(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am sure many people are disappointed that we have not had the chance to debate energy tariffs or financial literacy. I hope that those Members who are now slinking out of the Chamber, such as the hon. Members for Shipley (Philip Davies), for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) and for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), will reflect, particularly in this weather, on the fact that we did not have the opportunity to discuss a measure that would help thousands of their constituents because they filibustered. I hope that their voters are made aware of that. On a more positive note, I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), for the productive way in which his Department has engaged with this Bill.
The House is familiar with this issue. Some 16 months ago, the House had a productive and constructive Backbench Business debate and resolved, without Division, that wild animals in circuses should be prohibited. In the interest of saving time, I do not intend to rehearse those arguments today. Instead, I shall explain what my Bill would do that the Government have yet to achieve. I hope that, through my eloquence, I shall be able to persuade the Minister to make a positive announcement when he responds to the debate.
There is currently a licensing arrangement in place. A rather robust statutory instrument debate took place last year, led by the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris). It was one of those debates in which there was a lot of heat but not very much fire. However, we welcome the licensing as a step in the right direction, and we hope today that we can—to use a word that the Prime Minister is rather fond of—nudge the Department into finally upholding the promise that it made to the House 16 months ago to ban outright the use of wild animals in travelling circuses.
The number of circuses that use wild animals has decreased substantially in recent years. According to the latest figures, only about three dozen wild animals remain in travelling circuses. The Bill does not cover the use of wild animals in television and film. There is a recognition that they form an important part of our creative industries, and that there are already strict controls in place covering the use of wild animals in those circumstances. Nor does the Bill cover the use of wild animals in zoos or aquariums. Again, rigorous standards cover those establishments.
It is fair to say that the country has grown to dislike the idea of wild animals being dragged around the country for the purpose of entertaining people. A YouGov poll showed that nine out of 10 of the people surveyed supported an outright ban. The Back-Bench debate and the early-day motion showed that more than half of all Back-Benchers in this House support such a ban.
Thomas Docherty
I will, because the hon. Gentleman has had the courtesy to stay in the Chamber.
Mr Nuttall
I am listening to closely to the hon. Gentleman. Will he explain why, if the need for a ban on wild animals in circuses is so pressing, the Labour Government took no action at all on the matter during their 13 years in office?
Thomas Docherty
We took a number of steps to improve animal welfare, and the number of wild animals in circuses decreased during that period.
I often try to be helpful to the Minister, and I have indicated that I would have been happy, had he and his colleagues been so minded, to use the Bill as a vehicle for taking the necessary legislation through. Perhaps he will tell the House when he responds to the debate what path the Government intend to take towards introducing a ban. There is cross-party agreement on this matter. No one in the House who is in their right mind believes that wild animals in circuses should not be banned. As I have said, nine out of 10 members of the population support a ban, and more than half the Back Benchers in this place signed the early-day motion in support of one.
I have been in contact with a number of charities involved in this area—there are too many to list—and I have received more than 1,000 e-mails in the past seven days from supporters of a ban who have also contacted their constituency MPs. I know that there are many Members here today, possibly including the Minister, who have received e-mails urging them to vote for a ban.
This is a relatively straightforward measure. It is also useful that the charities involved have found homes for all the wild animals if the circuses do not wish to keep them. As I have said, there is a role for them in the creative industries, and they will not be put down or kept in poor conditions. I am conscious that my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) wishes to speak in the debate, and that I need to allow the Minister adequate time to explain how he has been so moved by my eloquence. So, with those brief remarks, I commend the Bill to the House.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
I rise to support the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and to congratulate him on introducing it. He deserves our thanks for securing the debate. I would also like to thank the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell), my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for playing such a pivotal part in the parliamentary journey of the Bill.
There is a kind of “groundhog day” feeling to these proceedings. Stop me if you’ve heard it all before! We kind of have. There is a weary familiarity to the proceedings, except that we are looking forward to a jack-in-a-box presentation from the Minister providing a different ending, perhaps, to this debate.
After two years’ delay, we still do not have a ban on wild animals in circuses. It has been a long and tortuous journey. In April 2011, DEFRA Ministers seemed finally to have caught the public mood. They, or their officials, briefed the Sunday Express that a ban was imminent—joy all round, flags and bunting. Then, however, came the DEFRA treatment—or was it the No. 10 treatment?—and a lot of political backtracking. It was a classic case study—I am sure people are writing it up as we speak and will be teaching it across schools of government across the world—on one of the many examples in DEFRA of a lack of political leadership and incompetent decision making. I must congratulate the Minister, however, on being the sole DEFRA survivor of the first two years, which might say something about his ministerial competence and decision making being different from that of his former colleagues.
