The government’s move to ban trail hunting has been branded “virtue signalling” by countryside campaigners, amid warnings that its new Animal Welfare Strategy prioritises ideology over evidence and risks damaging farming, wildlife and rural communities.
The strategy confirms plans trailed in Labour’s manifesto, including banning trail hunting and outlawing “snare traps”. While the Countryside Alliance said it supports the highest standards of animal welfare, it warned that reform must be grounded in science and proportionality, not symbolic bans.
The Alliance said the measures outlined could have far-reaching consequences for the countryside if they are pursued without proper evidence. It warned that farmers, rural communities and biodiversity could all be adversely affected.
As the government consults on the proposals, the organisation said it would continue to engage with ministers to ensure future policy genuinely delivers for people, animals and wildlife.
The Alliance said blanket bans rarely improve outcomes, arguing they are often driven by emotion and ideology rather than evidence. It warned the strategy risks becoming little more than “virtue signalling”, with unintended and harmful consequences.
It also questioned why the strategy targets practices already regulated, citing puppy farming, which was banned years ago and covered by extensive 2018 regulations. Further legislation, the Alliance said, risks duplication rather than meaningful improvement.
The Alliance raised similar concerns over a proposed closed season on hares, warning it would not boost populations but would weaken fox control. That, it said, could further threaten vulnerable species such as curlew and lapwing.
While supporting higher welfare standards, the Alliance warned they are meaningless without matching import rules. It said government promises on food security would ring hollow unless trade policy reflects the same standards.
Without equivalent standards applied to imports, the Alliance argued, higher welfare rules risk exporting British farming overseas. The result, it said, would be greater reliance on imported food and further damage to domestic producers already under strain.
The Alliance said farmers need a level playing field and long-term stability to invest. Instead, it warned that rising costs, falling incomes, market distortion and new tax pressures are leaving family farming with an increasingly uncertain future.
It also accused the government of overlooking existing animal welfare law, pointing to the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which embedded the five freedoms nearly twenty years ago. The priority now, it said, should be enforcement rather than more legislation.
On trail hunting, the Alliance said the proposed ban was contradictory, noting that hunts adopted the practice after being instructed to do so under the Hunting Act 2004. That legislation followed more than 700 hours of debate, yet the Alliance said the same evidence is once again being ignored.
In seeking to ban the very practice it once directed hunts to follow, the government, the Alliance warned, risks repeating past mistakes—substituting evidence-based policy with political symbolism, and leaving the countryside to deal with the consequences.
