From Protest to ‘Holy Writ’: The Mainstreaming of Welfare Politics

Abstract

This chapter examines the evolution of British farm animal welfare politics during the last two decades of Harrison’s campaigning. In 1979, the RSPCA boycotted the Thatcher government’s new Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC). The short-lived protest triggered a membership revolt and moderation of RSPCA policies. It also coincided with a weakening of agricultural corporatism in Westminster. FAWC was granted relative independence from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food and explicitly acknowledged an updated version of the five freedoms. Ensuing British welfare reforms were also driven by the increasing involvement of European bodies in animal welfare. Now in her 60s, Ruth Harrison joined FAWC as a welfare member. Her increasing public recognition as a senior welfare campaigner enabled her to proactively push for reforms, expand her fundraising activities, and sponsor additional welfare research. By the late 1990s, most of her welfare positions had become part of mainstream politics.

The 1980s brought significant changes to the fortunes of Ruth Harrison and farm animal welfare. Having successfully challenged post-war decision-making in British politics and the RSPCA, the wave of radical animal activism began to lose force. Although a radical fringe continued to bomb farms and animal laboratories, more moderate figures began to wield greater influence in animal politics and campaigning. Associated with neither radicals nor ‘traditionalists,’ Harrison used her excellent connections to animal welfare researchers to secure a place on the newly founded FAWC in 1979. Over the next two decades, FAWC recommendations played a crucial role in implementing key demands of Animal Machines. The book’s increasingly visionary status and the enactment of new welfare standards helped Harrison secure prestigious markers of public esteem like an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1986, as well as more funding for FACT research.

Harrison’s transformation into an establishment figure would have been difficult to predict in 1979. In that year, the dissolution of FAWAC could have ended her access to Whitehall decision-making. Despite her uncomfortable role in FAWAC (see Chaps. 8 and 10), Harrison was surprisingly nominated for the new FAWC.¹FAWC was officially announced by the Thatcher Administration in December 1979 and was meant to correct the flaws of its divided and ineffective predecessor. Ministers insisted that FAWC “advise as speedily as possible on revisions to the Welfare Codes of Cattle, Pigs, Domestic Fowls and Turkeys.”² Other FAWC briefs included producing codes that were more detailed and placed “more emphasis on behavioural needs.”³ In a significant move, the government announced that FAWC was “free to publicise its views”⁴ without prior MAFF consent and could make non-binding recommendations for welfare improvements. It was also made explicit that welfare consisted of more than the absence of cruelty. Ahead of FAWC’s first meeting, welfare scientist John Webster had successfully pushed for an updated version of the ‘five freedoms’ to be integrated into FAWC’s mission statement.⁵ Whereas FAWAC conflicts had often centred on the validity of basic welfare criteria, FAWC explicitly stated that welfare codes should provide animals with:

• 1. Freedom from thirst, hunger, or malnutrition;

• 2. Appropriate comfort and shelter;

• 3. Prevention, or rapid diagnosis and treatment, of injury and disease;

• 4. Freedom to display most normal patterns of behaviour;

• 5. Freedom from fear.⁶

Reversing a long policy tradition and acknowledging ethical considerations as a value per se, MAFF also announced: ‘animal welfare raises certain points of ethics which are themselves beyond scientific investigation.’⁷

The appointment of FAWC sounded like the fulfilment of an Animal Machines wish list and was both a recognition of its predecessor’s failings and a concession by the new Conservative administration to growing public support for farm animal welfare. The move also ended a decade of relative neglect of farm animal welfare in No. 10 Downing Street. As described in Part IV, it had long been comparatively easy in government circles for producers and MAFF officials to side-line welfare demands by Ruth Harrison and others as anthropomorphic and misguided (Chap. 8). With notable exceptions like protests against live animal exports, economic instability and frequent 1970s’ changes of government had led to a relative neglect of farm animal welfare in Westminster.⁸ This relative disinterest and the resulting ‘backstage’ stasis of British farm animal welfare politics had suited producer interests and MAFF officials. However, lack of progress had also contributed to a growing polarisation of ‘frontstage’ welfare debates in the public sphere. Public polarisation and international pressure resulting from Britain’s decision to join the EEC and European Council welfare conventions steadily increased pressure on senior politicians to address the stasis of welfare reforms and refrain from unconditional defences of intensification.