It is worth remembering what happened. We consulted on a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses in 2009. More than 10,000 people responded and 94.5% of them backed a ban, and in early 2010 we gave a commitment to introduce one. This ban was strongly supported by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the British Veterinary Association, the Born Free Foundation and Animal Defenders International, all of which agreed that a licensing regime would be unworkable.
Despite saying they were minded to ban wild animals in circuses, however, Ministers delayed taking any action to end this cruel practice of wild animals performing for so-called entertainment in circuses. First, they claimed that a ban might be illegal under the EU services directive, despite there being no evidence for it, as EU Environment Commissioner, Janez Potocnik, made clear in 2011:
“Circuses are specifically excluded from the scope of the Zoos Directive, and are not covered by any other EU legislation. Therefore, the welfare of circus animals remains the responsibility of the Member States.”
EU Commission 1, UK Government nil! Then DEFRA Ministers said that a ban was not possible owing to an ongoing court legal challenge to a ban in the Austrian courts. That created a lot of mystery and disruption, because the then Secretary of State repeated this allegation in her written ministerial statement on 13 May 2011. Sadly, her officials placed a little too much trust in Google. I see that the Minister is unsupported by his officials today, which is probably a wise decision—he is on his own at last, freed from the shackles of the ministerial Box.
The following Tuesday, the then Secretary of State was forced to issue another written ministerial statement to clarify that no such legal challenge existed. The European Court of Justice confirmed that no cases relating to circus animals were being considered at a European level. I quote Christopher Fretwell, from the Court of Justice information service, who e-mailed me on 17 May 2011:
“I have searched our internal databases and, like my colleagues in the Registry, have found no reference to such a case. It is perfectly possible that a case has just arrived at the Court within the last couple of days and is yet to be entered into our databases, but this is always a possibility. Searching the internet I have found a number of references to infringement proceedings initially started by the Commission around 2004-2005, but these never seem to have led to any case being brought before the Court.”
European Court of Justice 1, DEFRA Ministers nil!
Why, however, should that affect UK policy, and how does a ban on wild animals performing in circuses affect our obligations under EU treaties? Finally, DEFRA Ministers said that a ban on wild animals was not possible because—this really was a moment of high comedy—it could infringe the human rights of circus owners. On 19 May 2011, the then Minister, the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), told the House that
“bits of the Human Rights Act could be infringed by a ban on wild animals in circuses.”—[Official Report, 19 May 2011; Vol. 528, c. 502.]
Yet his Department’s own impact assessment read:
“There are no human rights issues raised by these proposals.”
Left hand, right hand—strangers to each other! Had he not read his Department’s own documents? I am sure today’s Minister has.
There was no reason for Ministers not to ban wild animals from British circuses. All these arguments were exposed and kicked around the metaphorical parliamentary football pitch in that extraordinary Back-Bench business debate on 23 June 2011—long may it live in parliamentary memory—when an extraordinary coalition of cross-party support for a ban defeated the Government Whips’ attempts to force the vote in the direction that they wanted it to go in. We all remember the speech that the hon. Member for The Wrekin made about his phone conversations and the inducements that No. 10 offered him not to press his debate to a vote.
At the heart of this debate is a conflict at the heart of Government between DEFRA Ministers, who supported a ban, and the Prime Minister and No. 10’s ideological opposition to regulation and a pathological aversion to anything that protects animal welfare. DEFRA Ministers’ inability to make a decision and stick to it or, crucially, to get their civil servants to act on their decisions has long been a potent source of comedy for this House. The Government have spent 18 months and £261,000, as well as thousands of staff hours and hours in meetings with charities, preparing for a licensing regime that will not work. With the Minister’s announcement, we will see what a monumental waste of effort that was. Harvey Locke, the president of the British Veterinary Association, has said:
“The welfare needs of non-domesticated, wild animals cannot be met within the environment of a travelling circus; especially in terms of accommodation and the ability to express normal behaviour. A licensing scheme will not address these issues.”
