This week (6th – 9th March), we took to the road on an epic 750-mile trip around England. Over four gruelling days, we visited the constituency offices of four Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and the PM Rishi Sunak to urge them to finally ban live animal exports.

Action is long overdue

The Conservative Party’s 2019 manifesto promised to ban live exports for slaughter and fattening. The Kept Animals Bill, which will bring the ban into effect, was published by the Government in May 2021 but has now been stalled in Parliament for over 15 months. So, we took our Ad Van around the country to highlight the urgent need for action to end this cruel and unnecessary trade.

Staring in Somerset on Monday, we visited Rebecca Pow’s office. From there, on Tuesday we went to the offices of Thérèse Coffey in Suffolk and then straight to Mark Spencer’s in Nottinghamshire. On Wednesday, we were in Cumbria making a delivery to Trudy Harrison’s office. Our fifth and final stop on Thursday was to Rishi Sunak’s office in North Yorkshire, to remind him of the promise he made during the Conservative Party leadership contest to champion the Kept Animals Bill.

Submitting your signatures

As the digital truck made its way across England, it displayed images of calves and sheep suffering during export journeys from Britain to Europe, highlighting the need to ban the trade.

At each stop around the country, we handed over a model animal transport lorry. The toy lorries were filled with signatures of over 27,000 people who added their names to a recent petition that demands the Kept Animals Bill passes through Parliament and into law without further delay.

Hitting the road and the headlines

Around the country, our Ad Van attracted widespread media attention, gaining coverage in over 200 media outlets with a potential reach of over 399 million!

National pickup included articles in the Daily Mail, Independent and Evening Standard. We also secured regional press coverage in the Sommerset Daily Gazette, Wellington Weekly News, East Anglian Daily Times and Suffolk News, to name just a few. And, we placed full-page adverts in local papers in each of the five locations.

Our Policy Officer, Katie Hinde, was interviewed by Heart Radio and BBC Radio Cumbria. James West, our Senior Policy Officer, spoke to Greatest Hits Radio South West, and Nick Palmer, Head of our UK team, was interviewed by BBC Radio Suffolk.

On social media, the tour has achieved over 94,000 impressions – and still counting – and #BanLiveExports has been tweeted over 2,000 times over this week.

Stressful, cruel and outdated

“It’s been a challenging four days, zigzagging across the country,” said Katie Hinde, our Policy Officer who was on the Ad Van Tour. “But nothing compared to the horrendous journeys that animals being exported live from the UK have to endure. Their journeys can last for more than 60 hours, where they are crammed together without enough provisions. It’s stressful, cruel and outdated.

"This week we have shown Defra Ministers and the Prime Minister how much support there is for a live export ban. Now it’s time for the UK Government to deliver its promise and deliver the Kept Animals Bill, to end these unnecessary journeys once and for all.”

Take action

During the last UK Conservative Party leadership election, Rishi Sunak said he looked forward to “championing” the Bill that would ban cruel live exports from Britain.

Email the Prime Minister today and ask him to honour this pledge and be a true champion for farmed animals.