World Horse Welfare undertakes regular field investigations as part of its campaign to stop these long-distance journeys, and for years we have documented the appalling suffering of these horses.

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Sixteen Labour backbenchers, including former welfare reform minister Frank Field, voted against the Government.

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She became an MBE in 1980 and was honoured by the RSPCA in 2001 with the Lord Erskine Award for her contribution to the field of animal welfare.

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But Mr Field, a former welfare minister, said he had resisted pressure from Labour's whips and would be keen to have one of the referendums in his Birkenhead constituency.

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Frank Field, the minister for welfare reform, is thought to favour this.

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Frank Field, a former Labour welfare minister, thinks these things, together with worries about unaffordable housing, are shifting the consensus on levels of taxation that has remained intact for decades.

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The biggest question that remains unanswered is whether players will ever be fully paid for the services they have and will henceforth render, with the knowledge that they are risking their long-term health and welfare every time they step foot onto a football field.

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New Labour licensed Mr Field to think the unthinkable about reforming the welfare state Old Labour had invented.

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Mr Field proposes 25 ways to measure the success of welfare reform.

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To complicate matters further, there have been reports of tension between Harriet Harman, the social-security minister, and Frank Field, her number two, whose brief is welfare reform.

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