On 22nd December 2025, the UK government confirmed that it wants to outlaw “colony cages” for laying hens and “farrowing crates” for pigs in England as part of a new animal welfare strategy that ministers have described as the most ambitious in a generation. If approved by Parliament, these reforms, which will be phased in by 2030, are expected to affect millions of birds and pigs currently trapped in confinement systems that severely restrict their movement, although their suffering will remain, as they will continue to be kept captive, hurt, and killed when still young.
The plan means English farmers will be required to abandon so-called “colony cages” for hens, which still confine groups of birds in stacked metal enclosures, and to stop using “farrowing crates” that immobilise mother pigs while they give birth and nurse their young (The UK had already banned “gestation cages” that are very similar, but in a typical animal welfare reform, it kept some versions of crates still legal). Animal welfare campaigners have long argued that these enclosures condemn farmed animals to lives of frustration and suffering, as they cannot walk freely, turn around properly, or perform many natural behaviours.
Sean Gifford, managing director at the Humane League UK, said to the Independent, “Cruelly confining animals to cages is a stain on British farming, and we are thrilled to see this government following countries like Germany and Austria, who have banned them… The vast majority of the public thinks raising animals in tiny cages is unnecessary and morally wrong.”
Anthony Field, head of Compassion in World Farming UK, said to the Guardian that this new plan is “a landmark step forward in protecting farmed animals across Britain.. By committing to phase out cages for laying hens and farrowing crates for pigs, over 7 million hens and 150,000 pigs will benefit annually.” As part of the same plan, ministers also pledged to introduce “humane slaughter” requirements for farmed fishes, to address the use of gas chambers to kill pigs, and to promote slower-growing chicken breeds to reduce some of the worst welfare problems caused by rapid growth. Animal advocates have urged the government to move swiftly from policy pledges to binding legislation and to ensure that any imported animal products meet at least the same welfare standards. However, there is no such thing as “humane slaughter, and all these animal welfare improvements, ambitious as they are for a government plan, do not really solve the basic problems that animal exploitation causes. Only the abolition of all types of animal farming can solve them, and this is why animal rights campaigners have not shared the same enthusiastic reaction as their animal welfare counterparts.