Although Margaret Thatcher weakened a more explicit earlier draft, the 1979 Conservative election manifesto claimed that the party would ban certain live animal exports, support EEC reform proposals for animal transportation, and shared popular concerns about welfare: “We shall update the Brambell Report, the codes of welfare for farm animals, and the legislation on experiments on live animals.”⁹ Meanwhile, Labour’s manifesto promised bans of blood sports, a new council of animal welfare, and “stronger control on the export of live animals for slaughter, and conditions of factory farming, and experiments on living animals.”¹⁰

Following Thatcher’s 1979 election victory, winds of change were quickly felt within MAFF. Ministry officials were no longer in direct control of Britain’s main welfare advisory body and complained that some members of a two-year enquiry into animal welfare by the House of Commons Agriculture Committee between 1980 and 1981 took “the view that the Brambell recommendations are Holy Writ.”¹¹ The gradual weakening of industry-friendly bastions like MAFF was facilitated by a prolonged economic crisis of British agriculture. Starting in the late 1970s and gathering steam during the 1980s, many British livestock producers suffered from the joint effects of overproduction and stagnating or falling demand for animal products. Publicly, producers and agricultural officials also had to respond to damaging scandals involving drug residues, salmonellosis outbreaks, and the emerging mad cow disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) crisis.¹² The combination of economic problems, scandals, and rising subsidies reduced support for MAFF positions within the free-market Thatcher administration.¹³

Corporatist bodies like MAFF were not the only ones to lose power over farm animal welfare politics. The events of 1979 also diminished the influence of former members of the RSPCA Reform Group. Already fiercely critical of FAWAC, the RSPCA Council had responded to the formation of the new FAWC with a boycott.¹⁴

What had triggered this decision? In early 1979, Thatcher’s predecessor, Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan, had already proposed a new general oversight committee for all advisory committees on farm animal welfare, animal experimentation, and animal transportation. The new super committee, which was also mentioned in Labour’s manifesto, would be tasked with recommending “changes in the law relating to animal welfare, in its administration and in the relevant advisory machinery.”¹⁵ Callaghan’s decision had initially been welcomed by the RSPCA.¹⁶ However, following Margaret Thatcher’s victory at the May 1979 general election, the initially proposed super committee morphed into a much narrower FAWAC replacement. Ryder and his allies also became concerned by other activists’ decision to turn down FAWC membership offers and the nomination of NFU-associated intensive farmers and Sydney Burgess, who was associated with firms exporting live animals.¹⁷ In August 1979, the Daily Star claimed that the Society had warned the new Minister of Agriculture Peter Walker—a moderate Conservative with previous experience in setting up the Department of the Environment under the Heath government—that it would boycott FAWC if Burgess was appointed.¹⁸ Facing parallel protests against MAFF badger-gassing,¹⁹Walker refused to give way.²⁰

The RSPCA’s resulting boycott of FAWC led to a further éclat when the Society’s executive director Julian Hopkins and chief veterinary officer Peter Brown accepted FAWC appointments without consulting RSPCA leadership. Both had to be ordered to lay down their mandates with a Council majority of one in November 1979.²¹ Publicly justifying the RSPCA’s boycott, Richard Ryder claimed:

There were hardly any well known welfare campaigners on [FAWC]. You will not get progressive reforms from such a committee. … It is a well known device in political circles to set up a committee to slow down progress. … By supporting such a committee we reduce our opportunities to speak to the Government direct.²²

The FAWC boycott exacerbated already significant rifts between Ryder’s reform camp and a growing number of internal critics, who bemoaned the Society’s alleged take-over by a radical minority. In addition to weakening Ryder’s position and triggering damaging news coverage,²³ the boycott also enabled agricultural commentators to criticise the Society.²⁴ As the only prominent welfare representative left on FAWC, Harrison added to public pressure on Ryder. Writing to the Times, she criticised the RSPCA’s impudence:

The RSPCA council could learn much from FAWC in being able to differ in a friendly and civilized way. … For the RSPCA to boycott [FAWC] would be incredibly foolish. You are not hurting FAWC, you are hurting the RSPCA and farm animals.²⁵

Harrison’s position was shared by a majority of RSPCA members. On February 23, 1980, an extraordinary general meeting debated the RSPCA boycott but failed to generate the 60 per cent of votes required for expelling reform members.²⁶ The vote nonetheless marked a turning point for the Society’s 1970s’ reform movement. Although the 1980s witnessed further radical animal rights activism inside and outside the RSPCA,²⁷ the Society returned representatives to FAWC after a newly elected more moderate Council voted to end the boycott in July 1980.²⁸

