Farming minister George Eustice has announced a U-turn on welfare measures in the poultry industry.

In a written response to a parliamentary question, delivered on Thursday, the farming minister announced that the government will not now be implementing a ban on beak trimming.

Mr Eustice said he had made the decision based on industry advice, in the form of a report from the Beak Trimming Action Group. Instead, he said he would support improved management techniques across the laying hen sector.

The news comes as the British Veterinary Association expressed concern at the lack of animal welfare commitments in Defra’s response to yesterday’s spending review, though department officials committed to maintaining animal health and bovine TB eradication funding. British Veterinary Association president Sean Wensley said, “BVA will continue to press Defra to ensure animal welfare policy and research remains a priority."

Commenting on Thursday, NFU’s chief poultry adviser Gary Ford said, “The NFU has always said that January 2016 would have been too early to introduce a ban on beak trimming. We believe that a continuation is in the best welfare interests of laying hens so we are pleased that the Minister has listened to ours and the industry’s concerns.”

Ford said the industry will keep working with welfare groups including RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming to move past beak trimming one day, and added, “The NFU supports and is actively involved in ongoing industry work to better understand what the trigger points are that cause injurious feather pecking.”

However, speaking to Farming Online on Thursday, Compassion in World Farming’s chief policy advisor Peter Stevenson said the organisation is “Immensely disappointed” by the outcome of the process.

Stevenson said the farm animal welfare charity had been part of the Beak Trimming Action Group, which produced the report that influenced Mr Eustice’s announcement, since it was convened by the then Labour government in 2002. He said Compassion had distanced itself from the Action Group’s report, because of its “weak conclusions and weak recommendations for government.”

The Compassion policy advisor said his organisation had recommended introducing a ban, but delaying the date at which it should come into force, to give industry a sense of the seriousness of the welfare issue. He claimed that as it stands, the UK risks falling behind its European colleagues, as many northern European countries are taking action on beak trimming but the UK industry does not believe it can phase out beak trimming until 2025 at the earliest.

He maintained that Compassion is still keen to engage with industry and government on this issue, but expressed serious disappointment with the industry, which “wants ten more years [to tackle beak trimming] when they’ve already had thirteen,” and with the government, which has “Gone along with these weak recommendations.”

In Germany, moves are being made within the industry to phase out beak trimming from the middle of next year. The Netherlands plans to phase out the practice by 2018. Similar moves are also underway in Sweden, Denmark and Austria.