Enforcement

There are laws and regulations to achieve good welfare and treatment of animals. But if they are not enforced, at all or entirely, animals will not have the protection and good experience that the laws and regulations are aimed to bring. 

The Animal Law Foundation and Animal Equality delivered in October 2022 the Report The Enforcement Problem: The Case for Stronger Enforcement of Farmed Animal Protection Laws in the United Kingdom. In the Foreword Edie Bowles, Executive Director of The Animal Law Foundation depicted “The Enforcement Problem” as ‘…when a law exists on paper, but is grossly underenforced in practice, rendering its value questionable at best and redundant at worst.’ She went on to remark, ‘The Enforcement Problem for farmed animals has been known by those working in the field for some time’. Abigail Penny, Executive Director of Animal Equality UK, described in the Foreward that ‘UK policy makers have taken steps to ban a number of particularly cruel practices’ and that ‘it would only be too fair for consumers to assume that our [UK] agricultural standards surpass that of other countries’, and said ‘But the true test comes when we determine how the legislation is applied.’

In showing who are responsible in the UK for enforcement ‘On Farm’, ‘At Slaughterhouses’, ‘During Transport’, ‘At Market’, the Report displayed that in the UK there is a great complexity of responsibility for enforcement. In the Report’s Conclusion it is stated ‘There are nearly 300,000 farms in the UK, but between 2018-2021 an average of only 2.95% were inspected by public bodies.’

In February 2023 came the Report Law and Disorder: The Enforcement Solution from Animal Equality UK which ‘looks towards action on how to solve The Enforcement Problem.’ In its Introduction is said ‘there is an abundance of evidence, gathered and presented in Animal Equality’s initial joint report with The Animal Law Foundation, demonstrating that non-compliance is rife and that there is a troubling lack of oversight of the animal agriculture industries.’ The essential solution the Report recommends is a system of licensing of farms for welfare purposes, and with the key elements being farm record keeping and official inspections. 

In the Conclusion it is said 

‘It’s clear we need more order by way of stronger enforcement, if we are to make sure the UK’s animal protection laws are fulfilling their purpose of protecting animals.

As a first step, Animal Equality recommends that a licensing system be made a legal requirement across all UK farms within the next three years. This will address several of the issues that are currently leading to poor enforcement, and more suffering for farmed animals.’

In a speech at the Animal and Vegan Advocacy Summit in May 2024 Abigail Penny is reported to have said ‘that “enacting laws is just the beginning” and that without proper oversight the true impact of new laws will not be felt by animals on the ground.’  (Imogen Allen, ‘Animal Equity Shines at AVA Summit in Washington, D.C.’, 12th June 2024, updated 19th June 2024). 

Not merely do existing laws and regulations need to be enforced. New ones need to be formulated, and then enforced, that display acceptance of a key thing, that farm animals - sheep therefore - are sentient. 

Moreover, further advances in human outlook can be envisaged, with the law reflecting them, and it being enforced. It is to be hoped that requiring to be manifested in laws and regulations in the very near future, will be a change of human attitude, of seeing farm animals as not for use but for treasuring for themselves. Interestingly, Dr Steven McCulloch, Professor Paul Chaney and Dr Lisa Riley in their 2024 report Political Animals: The Democratic and Electoral Case for Strong Animal Welfare Policies in UK General Elections, which considers a Focaldata 2023 poll of the British public (6,050 respondents) that was commissioned by Humane Society International UK and some other animal protection organisations, say this; ‘This report has found a consistent supermajority level of British public support for progressive animal protection policies, defined as 67% or over of the population. At the same time, this level of support is not reflected in government laws and policy.’ 

The general implication therefore is that - as well as current animal protection law needing to be enforced – there is a need for animal protection law to ‘catch up’ with public opinion. Anthropologist Roanne Van Voorst says this: ‘The law is humanity’s alternative Bible, the one that doesn’t celebrate our belief in a supra-human god as a source of all goodness, but rather our belief in humanity as that source.’ (Once Upon a Time We Ate Animals: The Future of Food, 2021, p 181).  

With coming change of human thought on farm animals will be demanded new laws and regulations, and enforcement of them.