The failure of the RSPCA boycott was also a sign that FAWC was proving far more effective than its predecessor. Between 1979 and its replacement by a new Farm Animal Welfare Committee in 2011, FAWC published over 30 reports on animal welfare.²⁹ In contrast to FAWAC, FAWC’s composition and greater independence from MAFF enabled it to conduct rapid welfare code reviews. Soon after its establishment, FAWC reviewed pig codes. Non-binding recommendations reflected “the Committee’s belief that the keeping of sows and gilts in stalls, with or without tethers, gives rise to abnormal behaviour and very commonly causes injuries.”³⁰ Further important reviews followed. Drawing on John Webster’s FACT-sponsored strawyard experiments, a review of veal production led to legislation requiring digestible fibre in calves’ diets and improved crate sizes—“effectively destroy[ing]”³¹ remaining intensive production and leading to a 1986 ban of individually penned calf crates.³²FAWC also tried to proactively improve farm animal welfare and published 117 recommendations for farm animals at the time of slaughter in 1984. In 1992, a FAWC review of egg production laid the ground for a gradual reduction of battery cage use and improvements of free range systems. In 1993, another review criticised harmful breeding practices and laid out welfare research aims.³³ Although most codes remained non-binding and actual legislation was often slow to materialise,³⁴ even former critics like Richard Ryder later acknowledged that FAWC had produced “a succession of sensible proposals for reform.”³⁵

In the meantime, welfare politics were becoming increasingly European. Although it often took a long time for European initiatives to transform into national regulations,³⁶ the Council of Europe had turned into an influential forum for welfare politics and inspired farm animal welfare engagement by the European Economic Community (later EU).³⁷ In addition to strengthening ties between European scientists, welfare organisations, and regulators, Council of Europe deliberations created significant peer pressure for member states to align standards. Resulting achievements were impressive. Starting in the 1970s, European committees laid the ground for the 1976 Council Convention for the Protection of Animals as well as for other European welfare regulations, including requiring the stunning of animals before slaughter (1974); incorporating FAWC’sfive freedoms into the Council’s convention for the protection of animals kept for farming purposes (1978); approving the convention for the protection of animals for slaughter (1988); providing minimum standards for the welfare of laying hens in battery cages (1988, amended 1999 and 2002); providing marketing standards for eggs (1990); protecting animals during transport (1991, amended 1995, 1997, 2001); establishing minimum standards for the protection of calves (1991, amended 1997) and pigs (1991, amended 2001); and passing the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, which granted animals special legal consideration as sentient beings.³⁸ The EU also passed a 2001 convention banning sow and tether stalls by 2013, following a unilateral ban in Britain in 1999.³⁹

For Ruth Harrison, the 1980s marked the highpoint of her career as a full-time campaigner. Within FAWC, she no longer had to defend basic principles of positive welfare, uphold behavioural perspectives, or block industry-friendly standards. Instead, she could concentrate on proactively shaping code improvements. At the European level, she exerted influence as the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) representative within the Standing Committee of the European Convention for the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes (T-AP).⁴⁰ She also became a prominent member of the Eurogroup for Animal Welfare, which had been founded as a European welfare lobby organisation in 1980.⁴¹ Her success in maintaining access to both European and British decision-making bodies did not mean that she became less combative. According to fellow FAWC and T-AP members, meetings could still be characterised by Ruth Harrison acting as a “minority of one.”⁴²

The 1980s were also a time of heightened FACT activity, matching Harrison’s involvement in FAWC, T-AP, and the Eurogroup. The Trust continued to focus on providing supportive research for Harrison’sFAWC work. During the early 1980s, FACT and the UFAW jointly financed a further Gallup Poll to find out whether consumers would pay more for non-battery eggs: “The survey had indicated that nearly two-thirds of consumers would be prepared to pay over 5p/dozen more for non-battery eggs.”⁴³ Speaking to trustees in September 1983, Ruth Harrison gave an overview of FACT projects: The Bristol veal project had been completed, a FACT-supported report on animals and ethics was selling well,⁴⁴ and FACT had agreed to support research by David Wood-Gush and Alex Stolba on alternative ‘family pen’ systems for pigs at the University of Edinburgh.⁴⁵ The Trust was also financing a film on pig behaviour, sponsoring a Behavioural Needs workshop, and was considering establishing a journal on farm animal care.⁴⁶ In the same year, FACT also decided to support research on low-cost free range systems for laying hens⁴⁷ and approached corporations to promote humane slaughtering and stunning devices.⁴⁸

