The people of the UK have spoken - Animal Welfare matters

Keeping animal welfare on the agenda

Before taking office, the Labour Party pledged they would give animal welfare the biggest boost for a generation. Now we eagerly await the Government’s Animal Welfare strategy, due this Autumn, as an opportunity for it to set out exactly how it intends to tackle some of the challenges facing animals. 

At a time when people are facing huge difficulties, from the cost of living crisis, to political and cultural divisions and war on our doorstep in Europe, it is easy to let animal welfare slip down the agenda. But it would be a mistake for any government to neglect animal welfare, an issue the public care so deeply about.

A national conversation about Animal Futures

We know that people care because more than 10,000 of them took part in Animal Futures: The Big Conversation, which aimed to get the nation talking about animal welfare. This concluded in the Summer with a Citizens’ Assembly that brought together 44 people from all different walks of life and political views. Working with the New Citizen Project, we asked them to come up with a roadmap of recommendations to improve the future for animals. And the message is clear: animal welfare matters.

Today we launch our new report - Animal Futures: Our Plan for a Better World, which pulls together 15 recommendations from the Citizen’s Assembly and the RSPCA’s response. What these clear, actionable recommendations show is that people care not just about the pets that share their homes, but the wildlife in their communities and the animals that we farm for food. What we discovered is that when people had the facts, presented by independent experts, in front of them, they were shocked by the realities of the way we treat the animals who share our world. 

In many ways, the recommendations from this diverse group of people are more radical than governments might think. They want enforcement of wildlife friendly development and an end to shooting for sport. They want support for higher welfare farming, alongside more support and growth for alternative proteins. They are calling for ‘pet lifetime certificates’ connected to a national database which tracks how an animal is bred, sold, and cared for throughout its entire life and they want animal welfare taught in schools. 

Wildlife needs better protection

Our Kindness Index this year showed that, for the first time, the issue people most wanted the RSPCA to address was protection for wildlife and the assembly had some strong recommendations around this. It included improving planning laws to create wildlife-friendly development  and creating a Community Habitat Service giving local government and communities responsibility to protect their local wildlife.

There was a strong desire to give individuals the knowledge and information to make the right choices. In fact, some assembly participants reported changing their diets or lifestyles as a result of what they learned about the way our food is produced. But what was also clear is that they wanted governments and industry to take a lead in protecting animals, making it easier for people to make choices that benefit animals. 

Our love of animals unites us

At a time when so much divides us, our love of animals often unites us. We know that there is strong support for many animal welfare issues. A government consultation on mandatory labelling on animal products to tell shoppers about how they were reared got 99% support from the public. Eighty-four percent of people oppose cages for laying hens and 78% are against farrowing crates for mother pigs. Nearly three-quarters of people (73%) are worried about wildlife in the UK and 84% oppose breeding of animals with genetic health problems.

Assistant Director for Advocacy, Policy and Research, Gemma Hope, said: “Animals are facing some of the biggest ever challenges, through climate change and nature loss, the growth of low welfare farming and the rapid and unchecked advancement of technology. We know from our Animal Futures project that the choices we make today will decide whether we create a world where animals are treated with kindness and respect or leave them behind as we put our own needs first.”

Animal welfare is at a crossroads and we have to act now if we are going to change the future for them - and us. What the Citizens’ Assembly shows us is that the public are behind us, but they need governments and industry to step up and take action now to prevent a future that none of us want to see.

Read all 15 recommendations from the Citizens’ Assembly in our report - Animal Futures: Our Plan for a Better World.