TV nature presenter Packham had been RSPCA president since 2023, while Lucas, the former Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, had served as a vice president for the past 15 years.
Both resigned in response to a recent investigation into the RSPCA Assured scheme by Animal Rising, an activist group that documented animal cruelty taking place at 45 farms that had been accredited by the charity.
Packham and Lucas follow former Queen guitarist Brian May in quitting over the issue, with May announcing his decision in September.
It is my belief that the charity has lost sight of its mandate to protect all animals from cruelty and suffering.
Chris Packham
Packham described the Animal Rising footage as “indefensible” when it was published in June and has since called for the RSPCA Assured scheme to be scrapped.
Ricky Gervais, Bryan Adams, Joanna Lumley, Moby and 60 animal organisations also signed an open letter calling for the RSPCA to drop the scheme.
Explaining his decision to step down as president, Packham said: “It is my belief that the charity has lost sight of its mandate to protect all animals from cruelty and suffering.
“Further in the ugly face of irrefutable evidence of a need for the immediate reform of their doomed Assured schemes, after many years of lobbying them with concerns over salmon farming and a fraught year desperately trying to instigate changes through internal discussions, I have to admit that I have failed and therefore have no choice but resign my position with immediate effect.”
Meanwhile, Caroline Lucas described the findings from the Animal Rising investigation as the “last straw”.
“The footage of such sickening, systemic and vicious cruelty was almost impossible to watch,” Lucas said.
“The RSPCA’s response was to suspend the facilities from its scheme and to launch yet another investigation, but not to ask the deeper questions about its approach. Because not only does the scheme fail to uphold its own standards: it risks misleading the public and inadvertently legitimising cruelty.”
Food Manufacture has reached out to the RSPCA for comment.
