Thank you for contacting me about fur imports. I absolutely agree that we should implement a ban on the import and sale of Fur and Foie Gras in the UK. This outdated and unnecessary trade should have no place in the UK’s fashion industry.

As a vegetarian of over 20 years, a longstanding animal welfare campaigner and a dog-owner myself, I am horrified by the reports of animal abuse related to the fur industry. 

According to Humane Society International, more than 100 million animals suffer and are killed for the global fur trade every year. Animals are treated terribly in the fur trade: farmed animals are kept in small cages for their entire lives and wild animals are caught using cruel leg-hold traps.

I am proud that the UK was the first country to ban fur farming two decades ago. Since then, the EU has also banned the importation of dog, cat and seal fur and this has been retained in UK law after Brexit. However, although many retailers now refuse to stock real fur, fur from other species can still legally be imported and sold in the UK. Consumers may also be misled into buying real fur, believing it to be fake.

I believe we should go further and ban the importation and sale of fur all together. We should not have a fur trade that relies upon the suffering of animals abroad, and we cannot go on being complicit in this cruel and inhumane practice.

The UK Government previously said that it was not possible to introduce restrictions relating to the fur trade during the transition period, and that once our future relationship with the EU had been established, there would be an opportunity to consider further steps it could take in relation to fur sales. It recently launched a Call for Evidence in conjunction with the Welsh and Scottish Governments on the fur trade which closed on 28 June 2021. I will continue to follow developments on this closely.

Likewise the production of Foie Gras in the UK is rightly banned as it is incompatible with the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which makes it a criminal offence to allow an animal to suffer unnecessarily. However, imports have not been banned and the UK continues to import around 200 tonnes of Foie Gras from mainland Europe each year.

The fact that imports of Foie Gras to the UK are allowed is an effective green light to the continued suffering and mistreatment of these animals. We need to join the international movement against this cruel activity and implement a ban on imports of Foie Gras in the UK as soon as we can.

Thank you once again for contacting me and sharing your views about this important issue. I can assure you I will continue to urge the UK Government to implement a ban on the import and sale of fur at the earliest opportunity.