Fundraising and publicity activities increased in tandem with FACT’s research sponsorship. At the 1982 and 1984 Royal Shows, FACT collaborated with the Royal Agricultural Society of England and mounted an exhibit titled Farm Animals: Towards Alternative Systems. In 1984, it established the so-called FACT Award “for the design and production of a machine for the humane collection and transport of broiler chickens for slaughter.”⁴⁹ Although it failed to secure sponsorship by the Prince of Wales and Paul and Linda McCartney,⁵⁰FACT managed to attract the patronage of the renowned natural scientist Dame Miriam Rothschild.⁵¹ Following the resignation of FACT trustee and former FAWAC and FAWC chair Prof Richard Harrison,⁵²Ruth Harrison convinced prominent younger welfare researchers, including Donald Broom and—despite earlier differences—Marian Dawkins, to conduct FACT-supported research and become trustees.⁵³

All the while, FACT’s agenda remained almost single-handedly determined by its chairwoman, who used trust funds to support her work on British and European animal welfare committees and travel to scientific meetings.⁵⁴ During the second half of the 1980s, FACT also sponsored further research on improved stunning and slaughtering devices for cattle and poultry, alternative production systems for animals, and the space needs of laying hens.⁵⁵ As usual, research sponsorship was closely tied to political campaigning. In a letter to Miriam Rothschild from 1985, Harrison listed her hopes for the immediate future of British animal welfare:

If there were regulations giving all animals the ‘five freedoms’ and a well bedded lying area, this would eliminate at one stroke veal crates, sow stalls, tie stalls, piglet cages and flat deck cages, battery cages for laying hens, rabbit cages and all the extreme systems. Add a diet to keep the animal in full health and vigour and ‘quality veal’ is out as well.⁵⁶

Commenting on recent FAWC work on animal transports, Harrison did not think that quick regulatory progress was likely but wryly noted that there was “no harm in [external] pressure,” such as research and publicity generated by FACT, as it would make “FAWC’s job easier” (Image 11.1).⁵⁷

Image 11.1

Ruth Harrison and Klaus Vestergaard observe a sow at the Swedish Pig Park in 1988 (image courtesy of Bo Algers)

Other reforms advocated by Harrison and supported by FACT included a welfare-based rating and licensing system for farm buildings and stockmen, a mandatory stock to stockman ratio, the provision of well-bedded lying areas for stock and of perches and nesting boxes for birds, requirements for feeds to preserve animals’ full health and vigour, and ad-lib animal access to water.⁵⁸FACT also funded research on poultry, turkey, and pig housing; the force-feeding of ducks and geese for foie gras; and improved pre-slaughter stunning. In the latter case, Harrison tested gas stunning via CO₂(with 2 per cent oxygen) and electro-immobilization on herself. She was not convinced by either technology.⁵⁹ With public protests against live animal transports flaring up again,⁶⁰Harrison advocated slaughtering animals close to their place of production, a ban on live animal exports, and improvements in domestic slaughtering arrangements.⁶¹ In 1985, she accused the government of delaying the implementation of new 1984 FAWC recommendations for humane slaughtering.⁶² Three years later, she renewed her long-standing criticism of legal pre-stunning exemptions for so-called religious ritual slaughter.⁶³

Despite experiencing a personal blow through the death of her husband, Dex, in December 1987,⁶⁴Ruth Harrison intensified the time and effort she devoted to farm animal welfare. A sudden influx of money helped her do so. Although fundraising had improved since the 1970s, FACT’s net assets had not exceeded £10,000–20,000. However, in 1988, donations of £40,428 significantly improved the Trust’s budget.⁶⁵ In addition to other forms of income such as reports on animal welfare on individual farms (see Chap. 12),⁶⁶ re-investing the donations enabled FACT to professionalise and expand sponsorship of ethological research.⁶⁷ Having already funded a conference on the behavioural needs of farm animals in 1987, FACT co-financed additional meetings on the economic viability of humane production systems in 1991 and on sustainable livestock production in 1993.⁶⁸FACT also began contributing to scientists’ travel expenses and launched new research projects such as a “high welfare pig building project”⁶⁹ at the Edinburgh School of Agriculture. In 1988, FACT established a scholarship on the “feasibility of combining pigs/poultry with trees”⁷⁰ in memory of Dex Harrison. During the early 1990s, FACT co-sponsored a design competition for cattle stunning pens and financed research on pig farrowing systems, different methods of stunning and euthanising poultry, sheep housing in winter, fish slaughter, animals’ space needs, alternative husbandry systems, and the microchip feeding of pigs.⁷¹ Further plans centred on publicly promoting Trust-sponsored research.⁷²

