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PAD Launch Release below.PAD Questionnaire is at http://www.vote4animals.org.uk/downloads.htm.PAD Leaflet attached to print & distribute.Please visit www.vote4animals.org.uk , enter your postcode and send the PAD Questionnaire to your Constituency Candidates.>>> Please forward to ALL who may be interested >>>Gareth Strangemore-JonesPAD / Campaign Promotions(T) + 44 (0)2920 705716(M) + 44 (0)7915 386690(E) gareth (W) www.vote4animals.org.uk

PAD (Protecting Animals in Democracy)PAD NEWSNEW CAMPAIGN TO PROMOTE TRANSPARENCY FROM CANDIDATES IN GENERAL ELECTION ON 6 KEY ANIMAL RIGHTS ISSUESPoliticians and leading academics are supporting a new campaign promoting democratic transparency on animal rights issues, launched ahead of the General Election with a view to ensuring voters have information on where constituency candidates stand on 6 key topics regarding cruelty to animals. PAD (Protecting Animals in Democracy) has developed a six-point policy questionnaire on animal protection issues with questions to highlight where candidates stand on banning hunting, reform of animal protection policy institutions, banning battery egg farming, tackling factory farming, banning primate experimentation and an independent inquiry into animal research.The questionnaire has been sent to all candidates and their answers will be made available online at the PAD website www.vote4animals.org.uk, along with the main parties' 2005 election manifesto policies on these issues. The PAD website is an interactive campaigning tool, which enables voters to sound candidates out on key animal welfare issues and encourages tactical voting based on their responses.With the turnout at the polls predicted to be low, the votes of people concerned with animal rights may well be crucial, especially in marginal seats, said Dan Lyons, Head of Political Affairs at PAD. Anyone concerned by animal rights issues now have access to the information they need to cast their vote accordingly. Animal rights issues are not just for activists or those prepared to break the law. PAD has the support of voters in every constituency and this campaign for transparency is backed by politicians, academics, celebrities, journalists and other opinion formers. PAD is about using the ballot box to influence how we, as a society, treat animals, he explained. PAD is a people power campaign to end cruelty to animals and to banish barbarous practices that have no place in a civilised society, said Gareth Strangemore-Jones, PAD s Press Spokesperson. There are candidates in constituencies with battery farms or animal experiment centres who, because of the jobs involved, publicly support them even when they don t really agree with the cruelty. PAD is a chance for animal lovers in these, and other constituencies, to remind politicians that our votes count just as much. PAD seeks to put the human back into humane, he explained.The PAD website also includes a user-friendly way for voters to send the questionnaire to their candidates to ensure that they reply and that the answers are available to the public. The successful candidates can then be held accountable for their part in debates and votes on the topics in question. As well as politicians and the media, PAD is targeting people already interested in animal welfare, younger voters and those who often don t vote because they feel politicians don t care about things important to them.By far the greatest abuse of animals in the UK remains the millions of experiments carried out each year in laboratories, said Paul Flynn, MP Newport West (Labour). Many of these are carried out in the commercial interests of multinational companies who have little or no regard for the suffering of animals. There must be constant pressure to reduce the total mindless suffering of laboratory animals, he explained.I was honoured to be asked 6 telling questions about animal welfare by the new campaign of PAD, said Dr Rudi Vis, MP Finchley & Golders Green (Labour). I gave my full support to all 6 questions, because animals are precious and all animals deserve our sincere protection. I wish PAD all the best and I congratulate them on their important initiatives, he added.Like most animal welfare campaigners, I should much prefer it if no animal experimentation took place in this country, said David Taylor, MP NW Leicestershire (Labour & Cooperative). But if that is not immediately achievable, promoting political consensus on the six key areas that PAD have outlined is an ideal place from which to start working toward that goal. "The evidence demonstrates beyond doubt that hens confined in battery cages suffer intensely, both physically and psychologically, said Mike Hancock, MP Portsmouth South (Lib Dem). How we treat those weaker than ourselves is the ultimate test for a truly civilised society, so I strongly support 'Protecting Animals in Democracy' in their efforts to raise this issue in the election campaign and achieve a ban on this and other barbaric practices in factory farming.""On behalf of the Green Party I would like to congratulate PAD for ensuring that animal rights issues get on the election agenda, said Cllr Darren Johnson, AM and Green Party Candidate for Lewisham Deptford. I want to see a complete end to factory farming, the hunt ban properly enforced and an end to animal experimentation.""As an MP between 1997 and 2005 I am very pleased to have helped get the ban on fox-hunting in place after 25 years of campaigning by me, said David Lepper, Labour and Co-operative Party Candidate for Brighton Pavilion. But there are other important issues we still need to address including the live transport of animals, the conditions in which animals are reared for food and, especially the use of animals in experiments. I believe there should be a Royal Commission to look at the whole issue."As a Liberal Democrat and a supporter of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, I have pleasure in having this opportunity to be the voice for those who cannot make their voice heard, said Hazel Thorpe, Lib Dem Candidate for Brighton Pavilion. Education is I believe one way that we can get the message across loud and clear. I would certainly pursue the proposal from our Party to have an Animal Protection Commission to carry out an investigation into how animals are used and are ultimately dispatched. I would ban any method which caused unnecessary pain and cruelty e.g. traps and snares. Having