How our charity is making sure horse smuggling remains on the political agenda

Last week, we headed to Westminster where we held a parliamentary event to engage with politicians about the crucial steps they can take to help disrupt horse smuggling.

The turnout was heartening and it was fantastic to see MPs from across the UK at the event to discuss how we can all work together to combat this cruel trade.

Many of the MPs who attended told us that the reason they were there was because they had received an email from their constituents asking them to come along. We know that over 1,350 of our supporters asked their MP to attend, so thank you to each and every one of you who took action.

It is only by harnessing this collective power can we drive meaningful change and throughout the event we had engaging conversations with more than 30 MPs and their staff who were all keen to find out more about horse smuggling – asking searching questions about how they can help whilst also pledging their support.

MPs from all four UK nations and from across the main political parties attended and it was clear that they weren’t just there to have their photos taken in support of our campaign but were there to understand how they could make a difference. This is great news for horses, as it highlights a growing number of supportive voices in the UK Parliament.

Our event at Westminster, on a busy Wednesday afternoon after Prime Minister’s Questions, really did demonstrate to MPs why we need their support to stop horse smuggling and equally, why a digitalised equine identification and traceability system is imperative to enable intelligence-led and targeted enforcement to disrupt this trade. Introducing this system is only possible if equine identification laws are updated and improved.

While the Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Act 2024 now bans the live export of horses for slaughter from Great Britain and was a great first step, we now need enforcement measures to be put in place via secondary legislation to help disrupt a trade in horses we know is happening under the radar.

Our public affairs team has already been part of workshops held by the UK Government who are co-designing this secondary legislation with industry and our event highlighted why we need the support of parliament and MPs to put pressure on UK Government to bring forward this legislation.

MPs are uniquely placed to get behind our calls for new laws and stand up for the vulnerable horses caught up in this trade. Many who attended were keen to discuss further how they could help put pressure on the UK Government to progress with improved equine ID and traceability and the enforcement of the ban. We will be reaching out to them to ask them to table parliamentary questions on horse smuggling, this will allow us to gain further insight on the work and activities of the UK Government to prevent horse smuggling while also ensuring this issue remains on the parliamentary agenda.

We will be launching more actions this year that everyone can get involved with to build on this momentum and ensure policies and laws are progressed in the UK that will put an end to horse smuggling. This is just the start.