Ban new battery cages, say activists

Animal welfare groups condemned the Government yesterday for deciding against banning a new type of "friendly" cage for egg-laying hens that is said to be no better than the old battery cages. Elliot Morley, an Agriculture minister, said the Government would defer a decision until a European Union review in 2005.

Present battery cages, which have bare wire floors, will be outlawed by 2012 when a 1999 EU directive on animal welfare comes into effect. The "enriched" cages are slightly bigger and have a nest, perch and litter for pecking and scratching. Yet welfare groups still consider them cruel and want them banned at the same time as conventional battery cages are outlawed.

Peter Stevenson, of Compassion in World Farming, said the new cages were "glorified battery cages with a fancy name", which give each hen extra floor space equivalent to a the size of a postcard.

"Does the Government think a postcard of extra space makes any difference to a hen?" he said. "It is a great shame the Government had decided to side with the industry in allowing them to keep enriched cages on the shallow pretext that there isn't enough science available." But Mr Morley said that after a three-month consultation involving more than 1,000 people and other organisations, the scientific, veterinary and economic arguments fav-oured keeping the cages for the foreseeable future.

A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the UK could no longer claim to be a leader in animal welfare when Germany had decided to ban all battery cages by 2012.

"We believe enriched cages are just as bad as conventional ones [because] they are too small to allow birds to even stretch and flap their wings properly, and will cause hens almost as much suffering as conventional cages," he said.

Mr Morley said the Government was still concerned about other issues, such as proposals to set new limits on the density of laying hens. "A better approach would be to review the future of enriched cages on an EU basis, when the directive is next considered by the EU Agriculture Council in 2005," he said.

Mark Williams, of the British Egg Industry Council, said the policy would curb imports and safeguard jobs.