Just one in 300 complaints about animal welfare at UK farms led to a prosecution over the last four years, with half of the accused holdings not even inspected, analysis has shown.
A report by Animal Equality and the Animal Law Foundation also said that fewer than three in 100 of the UK’s estimated 291,000 farms had an annual inspection by a public body between 2018 and 2021.
The charities said there is less than one inspector for every 205 farms, and the “risk-based” regime means “higher-risk” farms – those that have been the subject of a complaint, for example – are prioritised but even they are not always inspected.
Abigail Penny, the executive director of Animal Equality UK, said: “Non-compliance is endemic, evidenced time and again through undercover investigations and now further bolstered by the data revealed in this report.
“Pigs are having their tails cut off, cows are unable to walk or stand and hens are crammed into overcrowded cages, yet farms are typically receiving little more than a slap on the wrist. These findings are disturbing and should be alarming to any consumer. Animal abusers need to truly be held accountable. Right now, this is evidently not the case.”
Of the farms that were inspected after a complaint, non-compliance on site was identified at just under a third, according to the report, titled the Enforcement Problem, which was compiled using data gathered from public bodies. Like prosecutions, use of other legislative enforcement actions was rare, with 144 improvement, care or compliance notices issued in 2020, while local authorities received 6,466 complaints relating to farmed animal welfare.
The authors found that even when investigations by animal protection organisations such as Animal Equality, Animal Aid, Compassion in World Farming and Open Cages uncovered alleged evidence of illegal activity or substandard practices, more often than not it went unpunished. Across 65 such exposés released between 2016 and 2021, approximately seven in 10 resulted in no subsequent formal enforcement action, they found.
The report says that with more than 180 public bodies responsible for legal oversight and enforcement, including local authorities, “inconsistencies and confusion have arisen. The disjointed nature of regulation and law enforcement has enabled a lack of continuity, enforcement and accountability.”
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is charged with overseeing policy enforcement in England, and the devolved governments have responsibility in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But in England, Scotland and Wales, day-to-day enforcement is in the hands of the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) and local authorities.
Edie Bowles, a solicitor and the executive director of the Animal Law Foundation, said: “The problem exists across all areas of animal law. What makes it particularly jarring for farmed animals is not only the extent of the problem but the constant proclamations that the UK has some of the highest animal welfare standards on farms and slaughterhouses in the world.
“If these standards only exist on paper and are not upheld in practice, the value of those laws is rendered questionable at best and redundant at worst.”
The APHA said: “We take breaches of animal welfare legislation very seriously and investigate every allegation that is reported to us.”
The Scottish government also said it takes animal welfare very seriously, while the Welsh government said it was a priority and referenced the APHA’s control regime.
