Animal Welfare Standards

Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My noble friends should wait. European Council Regulation 1099/2009 protects the animals at the time of killing. However, the UK has stricter national rules through WATOK, the welfare of animals at time of killing regulations. These provide for the types of stunning that can be carried out, but also set out precisely what must happen if an animal is to be slaughtered without stunning. It is part of the slaughter process, but we slaughter 13.3 million sheep a year, and the vast majority are stunned before slaughter.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, the UK has moved a long way forward in ensuring that animals are stunned prior to slaughter, as has been indicated. Animal welfare is, rightly, an essential ingredient of our culture, both pre and post Brexit. It is therefore incomprehensible that the contract to supply 50,000 lamb carcasses to Saudi Arabia allows for their slaughter without pre-stunning. Other EU countries that allow non-stunned slaughter have measures in place to ensure that that meat is for the domestic market only. I cannot see what possible justification there can be for allowing non-stunned slaughter for export to Saudi Arabia, and I hope that the Minister will work to reverse that.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, I would like to be clear that there is no contract for 50,000 sheep to go to Saudi Arabia. I am not entirely sure where that comes from. An export health certificate has been issued in the case of Saudi Arabia, but it has not been used, so not a single lamb has left the country, whether stunned or non-stunned. On the point the noble Baroness raised, we have our regulations within our nation, which allow both stunning and non-stunning within very strict parameters. It is for the benefit of our sheep farmers, mostly in the north of England, Wales and Scotland, that they are able to sell their sheep where they like, within the regulations.

Humane Trapping Standards Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, the regulations amend the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to implement trap welfare requirements contained in the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards—AIHTS—in Great Britain. The EU is a party to the agreement, but there is no implementing legislation at the EU level. Under EU law, the UK is therefore obliged to implement the welfare standards directly.

Council Regulation (EEC) No. 3254/91, commonly known as the Leghold Trap Regulation, prohibits the introduction into the EU of wild-sourced pelts and manufactured goods incorporating such pelts originating in countries that catch animals using leghold traps or trapping methods that do not meet international humane trapping standards. In 1997, the EU concluded two international agreements—the agreement with Canada and Russia and an agreed minute with the USA—to establish humane trapping standards and facilitate trade between the parties in wild-sourced pelts and manufactured goods incorporating such pelts.

The agreement requires that: the UK establish appropriate processes for testing and certifying traps in accordance with the humaneness standards and procedures set out in the agreement; manufacturers identify certified traps and provide instructions for their appropriate setting, safe operation and maintenance; and trappers be trained in the humane, safe and effective use of trapping methods. In the UK, the trapping standards apply to five species: badger, beaver, stoat, pine marten and otter. Of these, only the stoat is regularly and widely trapped in the UK; it is also the only species for which lethal traps are commonly used.

A UK-wide consultation on implementation of the agreement took place in March and April 2018. While stakeholders were broadly supportive of welfare improvements, most trap users opposed the implementation of the agreement because they believed that there would not be sufficient numbers of compliant stoat traps available in time. In response to these concerns, the Government agreed to delay implementation specifically in relation to stoats for a further year, until 1 April 2020. This is a pragmatic step that provides a clear signal to manufacturers and trap users that they must transition to compliant traps for stoats, while recognising that they will need time to do so.

Implementation will impact primarily on those who sell, manufacture, import or use stoat traps in the UK, as most stoat traps will need replacing. The total cost on business is calculated to be £1.2 million. We have existing legal mechanisms in place for regulating the use of traps. The agreement simply improves the standards with which traps must comply before they can be used, and extends the scope of existing trap offences to two additional species; namely, stoats and beavers.

Implementation does not require the introduction of new offences or penalties, and the existing licensing mechanism would allow compliant traps to be used. Licences are already required to trap all UK species covered by the agreement, except for stoats and beavers, and we propose that the trapping of stoats using compliant traps should be permitted under a general licence. This will result in negligible costs to the licensing authority and will provide the least burdensome approach for trappers.

The Government are committed to the highest standards of animal welfare. As the Prime Minister has set out, we will make the United Kingdom a world leader in the care and protection of animals as we leave the EU. This agreement contains minimum trap humaneness standards and rigorous trap-testing procedures, creating an internationally recognised benchmark for trap welfare. It is important that we implement these standards in Great Britain. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument so comprehensively, and for her time in providing a briefing. I note that the only animals covered by this SI are stoats and that badgers, beavers, pine martens and otters are excluded.

