have an open gate, so. Behavioural choice is a is a is a good thing and so is the right design cubicle.

I'd like to just interject one thing that being a veterinary group, mainly, actually, the reason I got into animal welfare in the 1990s when it was starting to be discussed in the US was because it hit me that the reason the reason everything was wrong, anything went wrong on a dairy farm was my, my, my work was because we weren't taking care of the animals properly. The animals do what they're supposed to. The cows and the calves always do what they're supposed to.

It's, it's us that does something. And so animal welfare is the, is the key to, to actual medicine. It's, it's if the animal welfare is correct, then the animal physiology can do what it's supposed to, and they, they recover from minor illnesses and injuries really well, except when we don't take care of them.

So, so it's, it's the platform that we should use for all of medicine. OK. Great.

Thank you. Changing tack slightly will go to the question highlighted in yellow on slider that you can all see. So relating more to to the end of their lives that non stun meat is still allowed for religious reasons, yet, it's not the best animal welfare.

Could we apply a UK wide ban for production, but still allow import? I know this is a very important topic in the UK and one that we discussed a lot. So I don't know, David, do you want to make any comments first or I think BVA have been leading on this.

I'd really like to hear an update from BBA and they're thinking around the trade rules. Sorry, it back. OK, I don't know, the BVA president may want to has the microphone, so I suspect will now comment.

I know I have the microphone so I will. I'll actually start off by just reassuring David that whenever I, I've spent 3.5 years in consultancy for the Department for International Trade and regularly use the hashtag animal welfare is great, during my presentations, it, it is certainly something that we have been looking at developing.

I obviously I was working within the Agritech team rather than the, the food, food and drink team. But certainly as part of the UK branding around UK agriculture, it's certainly something we've looked very, very carefully at. And I'll just, very quickly, .

Try and read you a tweet which the Department for International Trade made the day before yesterday in response to NFU in fact, which said we will not compromise on our high food and animal welfare standards as as part of any trade deals, any future deal with the US must work for UK consumers, farmers and companies. So, that sort of piece across Whitehall, . Between DEFRA and APHA and the Department for International Trade, around animal health and welfare is actually a really important one, and I think relationships which are developing, specifically around non-stun, so I mean this is, this has been an ongoing campaign for BVA over the last number of years, and our top line hasn't changed.

Our top line is that we would like to see a complete ban on non stun slaughter in the UK. However, on the basis that there is a derogation in place and you know, to allow limited quantities of non sun slaughter for specific religious communities and the spirit of the derogation is, would suggest that that should be for domestic purposes. We've then made a couple of sort of additional pragmatic calls in in in in the current state of play.

So one of the things we've been working with Michael Gove and David Rutley on is looking towards a call for a ban on export of non-stun slaughter from the UK. So we know that at the minute the the figures that came out from the Food Standards Agency recently suggested that there were parts of the slaughter process in the UK where there were being, you know, significant proportions of, of non-stun was being exported, and we would like to see a ban on that. And one of the things, the themes that's come up on a number of occasions today has been around clearer labelling.

And, certainly we would like to see, you know, clear labelling around love sun slaughter. Now at the minute, part of what has driven our Choose assured campaign has been a proxy because all of the farm quality assurance schemes require animals to be pre-stunned before slaughter. And on that basis, we've been using Choose assured as a as a proxy, .

For that, we continue to work with the farm quality assurance schemes to look towards outcome-based welfare measurements on farm and also then looking at pieces around lifetime assurance, so increasing the scope of animal welfare within those schemes, but certainly around nonstan, that's where we are at the minute. I He took part in a round table, which was a very complete round table with all the stakeholders at the table, which was hosted by Michael Gove and David Radley. There was nothing probably new in the discussions, but actually having the people all around the table at the same time, gave an opportunity for a respectful, conversation to be had around around the key issues of nonstone.

Thank you for that comprehensive update. So, is there any anyone got any other comments or questions specifically on that issue? I think we've got one here, Katherine.

And Catherine, and if you again, I just basically wanted to back up some of what Simon has said. It is really important, certainly amongst this audience that we recognise and we say as often as we can, red tractor, all of the farmur schemes in the UK, it has to be stunned. And that's really important.

One of the other things that certainly I think just be aware as well, it's a really important market for our sheep industry. So we need to be careful that we, you know, that we get the balance right here as well, because ultimately as well, if you suddenly stop it, we'll damage the sheep industry. We'll put it on the ground and we'll just import the welfare issues elsewhere.

And that's that's not going to help anybody. One of the things that the NFU is is calling for is a little bit more flexibility from our government. That we actually start and we recognise and we look more at the recoverable stun science and we look at some of those kind of scientific parameters.

