Thank you for contacting me about the fur trade.
I appreciate that there is considerable support for banning all imports of fur products. Fur farming has been banned in the UK for 20 years and legislation prohibits the keeping and breeding of animals solely or primarily for slaughter for the value of their fur. There are also strict restrictions on some skin and fur products that may never be legally imported into the UK. Those include fur and fur products from cats and dogs, whose import, export and placing on the market is prohibited.
While fur cannot be farmed in the UK, it is still possible to import and sell other types of fur from abroad. In 2021, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) published a call for evidence on the fur trade in Great Britain, which asked for views on animal welfare and on the social and economic impacts associated with the trade. Around 30,000 responses were received from businesses, representative bodies and individuals, demonstrating the strong public interest in this area.
I know that officials from Defra have been analysing the responses received and have also engaged directly with stakeholders. I look forward to reading more information about this in due course. In addition, Defra continues to build its evidence base on the fur sector, which will be used to inform any future action on the fur trade.
In the meantime, you might be interested to know that this country now has the strongest animal welfare protections in the world. The Animal Welfare Bill passed last month, and I’ve recorded a short video to document all the other ways that animals are now better protected by this Government. You can watch it here: https://fb.watch/pVVLOBTgd8/.