Could Mislabelled Fake Fur Lead To A Total Ban?

A ban on selling real fur should be considered because consumers have been tricked into buying animal fur labelled as fake, a cross-party group of MPs have told ministers.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has found that retailers, local authorities and Trading Standards have been failed to enforce regulations around the sale of real fur. Its report, Fur Trade in the UK, highlighted the labelling system as confusing and called out retailers, including TK Maxx, Amazon, Boots, Boohoo and Tesco, for inadvertently mislabelling real fur products as fake. Retailers, such as Kurt Geiger and Etsy, it said, also follow no-fur policies but have sold “faux fur” clothing or upholstery made from animal materials.

“Reports of real fur being sold as fake fur shows that retailers are flouting their responsibility to consumers,” Neil Parish MP, chair of the committee, said. “Retailers of all sizes are complacent about the issue of fake faux fur. It is illegal to give misleading information and Trading Standards have been poor at identifying and acting against those who are doing so.”

He advised the government to ensure that local authorities are properly resourced, and local authorities to ensure that Trading Standards are properly trained. Brexit, he said, was an opportunity to refocus efforts. “The labelling of clothes must be consistent, transparent and customer-friendly, but current EU requirements are not good enough to allow consumers to understand the origin and contents of their clothing.” Animal species, the country of origin and how the animal was reared and killed should be presented on a label, rather than the current stipulations, which simply state that an item of clothing is made from "materials of animal origin".

Despite UK-wide bans of fur farming since 2003, and EU bans on the sale of cat and dog fur (2007) and seal fur (2010), it is still legal to import and buy fur from a range of other species including fox, rabbit, mink, coyote and chinchilla. In the last year, the UK imported almost £75million of animal fur, according to the most recent trade statistics from HMRC, with the majority of these animals factory-farmed in battery cage systems in countries such as China, Poland and Finland.

“It is a total double standard for us to still be importing and selling fur from animals still suffering the same conditions we banned here,” Humane Society International (HSI UK) executive director Claire Bass commented. “The UK government has the opportunity to blaze a trail as the first country to ban the sale of all animal fur, so we are delighted that EFRA committee members are pressing government to launch a public consultation to help inform and build that case. A UK ban would be a major nail in the coffin of this morally bankrupt industry.”