So again, this would be something that I'm sure that came up in the round table that you talked about. I mean, we need to start and again bring a bit of science into this debate. OK.

Thank you. Any further comments on this topic? OK, well, I think moving on nice actually, the two, the two questions that the top now in terms of do our citizens say one thing when asked to do something different when they go to the shop and The fact that we've touched on the assurance schemes for meat sold in the UK, but the public know what these actually actually mean.

So I think that ties together very nicely with the fact that a number of times through the debate today, we've heard about the consumer driving behaviour. I guess maybe a question for the panel as to what do they think we can be doing to to help improve that and help support a consumer who say they want high welfare to actually deliver that. I think that first question is a really good essay question for students because it's course it's got the concept of citizens and consumers all sort of mixed and muddled in there, and I think it's quite useful to think of them separately because let's be clear about this.

Citizens may not be eating meat products, and there are quite a few of them, quite rightly have a view on how animals should be kept and sold in the UK so. There's a set of policies around citizens which I think that social licence aspect is really important, and consumers quite clearly have a role, and consumers can help drive innovation and higher welfare products and via retailers making brand editing decisions that they are only going to sell certain things is the other route or influence. But consumer behaviour is not going to sort animal welfare.

Let's be clear about that. That's that's not the solution to animal welfare. OK, Jim, having comments on that is a tool that we should use more or something that's I, I, I agree that the consumer attitudes will not solve animal welfare issues, at least where we are, consumer response to animal advocate, videos and pictures.

Drives retailers and, and, and that, and that gets us to a better place with welfare on farms. But to actually get to where the welfare needs, needs to be for the animals, that, that's I don't think consumers need to know that much about the topic. They just need to know that animals are taken care of well, and, and they expect that.

So consumer surveys are always problematic, actually. OK. Thank you for a comment down here at the front.

In my personal experience, there is a huge knowledge gap in terms of labelling and what that means. I know in the UK one thing they do really great is mark their X with a number scheme that shows what system they come from. However, the information about what system that number corresponds to is not provided.

I recently read an article in Belgium where they have applied barcodes to packaging for meats so that you can scan it with an app on your phone that actually gives you information for the system, and I think if something like that can be introduced, it can really help provide more knowledge. OK, thank you. Any further comments from the panel on that?

Well, I think the comment about labelling, I, I, I, I think having different types of labelling information is, is useful. Some people say, oh, it's too confusing. I think we shouldn't treat our consumers like idiots, you know, they, they can work out what a red tractor is, and they can.

They can find out that information about caged non-caged, what it means, so provide the information, but there are some gaps quite clearly at the moment, so. Yes, we've got a system for laying hens, and that's a mandatory by European legislation. We've only got an industry code for pigs for part of it.

We haven't really got the first question is very relevant here. We haven't really got a system for dairy cattle that is clear and transparent across the board. Chickens, I see littles are.

Introducing their attempt at having a system labelled to try and explain what the indoor is about. So yes, we need to have better practise about describing, particularly the system. I think there's a good system around the assurance logos.

I think that's good, but the system label needs some further work. OK, thank you. Do have a comment at the front.

Thank you, James Russell. I'm going to try and stick with the consumer bit here, but I apologise if this question rambles slightly. Because I do have this concern that we have a role to fulfil in educating our consumers a little bit better.

If I may give one very quick example, I remember being beaten to death at talk to town council one night when I suggested we change our food sourcing policy to include stun slaughter only, and I was challenged by a fellow councillor who said I was an animal because not only did I want to kill these things, I also wanted to stun them. And that really pushed home to me just how poorly the whole system was understood, and I think at the moment we're in a situation where there is a rise in what 1 may call militant veganism, if I may, and we saw Project Dairy earlier in the year, which really put a lot of pressure and a lot of stress on a number of very good food producers in the country. And you may have seen the image doing the rounds in social media at the moment, allegedly of a foal having its head lasered off.

It's an image of a calf being disbodied, but this is being picked up on as a foal having its head lasered off. OK. We have a real problem of lack of understanding amongst large sectors of our community and where I would like some guidance from from the panel really.

Is how can we as vets best challenge and change that perception. Without inflaming the situation any further and without, as you've quite rightly said, David, doing down the views of those people who choose not to engage in the meat eating community at all. OK, thank you.

Any thoughts from the panels of an excellent question. Probably the answer to that one for one for the audience, but I just want to flag BVA has done some really good work about assurance labelling, etc. So that's the sort of thing that we need to do.

And it's not. Necessary persuading individual consumers it's persuading retailers and food food chains, restaurant groups, that those are a major point of influence. So before we move on, any other comments on specifically the labelling and consumer influence?