been to Horsdean, Patcham, and met the thriving cottage industry out there, I will be advocating a return to civilized farming methods not mass production at the expense of our animals. Protecting Animals in Democracy is a good way forward. "2005 is a crucial election for animals, said Revd Professor Andrew Linzey PhD, DD, Member of the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, Senior Research Fellow in Ethics, Theology and Animal Welfare, Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, and Honorary Professor in Theology, University of Birmingham. It is absolutely vital that we show politicians that disregarding animal issues will mean losing votes. I am, of course, hugely supportive of PAD s efforts to put animal issues on the election agenda, said Robert Garner, Reader in Politics, University of Leicester. Animals have no voice of their own and only concerned humans can articulate their interests. "At a time when biotechnology threatens to reverse the downward trend in animal experimentation the Protecting Animals in Democracy campaign is a vital effort to represent both the political status of nonhuman animals and the ethical and social relationships that many people feel toward animals in the UK," said Dr.Richard Twine, a Bioethicist at Lancaster University.PAD s six questions are: 1) Will you support the ban on hunting with hounds, and the thorough enforcement of the ban?2) Will you support the replacement of current policy-making institutions that affect animals with a new Animal Protection Commission? 3) Do you support a ban on all caged and battery egg farming by 2009?4) Do you support measures to end the factory farming of animals - including broiler chickens, turkeys, ducks, other birds, pigs and cows through measures such as reduced stocking densities, decreased growth rates, banning of cruel methods designed to maximise productivity, mandatory provision of enrichment to enable animals to better fulfil behavioural needs, banning of genetic modification of farmed animals, and reform of economic support to discourage factory farming?5) Do you support a ban on experiments on all non-human primates?6) Will you support an independent, balanced inquiry to investigate the scientific and ethical questions surrounding animal experimentation and review current legislation and its implementation?The PAD Questionnaire includes referenced statistics such as:· Two-thirds of the public do not trust the system regulating animal protection. (MORI)· An overwhelming 86 percent of people think battery cage systems are cruel, and 78 per cent believe the government should ban them now, as a priority. (MORI)· 80% of the public would like to see better welfare conditions for farmed animals in Britain. (Macnaghten, P (2001) Animal Futures: Public Attitudes and Sensibilities towards Animals and Biotechnology in Contemporary Britain. (Agricultural and Environmental Biotechnology Commission) p. 45.)· 83% of doctors support an independent investigation into the medical relevance of animal experimentation. (Macnaghten)· Two-thirds of the public say they are either fairly or very interested in the issue of animal experiments. (Macnaghten)More than 100 other candidates from Labour, Lib Dem and Green Parties have already completed their questionnaires answering positively to all six questions, said Dan Lyons. There are many more to follow, as PAD contacts them daily or as supporters encourage candidates to answer. For more information, visit www.vote4animals.org.ukendsNotes to EditorsPAD s six point questionnaire is at http://www.vote4animals.org.uk/downloads.htm along with the covering letter PAD encourages its supporters to send to candidates requesting they complete and return the questionnaire.For further information about PAD, logo and launch pictures, please contact:Gareth Strangemore-Jones Dan LyonsPAD / Campaign Promotions PAD Head of Political Affairs (T) +44 (0)2920 705716 (T) +44 (0) 114 272 2220(M) +44 (0)7915 386690 (E) gareth (E) dan About PADAnimals can't vote, they can't protest, they can't lobby MPs and they can't sue the Government for breaking the law. Although hundreds of millions of animals suffer terribly on factory farms and in vivisection labs because of politicians' decisions, they are completely powerless. They are utterly dependent on good, caring people to defend them by putting their vote to good use.But while most people are opposed to animal cruelty, Governments have consistently ignored public concerns and deserted their moral duty to protect animals from violence. Away from the public gaze, they even refuse to enforce existing laws designed to give animals at least a modicum of respect and protection. Animal cruelty has to become a hot political issue if the Government is to start taking it seriously.General Elections only come round every four or five years, so the next few weeks represents a rare window of opportunity that must be grabbed if we are to start tackling some of the entrenched obstacles to compassionate change.Protecting Animals in Democracy (PAD) is a historic new initiative set up by peaceful and democratic animal protection campaigners. As an organisation, PAD is not affiliated to any political party.PAD's mission is to tackle animal cruelty democratically through the electoral process. PAD seeks to achieve fair political representation for the public's concern for the welfare and rights of non-human animals. We also aim to encourage a rational and informed public debate about the moral status of non-humans, the acceptability of practices that cause suffering to animals, and how our political system can be reformed to ensure that animals are given the protection they deserve as inherently valuable sentient individuals with physical, emotional and social needs.Our short-term goal is to put animal protection on to the agenda at the forthcoming General Election, expected in May. Our aim is to empower and inform voters, and encourage tactical voting that protects the ban on hunting, while helping candidates and parties who will oppose the Government's callous policies on factory farming and animal testing. By showing that votes are won and lost on animal issues, we can make sure that politicians take cruelty to animals seriously.PAD (Protecting Animals in Democracy), 9 Bailey Lane, Sheffield S1 4EG, UK(T) +44 (0) 114 272 2220(F) +44 (0) 114 272 2225(E) pad(W) www.vote4animals.org.uk

CAMPAIGN PROMOTIONSEmpowering communications forPAD (Protecting Animals in Democracy)