Labour’s long-promised foie gras import ban could be at risk in the government’s EU-reset negotiations, animal rights charities have warned.
The talks over a new Sanitary and Phytosanitary deal with the EU have been criticised by Animal Equality UK and The Humane League, with the UK’s ability to ban the trade in foie gras potentially jeopardised without carve-out exemptions.
In June 2024, then shadow Defra minister Steve Reed promised to ban the import of any foods produced through “aggressive” force-feeding practices, but, while production of foie gras has been banned in the UK for decades on animal welfare grounds, imports have continued.
Abigail Penny, executive director of Animal Equality UK, described the negotiations as a “defining moment” and said the government needed to uphold its pre-election pledge to ban the import of foie gras or “provoke public outrage”.
“Now it must deliver,” she added. “We must retain the sovereign right to decide what enters and leaves our borders.”
Her concerns were echoed by Georgie Hancock, public affairs lead at The Humane League UK, who said that “trade deals must never come at the cost of animal welfare”.
”Without firm protections, British farmers trying to uphold the law risk being undercut by cruel, low-welfare imports,” she added. “Bans on extreme practices like making foie gras and caging laying hens will only be maximally effective when importing these products is off the table.
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The charities’ calls echoed those made by the Commons Efra Committee chair, Alistair Carmichael MP, who told The Grocer that the Cabinet Office was “causing significant anxiety” within food and farming sectors.
Carmichael’s comments followed the release of the committee’s report into the government’s negotiations, which said “a future deal must avoid disadvantaging UK agriculture and meat businesses”.
“We strongly urge the government to aim for a Swiss-style carve-out of dynamic alignment with the EU regarding animal welfare,” Carmichael said in the report. “We must avoid unnecessary burdens and undercutting of farmers from products produced abroad where animals are treated worse than in the UK.”
Penny said: “Force-feeding for foie gras is already a crime in the UK, so it should also be a crime to import it – end of story.
“Yet, time and again, progress has been blocked: sometimes by the personal ideologies of a small number of politicians, other times seemingly by sheer inertia.
”Now the threat is more serious than ever.”
Defra was approached for comment.
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