The reasons propagated by the Government for not introducing an outright ban—a lack of parliamentary time, legal difficulties, the European Union, a lack of resources or a desire to avoid red tape—have been found, one after the other, to be utterly without substance. The Government were simply covering themselves for a simple lack of political will. It is time for another DEFRA U-turn. Let us have the ban on wild animals in British circuses. Too much time, too many resources and too much money have been wasted already. The Government need to get on with legislating for a ban to end this era of cruelty. They owe it to Parliament, to the public and to the animals. The Minister said on that day that the Government wanted a ban. The whole House wants a ban. Let us get on with it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
I thank the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), who has the ability to work something acerbic into any conversation and sometimes—to put it in the context of this debate—to play the clown when it comes to what has actually happened and to what our commitment in DEFRA is.
I fully appreciate how important the issue of the use of wild animals in circuses is, not only to this House, as has been said, but to the wider public. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) on bringing the issue to the fore once again. The protection of the welfare of performing wild animals in circuses is a matter that the Government take very seriously and we have pledged to take tough, prompt action to address it. The Government have already announced that they will be seeking to introduce primary legislation to ban the use of wild animals in travelling circuses. The Government’s policy in this area was set out in two written ministerial statements, on 1 March 2012 and 12 July 2012. We further announced on 12 July that we would seek to publish draft legislation this Session for pre-legislative scrutiny that would outline our proposals for a ban. That position has not changed. I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that DEFRA is working on a draft Bill and we firmly intend to publish it for parliamentary scrutiny in this Session.
Thomas Docherty
Just so I know that my ears did not deceive me—as he is a Conservative Minister, I have a great deal of trust in his word—will the Minister confirm that his Department will introduce the draft Bill for scrutiny in this Session, rather than just “seeking” to introduce it?
Richard Benyon
I will repeat what I said: I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that we firmly intend to publish the draft Bill for parliamentary scrutiny in the current Session. The final timetable for legislation will be for Parliament to decide. It inevitably takes some time to reach a position where we can present a draft Bill that does the intended job and is robust against potential legal challenge.
Mary Creagh
Will the Minister provide us with some sort of timetable or calendar? When does he think this will happen—February or March? The Session ends in April. Secondly, will he explain why we need pre-legislative scrutiny, given that there are only three dozen animals in this position left in the country, and that this issue has been debated over and over again ad nauseam by Parliament for the last two years?
Richard Benyon
We want to make sure that the legislation is robust, so it survives any challenge from any source. This Bill’s promoter, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, sits on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which has a good record of pre-legislative scrutiny. I think that a cursory look at what we are proposing will allow the Bill speedy passage and ensure that it then survives and is effective at achieving what we want it to achieve.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
As the Minister will know, when he had our debate some 14 months ago, we did not press the motion to the vote because we were under the clear impression that the Government were going to go away and start working on proposals for a ban. What has happened in those 14 months—between then and now—to justify the Minister telling us that he still has to work on draft legislation to bring before the House? Has not that work already been done over the last year or so?
Richard Benyon
A lot of work has been carried out. As I said earlier, we want to make sure that the legislation is effective. A number of challenges could be made against it if it fails to cover all the bases. I assure the hon. Lady that it is our full intention to see a ban come in that will be effective at dealing with the small number of animals that remain and that deals with the possibility of travelling circuses or new circuses wanting to set up in this country. I will come on to explain what the Government have been doing in the meantime to bring in a rigorous licensing system that will be of comfort to the hon. Lady.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I warmly welcome the Government’s announcement that they have the clear intention to legislate for a ban on wild animals in circuses. Does the Minister appreciate that he will have very strong Liberal Democrat support within the coalition for such legislation to be brought forward in this Parliament? That is what I think all Members and our many supporters want.
Richard Benyon
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I think there is a coalition of the whole House on this legislation, and that the Government and all of us will be able to be proud of it.
There is some justification for saying that there have been plenty of opportunities to introduce this legislation over previous decades and before, so let us look at what we are proposing. All Members will appreciate what it involves when they realise that the legislation will not only be robust, but will be something of which we can all be proud.
Mary Creagh
I congratulate the Minister on weaving a silk purse out of a proverbial sow’s ear. Will he confirm that if he introduces a Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny in this Session, it will not actually be scrutinised until the parliamentary Session of 2014 and could then run out of time in the final year of this Parliament?
