Farm animals in an election year

As the news suggests that unofficial election campaigns are underway by some of Britain's political parties, it seems a good time to revisit what we want from politicians to improve farm animal welfare.

At Compassion, we pursue a number of approaches toward achieving a better deal for farm animals, including our objective of feeding the world without factory farming. One of those strategies is to work with our elected representatives to educate them on the need for effective legislation and progressive public policies to protect farm animals. There's no better time than a general election to lobby parliamentary candidates. Indeed, I believe every election, including local councils, the Welsh Assembly, the Scottish Parliament, the Westminster Parliament or the European Parliament, is a good opportunity to speak up for farm animals.

This is why Compassion is a proud member of the Vote Cruelty Free campaign. This is a non-partisan coalition comprising of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, International Fund for Animal Welfare, League Against Cruel Sports and Respect for Animals. Our mission is to ensure that public concern for animal welfare is recognised by working directly with candidates and elected officials to achieve positive change. Vote Cruelty Free covers a broad range of animal welfare issues. Compassion's involvement focuses solely on farm animal welfare.

In the Vote Cruelty Free farm animal welfare manifesto, we particularly call for:

• A ban on the export of animals for slaughter or fattening
• Prohibition of 'enriched' cages for egg laying hens
• Government enforcement of EU legislation requiring pigs to be given enrichment materials and banning routine tail docking
• Animal welfare to be a core objective of Government food policy.

Interestingly, our lobbying on the latter point appears to be bearing fruit in that the newly unveiled UK Government food strategy cites "farmers producing efficiently, sustainably and safely to high standards of animal welfare" as a key goal for 2030. Having made progress, we need to keep it up. We need to ensure that governments properly achieve the reforms they have committed to. A case in point is the threat to the EU ban on barren battery cages.

Please help us to raise farm animal welfare up the agenda during the impending election campaign. Please go to the Vote Cruelty Free Lobby Your Future MP page and key in your post code to find out if your Prospective Parliamentary Candidates have signed up to support our campaign. Also, stay tuned for future announcements on how you can make a difference for farmed animals in the next general election.

Thank you.