Simon, did you have something? Yeah, I just want to say a really quick word. We'll bring James up to speed before he becomes JVP just .

Most people in the room are probably aware, obviously we produced an animal welfare policy and a number of years ago and and really, That strategy has kind of underpinned a lot of our activity and sort of more recently since then, so everything that we've done kind of around non sun, around labelling, you know, around, even brachycephalic breeds and dogs and all that kind of stuff, everything that we've been doing, has been underpinned by the animal welfare strategy. I think the important thing that I just wanted to highlight is that we're now. Building a number of positions on top of that.

So we're working with some of our specialist divisions to look towards creating specific policy pieces that we can then use to educate both the profession and the general public. So we've got a position now on anaesthesia and analgesia associated with for use in calves associated with routine husbandry procedures. We're looking at things like, tail docking and, and beak trimming and, or sorry be treatment is what we're apparently what we're supposed to refer to it as like, and, and using those to then underpin some of, of, of the other communications activities that we have then coming out from BVA.

So just to kind of give you a quick a quick feel for that as well, but we're also then taking that into Europe, so we're taking. That to FEE, that has been really well taken up by FEE and other European countries now are looking at creating an animal welfare strategy in a similar vein to role. We're taking that to WVA and to IOC and, and, and talking with other officers in other veterinary associations around the world, and they are actually using this as a basis for for creating some of their own strategies in the same vein.

Thank you. I think we had one other comment at the front here, maybe on the on the labelling consumers I'm Caroline the RSPCA. I wanted to pick up on the point about the consumers who are kind of choosing just to move out of buying these products, you know, the rise in veganism, plant-based diets, meat substitutes, and how the profession should engage in that.

Obviously, we hear about militant vegans, but there are a lot of vegans who aren't militant. I live in an area with very high level. Of veganism I'd say if you look at the restaurants, and they are actually kinds of other vets, so they're going to practises.

So we do need to think about that engagement and what that means for the profession more widely and how we can get beyond this sort of there is a combative approach sometimes I think we just need to think a little bit more about that so I appreciate your thoughts. Any thoughts from our two panel members? I think that's a very useful distinction.

The militant versus not militant, because there is definitely an issue with animal activists moving from experimental animals to the meat sector. So you know, we can all rally around and say militant veganism and disruption to individual farmers. That's that's that's a problem, but non-militant veganism is not, that's a more wider society debate.

And to me, the thing is about eating animals is special. It's, you might call it privilege. It's, it's a high quality thing to do.

It needs to be justified. Be reared in the right way. And so we we we want to flip it rather than being defensive, it's saying, well, it must be pretty good to be able to do that.

And we need to eat less of it as well less but high welfare. Yeah. And I think you made that comment earlier, I think as well, Jim, that sort of less but high welfare.

Any other comments on the veganism? Certainly people can choose whatever they want to eat and in today's world, there's no reason to eat meat and still be healthy. .

Short thing on the, on the, labelling, we have no rules on labelling in the US on, on food products, so it's all marketing. There, there's actually no government decisions about it, so it becomes very confusing. I'm aware of the studies, the research in Europe on how confusing it is for people with, with actual defined labels, .

People, people should just choose what they want to eat and be comfortable with that. I don't think we're seeing a militant veganism in the US. I think we saw that we have a people for Ethical Treatment of Animals, which we are, our militant group at the moment for the past 2030 years.

They've kind of toned down and become a regular mainstream sort of a political force. We're not seeing the same problem. Doesn't mean we won't, but people, I, I enjoy people with passion for their topic.

If they're passionate about being vegans and about making change in animal welfare, then I try to work with the parts that that I can work with because in our system that's how we motivate people to change as people with passion. Thank you. As we move towards sort of the end towards the end of the debate and having the vote again, I think this is a really good question to think about having the highest welfare standards and actually meeting them or exceeding them are two different things.

Where does the panel sit with? Are we actually meeting them right now? So again, David, you want to have a first shot at that?

Well, I think on standards such as what does that word mean in legislation compliance in those terms, I think we, we are, I mean, I think we can be proud of, of what our industry is doing in terms of retractor, etc. And what our government is doing. But of course that's not outcomes.

We, we have, we can have farmers with lots of lame cows which are completely compliant with the law. So it's to me, of course it's it's it's a bit about the outcome stuff and that's a work in progress that's we need to keep keep hassling about that. Are we delivering the good enough welfare outcomes?

OK, thank you. Certainly I think the UK has excellent regulations and standards, that's for sure. Probably there are some Scandinavian countries that probably exceed those, but if you're looking at it from a bit far away, you'll recognise that the more homogeneous a region or a system is, the more standardised things can be.

