At the end of 2025, the UK Government released its new Animal Welfare proposal. One of the main priorities was “consulting on phasing out the use of cages in farming”, and in 2026 they began this process with a public consultation on caged hens and egg production.
This is a welcome step, but a proposal is not a guarantee.
In recent years, Viva! Campaigns investigators have visited caged egg facilities across the UK, and what they saw horrified them: animals being denied freedom, peace and everything that makes life worth living.
In ‘enriched’ colony cages, each hen is given just 750cm2 of space and is largely denied the ability to express normal behaviours such as walking and running, wing stretching, flapping and flying, dust bathing and scratching through substrate in search of food. Over seven million caged hens across the UK are still trapped in these same miserable conditions.
All proposed timelines within the Government’s proposal for an outright ban fall beyond the date of the 2029 general election, leaving Viva! with concerns that other political parties may not uphold Labour’s pledge.
We cannot allow the Government to fail these animals. Add your name to our petition and urge the Labour Government to legislate now and make a complete cage ban legally binding before 2029.
The UK ban should be paired with strict standards that prevent the import of eggs from cage systems to ensure that the policy genuinely improves welfare across the whole supply chain instead of displacing it to other countries.
The consultation closes at 11:59pm on 9 March 2026. We also encourage you to read through the consultation and submit a personal response calling for enriched colony cages to be banned as soon as possible. Read our guide to submitting your response here!
