Animal Welfare

As an animal lover, I am pleased to support and promote the most far reaching proposals on the protection and treatment of animals any party has put forward.

To better protect animals and their habitats I will push for:

• The creation a new Commission on Animal Protection.

• A ban on all blood sports, including trail hunting.

• All UK domestic and overseas territorial waters to offer the highest level of protection to marine life.

• An end to badger culling.

• An end to factory farming, enforcement of maximum stocking densities, and no routine use of antibiotics in farm animals.

• A complete ban on close confinement in cages and the deliberate and unnecessary mutilation of farm animals.

Commission on Animal Protection

Elected Greens will seek to create a new Commission on Animal Protection, responsible for overseeing all rules designed to protect animals from cruelty and upholding their rights as sentient beings not to be subjected to undue suffering.

This Commission will ensure that the highest standards of animal protection are applied to companion animals, farm animals and wildlife – and that these standards underpin decision making by public bodies too.

We will enhance regulation and controls on the breeding, sale and import of companion and all animals, including action to stop cruel practices such as ear cropping and pet smuggling. There would be a compulsory licensing of everyone working with animals. Those convicted of cruelty will be placed on an animal cruelty register and prevented from working with animals again.

Elected Greens would push for ending the exploitation of animals, including horses and greyhounds in racing. 

Green MPs will introduce a licensing scheme for the ownership of all kept animals and replace outdated breed-specific legislation for dogs with an updated dog control law. 

Green MPs would recognise the distress caused when beloved companion animals are stolen and will champion new laws to comprehensively tackle this kind of crime. 

We would encourage the use of companion animals in therapy and other treatments, drawing on evidence showing the beneficial impact of contact with animals on human psychology. 

Greens oppose the importation of monkeys for use in labs, and will work towards an outright ban on all animal testing. We would also end the use of live animals in military training and support the production, promotion and transition to nonanimal technologies for use in experiments.

A humane approach to wild and farmed animals 

The Green Party is fundamentally opposed to all blood sports and would campaign to introduce a ban on all hunting in the first year of a new parliament. This includes trophy hunting, trail hunting, where dogs are used to track foxes, and the commercial shooting of game birds. Government subsidies will no longer be given to maintain artificial landscapes designed only for hunting (such as grouse moors). 

Green MPs will campaign against badger culling. The cull has no evidence basis and has failed to effectively reduce Bovine TB. We will fund research into a sensitive test to enable cattle vaccination as part of a meaningful strategy to control the spread of the disease. We will also invest in better farm biosecurity and badger vaccination. 

Where necessary for ecological reasons, or for animals described as pests, humane culling will be licensed by Natural England and carried out by trained professionals. Related to this will be the prohibition of firearms and lethal weapons except on registered premises. We will also ban the use of lead ammunition and outlaw all forms of snaring. 

Elected Greens will push for an end to factory farming, enforce maximum stocking densities and prohibit the routine use of antibiotics in farm animals. Greens will campaign for a complete ban on cages and close confinement, and on the deliberate mutilation of farm animals. 

Enhancing protection for marine creatures 

Elected Greens will ensure that all British domestic and overseas territorial waters offer the highest protection to marine mammals, sea birds and marine life. 

Green MPs will champion co-operation in achieving global sanctuary for all cetaceans, alongside active support for UN Charters and obligations under The Law of the Sea to protect against overfishing, pollution, climate impacts and other threats. 

Elected Greens will push for a ban on bottom trawling and other destructive fishing practices in Marine Protected Areas and other waters, as well as for proper implementation and enforcement of relevant international legislation to protect deep sea species.