And then you get to see even within the European Union, you have a range from, from as everybody here knows, Spain to, to Scandinavia and in the US or Canada, we just have lots of different geographies and environmental conditions and places that require different ways of approaching welfare and and housing and management. And so the systems will, so comparing. The welfare standards from the UK which are excellent to other places, is difficult because we need flexibility in, in larger regions.

We have, we go from deserts to, to blizzards and, and everything in between, so. So it's hard to have standards that will meet yours in the short term, but I think we'll all come together and like I think I said 2010 to 20 years as as meat becomes more of a valued commodity and there are alternatives for people for protein sources. So you have the good, you have good ones.

I'm after 3 weeks, I'll come back and see how well they've been reinforced. Any comments from the audience on that or questions to follow up on that at all? Yes, we've got one in the middle here.

Yeah I'll come clean fairly early on, David Channels. I'm a general practitioner all my life, and I've done a lot of pig work and dabbled a bit in poultry. Maybe I'm going to take the opportunity to half summarise this, but I've been sitting here listening to the presentations which were excellent and incredibly well balanced, and early on it was asked, you know, what's the most important thing we can do or what's the most important factor, and I whispered under my breath, profit.

And that took me forward because you've now said something, David, which is eating meat or using animals is a privilege. And we should respect that. And the biggest problem we have, I think, is food is too cheap.

Things that are cheap have no value, so we waste more. And it's utterly scandalous that maybe 30% of the animals that are killed for our benefit get chucked into a black plastic bag and go into landfill or digesters. So if we could make people value.

Animal products more. And pay more for them because if they value them, they will pay more for them. And the human will pay more because you can get round England in a Ford Fiesta, but people buy BMWs and Jaguars, so they will spend money where they think they're getting something of value.

And if we add value. To farming. The one thing coming from my other admission.

From a farming family and a part-time farmer. Farmers don't like paying tax, so if they make profit, they will invest and then the veterinary profession rather than fighting this defensive, well we have to tail do because we have to produce pigs at this price. We have to keep cows on concrete because we've got to produce milk at this price.

And Jim, you said that in the states it's a commodity, and the only way you make profits is to make more, and the only way you make more is to make them work harder. So if we can change that attitude, then the farmers will deliver because once they're paid more, people can say, well you're earning more, you're making more money so you can spend more on your buildings, you can spend more on your welfare, and you can spend more on your staff and on your training. So I think the answer right at the bottom, you ask the question, cos all the questions are now linked together about the consumer.

If the consumer can value animal products more, the animals will benefit. So I don't know if that's a question or a comment or just a piece of arrogance on that. Maybe the panellists would like to comment.

Right. And I think actually we're moving towards, I have my red light now. So on that very eloquent note, if I could give both of our panellists just one minute to sum up their thoughts following following the debate we've heard before we ask you all again to see and we'll see if anybody's minds have been changed.

So reminding ourselves that The original proposal was the UK has the highest welfare standards in livestock agriculture. David, you were proposing that. So with a minute, you want to summarise your thoughts, having listened to the debate?

Do have high standards. We could go further. David's point about it's going to cost more and it's higher value, we absolutely do.

I want to flag one other debate which we haven't talked about, and that's the issue of food poverty, because The really interesting report, I think it was called Broken Plate, which looked at the lowest 10% of, of, of, of, of income households, they pay 74% of their income on food, whereas the overall average is less than 10% or something. So that is a problem and quite clearly a problem for this issue, but there are other solutions for that, and that's not solve the deal with the 90% by one issue with the 10%. So that is another important policy question we have to address.

Thank you, Professor Reynolds, you want to summarise up the opposing the motion again, thank you for inviting us here to do this. I'm impressed with the group and the debate. There's no question that the UK that you have all put together exceptionally good welfare standards and regulations.

The point that I'd like to leave is that regulations aren't aren't actually, the end all and the be all. It's really what, as David Miller says from New Zealand, what the lives of the animals have, and, and that's. How compassionate people are.

So, so the schemes need to take into account the lives of the animals rather than specific protocols. OK, thank you. And on that note, could I ask you all to once again go onto the slide site and again into the poll section, and again, vote on the same motion and we'll see if the last hour, couple of hours of thinking about this has changed people's minds.

So I'll give you all just a minute to do that. Oh 2% shifts. But what we don't know is whether everyone shifted, but equally.

So on that note, and thank you very much to both of our panel speakers, but also to all of you who've contributed with the your thinking. It's certainly very broad, very broad ranging topic. We've covered a lot of issues, not just related to animal welfare, but to society more generally.

But if you could, before we go to lunch, join our hands together in thanking both of our speakers and enjoy your lunch.