However, despite her nomination to FAWC, the expansion of FACT, and her 1986 elevation to the status of Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE),⁷³Ruth Harrison remained dissatisfied with the overall state of British welfare. In 1988, she complained that widespread societal acceptance of “Professor Thorpe’s 1965 guiding principle[s]”⁷⁴ had not led to a ban of problematic production systems. The prefaces to the UK’s 1971 Codes of Practice had “studiously ignored behaviour, and related welfare only to physiological requirements.”⁷⁵ Despite signing the 1976 Council of Europe Convention, the UK had passed new welfare regulations only relating to the daily inspection of housed livestock and automated equipment—“everything else, [officials] felt was covered by the 1968 Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act.”⁷⁶ Scandinavian countries and West Germany had outpaced the UK in terms of welfare regulation. To maintain the wider status quo of welfare regulations, British officials were clinging to the European Convention’s call for the qualification of welfare regulations through “established experience and scientific knowledge” “like drowning men to a straw.”⁷⁷

Much remained to be done. The next decade, however, saw Ruth Harrison’s campaigning career slowly come to an end. Celebrating her 70th birthday in 1990 and reaching her maximum term of office in 1991, Harrison left FAWC. Her retirement marked the end of 24 years of membership on Britain’s leading welfare committees.⁷⁸ Despite her retirement, Harrison maintained a degree of influence on British and European animal welfare debates. In 1990, a Guardian article described Ruth Harrison and Rachel Carson as two “solitary prophets”⁷⁹ of the twentieth-century animal welfare and environmentalist movements. Glossing over Harrison’s actions during the turbulent 1970s and drawing heavily on clichés of ‘sentimental’ female activism, the Guardian claimed that Harrison’s campaign for animal welfare had been characterised by her “moderate views and step-by-step approach.”⁸⁰ Speaking with “a gentle voice”⁸¹ to the article’s author, Harrison expressed understanding for post-war governments’ attempts to boost meat production. However, she remained adamant that the production methods chosen had been wrong. When it came to the intensive production of white veal, Harrison grew agitated: “For the first time she raises her voice. ‘Why white veal? Why the hell white veal?’”⁸² Summarising the evolution of welfare regulations since Animal Machines and contrasting her with more radical campaigners, the article expressed certainty that Harrison’s “Tolstoy-like” strategy of incremental improvements would continue to improve farm animals’ welfare.⁸³

This prediction proved true. Aided by FACT funding and her status as an iconic campaigner, Harrison continued to push for improvements in all areas of farm animal welfare.⁸⁴ It was only after a cancer diagnosis in 1996 that FACT activities began to decline.⁸⁵ Still regularly attending T-AP’s Strasburg meetings and re-arranging her chemotherapy so as not to clash with trips,⁸⁶Harrison focused her final campaigning on securing new welfare guidelines for ducks, ratites, and pheasants. She also remained concerned about the use of carbon dioxide to cull animals like mink and commissioned research on alternative slaughter methods and lighting levels on farms (Image 11.2).⁸⁷

By the end of the millennium, few of these demands were considered radical. Thirty-six years after the publication of Animal Machines, nearly all of the fundamental animal welfare positions espoused by Harrison had become part of mainstream culture and politics. In 1997, all major British parties included animal welfare statements in their election manifestoes. Pointing to the 1995 EU regulations on animal transports and the 1996 EU ban of veal crates in the middle of the contemporary mad cow disease crisis (see Chap. 12), the Conservative Party promised to “continue to take the lead in improving standards of animal welfare in Europe.”⁸⁸ Meanwhile, Labour pledged to hold a free vote on whether to ban hunting with hounds.⁸⁹ The mainstreaming of her formerly radical positions was a sign of Harrison’s success as a bestselling author, as a determined force within welfare committees, and as a veteran campaigner with a well-developed network of ties to leading scientists and decision-makers. It was also a sign that misogynist 1960s attempts to downplay her positions as overly emotional and later descriptions of Harrison as too timid to effect change had clearly been misplaced. By focusing on all stages of Harrison’s career rather than individual moments like the 1964 publication of Animal Machines or 1970s clashes with Reform Group members, we come to appreciate her remarkable ability to successfully negotiate a wide range of evolving political and campaigning environments. Many other activists, scientists, and politicians had shared overlapping ethical and scientific beliefs, but very few had been able to consistently influence British and European developments for over three decades.

Image 11.2

Ruth Harrison at a Danish mink farm in 1997 (image Courtesy of Marlene Halverson)