Richard Benyon
No, I think this will become law in the next Session, subject to the vagaries of the House’s opinions on the wording of the Bill—another reason why we want pre-legislative scrutiny. The hon. Lady can be absolutely assured that we want to get this measure on the statute book as early as possible; we do not want the issue continuing into future Parliaments. We want to make sure that it gets Royal Assent as soon as possible.
Thomas Docherty
Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), let me give the Minister this guarantee. If the Department publishes the Bill prior to the end of February, the EFRA Select Committee will make every effort possible to scrutinise it this Session. If the Minister can use his generosity and commitment to make that happen, we will do our bit in the Select Committee.
Richard Benyon
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I will pass his assurance on to officials and ministerial colleagues who have oversight of this issue.
The Government have already introduced new licensing regulations, as was promised in July, and these will come into force on 20 January—this Sunday. From Sunday, it will be an offence to operate a travelling circus with wild animals in England without a valid licence. The regulations will ensure that if a travelling circus continues to use wild animals, it will be subject to regular inspections to check that it is complying with strict welfare standards. The licensing regime is tough, and inspection will be rigorous. It goes without saying that the safeguards of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 against cruelty continue unabated.
I thank the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife for his efforts, but let me repeat that DEFRA is working on a draft Bill to be published and presented for parliamentary scrutiny in the current Session. Let me also repeat that we want to ensure that the Bill is robust, will do what it sets out to do, and will not be vulnerable to successful legal challenge.
The Government fully recognise that—as has been mentioned today—the use of wild animals in travelling circuses generates significant public and parliamentary interest. In 2009, when DEFRA consulted on the question of a ban, 94.5% of the 10,000 respondents supported it. Since the start of the current Parliament, DEFRA has handled more than 120 parliamentary questions and 16,500 items of correspondence on the subject of wild animals in travelling circuses. There have been five debates in Parliament—including two on the licensing regulations in October 2012—supplemented by five early-day motions with a total of 223 signatures. Many Members have called for a ban, and during the Backbench Business Committee debate on 23 June 2011, which was mentioned earlier, the House agreed on a motion directing the Government to introduce a ban on the use of wild animals in travelling circuses.
It should be borne in mind, however, that a ban introduced solely on welfare grounds might be vulnerable to successful legal challenge. The Radford report on the welfare of wild animals in travelling circuses, which was commissioned, accepted and published by the last Government in 2007, concluded that there was insufficient evidence to ban the use of wild animals in travelling circuses on welfare grounds. In particular, Radford concluded that there was little evidence to demonstrate that the welfare of animals in circuses was any better or worse than in any other captive environment. We respect that piece of research and the people who carried it out, but I think that Parliament has expressed a clear opinion that reflects opinions in the country at large, and that is what is guiding our actions now.
I hate to use cheap clichés such as the one about the elephant in the room, but it must be said that the recent high-profile court case focusing on allegations of cruelty to Anne, a circus elephant, has rekindled legitimate public interest and concern about the treatment of wild animals in travelling circuses. However, the outcome of that case is not in itself an indicator of endemic or systematic failure to promote welfare in travelling circuses. It would simply not be responsible to proceed with a ban without being confident that we would be safe from legal challenge. I think we are now approaching a point at which we know how to deal with the issue. In any case, the new licensing regulations will ensure that good welfare standards are in place for any circus that wants to use wild animals in the short term before the ban comes into force.
The publicly available Radford report summarised the position by pointing out that the scientific evidence that welfare is being compromised is not compelling; that section 12 of the Animal Welfare Act permits only legislation to “promote animal welfare”; that banning on welfare grounds would be disproportionate in the absence of evidence that welfare was compromised; and that an outright ban might be beyond the powers in section 12 anyway, even if the welfare case were made out. Radford wrote that
“it is submitted that to introduce a ban on the use of any type of non-domesticated animal presently in use by circuses in the United Kingdom…by way of a Regulation made under the authority of section 12 of the Animal Welfare Act would be vulnerable to legal challenge.”
Mary Creagh
When he was agriculture Minister, the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice) said that he would introduce a ban on moral grounds. Will the Minister enlighten us on how far that has got?
Richard Benyon
I hope I am giving the clear message that this Government are determined to ban the use of animals in circuses, and I do not want to dance on the head of a pin in trying to tease out the different strands of opinion in the House on how to achieve that end. Societies’ attitudes change over time, not least on animal welfare issues, and this is one such issue.
I take my family to see Giffords circus, which travels around my part of the country. It does not have wild animals, but it does have horses and dogs, and—