Horse Minister speech to NEF

Barry Gardiner MP - Minister for Biodiversity, Landscape & Rural Affairs - Defra

Fact: The average horse's heart is heavier than a human head.

And I'm told that horses produce around 10 gallons of saliva each day.

On paper, they don't sound like the sort of animal you'd fall in love with. But thousands of us, millions of us, have done just that.

The British Equestrian Trade Association estimates that horse owners and riders contribute around £4 billion each year to the economy.

BETA also estimate that there are around 1.3 million horses in Britain; and that around 4.3 million Britons have taken to the saddle in the last year alone.

I say us because, I'm no exception. I fell in love with horses at the age of 8. The other day I spent a day in Cambridge at the British Horseracing School seeing young people taken in by the racing school.

That's why I've been delighted to take the reins as Minister for the Horse.

I think my job is a particular pleasure because of the really quite exceptional partnership you have developed with Government.

In Government, our approach to all environmental issues - to climate change, to conservation, to preventing or tackling animal disease - centres around partnership. Partnership between us, industries and individuals.

I think that our partnership with you and the industry is outstanding. It's a benchmark by I would wish many other partnerships should be judged.

It's a partnership that not only promotes the health of our horses, it's a partnership that also promotes the health and sustainable use of our environment, our countryside and our landscapes.

And this is a crucial approach. Let me explain why...

If everyone in the world were to consume as many resources as we do in the UK, we'd need three planets to support us rather than the one we actually have.

That is why within Defra we have been trying hard to live within environmental means - and have adopted what the WWF calls One Planet Living.

I'm believe that people in this industry glad are already thinking along these lines.

The Horse Industry Strategy, for instance, makes a point of considering your environmental impact. It guides owners on taking measures that are good for them and good for the environment.

I think it's vital the horse sector doesn't underestimate its importance in this. There's no doubt that you're as much land managers as farmers are. After all, 500,000 hectares of land being used for horses, is pretty big in anyone's estimation.

And the way you manage this land can contribute to its sustainable use or not. And it can protect and enhance the natural environment.

Horses keep hill vegetation open by eating rough grasses, for instance. They allow flowering plants and heathers to flourish which, in turn, increases biodiversity.

They contribute to a healthy environment. Which, in return, supports healthy horses.

Horse health and welfare is obviously crucial in everything we do in the horse industry.

And that's why today is so important.

The Equine Health and Welfare Strategy will underpin, will strengthen, the Horse Industry Strategy. It will be a vital guide for the next decade.

It's been developed by you in the industry, for the industry.

And I'd urge everyone with an interest in horses to take it onboard. To incorporate this strategy in their everyday working lives.

What's particularly impressive is the way it's been carved up into eight achievable aims. Responsibility for promoting each of these aims has been allocated to a named industry body. I think this approach is key to ensuring that the strategy isn't left to gather dust after today's launch.

I know many actions have already been achieved during the development process, for example, the Equine Industry Welfare Guidelines Compendium, which is a comprehensive document of health and welfare standards, was produced and launched last year.

But there are other areas that we need to work on.

Reviewing Health and Welfare Standards, for instance, is crucial for the Strategy. We need to know where the gaps in our understanding are. And we need to plug those gaps by getting the relevant horse organisations to develop their own best practice guidelines.

We can then set a baseline to gauge when horse health and welfare are being compromised.

And we'll know that all the information available to the public on horse health and welfare will reflect agreed minimum standards.

This will then ensure owners and keepers can meet the duty of care for their animals.

There's no doubt that this, combined with the new Animal Welfare Act, will raise our national game when it comes to caring for horses, ponies and donkeys.

The strategy, as the name suggests, also tackles disease head-on.

We need to be constantly prepared - to expect, as always, the unexpected. Equine Infectious Anaemia in Ireland, for instance, just shows what can happen if biosecurity standards are compromised. The horse industry and our equestrian sports teams rely on our ability to move animals around the world. It is vital that everyone takes their share of responsibility for keeping serious horse diseases out of Britain.

The strategy will help us get a better picture of the type of diseases that are out there now. It will help us improve disease surveillance. And it will help us prioritise resources as a result of that.

An essential part of disease monitoring, is to have a robust capability for horse identification.

As I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone here, the regulations surrounding horse ID are likely to change under European direction.

And the Equine Health and Welfare Strategy will put us in a position to review the effectiveness of any identification system that is ultimately adopted - primarily through the National Equine Database that's already having a significant impact in this regard.

So, the strategy came into being through partnership. And it will succeed through partnership.

But partnership must go further than industry and Government. It has to involve everyone.

And the only way we're going to encourage everyone is to communicate clearly. Make our finding's easy to read, easy to access.

That's why an interactive version of the strategy is being launched in May.

It's literally designed to get everyone involved....local schools are being invited to the launch event, there will be games, info packs, stalls run by leading equine bodies, free information, and an opportunity to talk to those who developed the Strategy.

Good communication is how we make for real change. The strategy is a fine piece of partnership working but if nobody reads or understands it, then we have to ask what was the point in writing it in the first place?

I want our nation to be enthusiastic about horses. And I want the nation to get behind the industry. And there are plenty of big international reasons why it should....

The European Jumping and Dressage Championships will be coming to Windsor in 2009. The first senior combined continental championships ever.

They will bring two of the three equestrian Olympic disciplines together, just three years before London 2012 and all that it entails.

The British Equestrian Federation is also bidding for the World Equestrian Games in 2014 or 2018.

Hosting tremendously prestigious events like these, combined with the opportunities of 2012, all help to further cement the UK's position in the equestrian world.

I'm absolutely convinced that, together, we can not only have a healthy environment and healthy horses - we could actually at the end of it all have a healthy medal collection!

Thank you

 

 

 

 

March 22nd, 2007