It is reassuring that in Part 3 of the SI, under the amendment of the Pests Act 1954, leghold traps are not permitted and have been banned for some considerable time, as the Minister said. The EU prohibits the use of leghold traps and bans the introduction into the EU of pelts from countries which catch animals by means of leghold traps or trapping methods which do not meet international human—humane, sorry—trapping standards. It is essential that these standards are maintained in the UK once we have left the EU. I am encouraged that the Government consider that reliance on the spring trap approval system for the purposes of implementing Article 2 should be made more transparent, and that to improve clarity, the regulations amend Section 8 of the Pests Act 1954 and Section 50 of the Agriculture (Scotland) Act 1948 to make it clear that the Secretary of State and the devolved Minister would not approve or authorise the use of a leghold trap.

However, paragraph 6.7 of the Explanatory Notes indicates:

“In exceptional circumstances, the use of non-AIHTS compliant traps is possible under Article 10 of the Agreement … on a case by case basis”.


This case-by-case basis is allowed by means of a licence. As the Minister said, the agreement covers the EU, Canada and the Russian Federation, and a total of 19 species, only five of which occur in the wild in the UK.

Existing stoat traps do not meet the AIHTS and the Government are proposing that they will not implement the more humane traps until April 2020. This is too far away; the regulations could be implemented much sooner. Consultation has been ongoing for some considerable time, starting with several years of informal consultation with key users, followed by, as the Minister said, a UK-wide six-week public consultation, which ended on 30 April this year.

As has been said, stakeholders were broadly supportive of welfare improvements but opposed the agreement because gamekeepers and trappers did not believe that the compliant traps would be sufficiently available in time. There was also general disagreement with welfare groups over the perception that the agreement facilitated the wider use of traps and the international trade in fur.

Had the Government begun the implementation as soon as the consultation in April this year closed, with a view to starting in January 2019, there would have been time for the industry to ensure that it had a sufficient supply of compliant traps for gamekeepers and trappers. It is simply not acceptable to allow non-compliant traps to be used for a further 15 months, causing unnecessary suffering to stoats. I am not in any way defending the stoat, which is a pest and eats both eggs and young birds that have been bred for shooting, but it is important that they are dispatched in a way that causes minimum suffering. While there is a cost to gamekeepers of changing their traps to comply with the legislation, it should be borne by those engaged in the shoots.

Paragraph 14.1 of the Explanatory Notes indicates that monitoring and compliance will be done by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. I fear this is extremely unlikely. Police budgets, much like those of local government, have been systematically slashed over several years to the point where the police prioritise crimes against the person and property. It is simply not feasible to expect our overstretched police forces to monitor and ensure gamekeepers’ compliance with the legislation.

Defra has indicated that a list of traps certified as meeting the new standards will be publicly available on GOV.UK. When is this likely to happen? Given that monitoring of the new agreement is likely to be minimal at best, the sooner the standards are publicly available, the sooner gamekeepers and trappers can begin the process of changing over.

There is no mention in the Explanatory Memorandum of who the licensing authority will be, which it states will incur negligible costs. Who issues such licences? Do they cover a specified area of land? Are they limited to a certain number of stoats or are they unlimited?

I also note that new Section 16 (3ZD)(e) of the Act indicates that an authority in another country or territory designated for the purposes of the international trapping standards agreement could be a certifying authority. Can the Minister throw some light on exactly what this means? I look forward to her response to my questions.

Ivory Bill

Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville]

My Lords, I support Amendments 41 and 78, which were debated in Committee and the Labour Front Bench said they would be bringing them back. While I support them, I am interested in what the Minister has to say.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, the Government fully appreciate the sentiment behind the amendments in this group. Monitoring the implementation and impacts of the ban on the ivory market and other affected sectors is very important.

I turn first to Amendment 41, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on the publication of a report on matters relating to the exemptions to the ban. In Committee, there was widespread agreement in your Lordships’ House about the importance of transparency and providing information to the public. I believe that the Government’s commitment to share publicly information on exemptions, in line with the Data Protection Act, was welcomed. We are committed to publish data on appeals, the number of items registered and the number of exemption certificates issued and revoked each year and to include a breakdown of these numbers into categories such as statues, reliefs, furniture and musical instruments. The noble Baroness’s amendment reflects these commitments, for which I am grateful, and I am happy to repeat them today. I cannot, however, agree that an amendment is needed and hope that the commitments that the Government have made will suffice.

I turn to Amendment 78, again in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, regarding a report on the impact and implementation of the Bill. I appreciate that the noble Baroness has reflected points raised in Committee in this amendment. I reassure your Lordships’ House that, as a matter of course, the Government will assess the impact and implementation of the ban over time, in particular its enforcement. Much of this information will be available in the public domain and subject to public scrutiny.

It might assist noble Lords if I give a number of related examples of where this kind of information is already provided publicly. Perhaps this will assist the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, in understanding the types of information that we will be publishing. The regulatory body that we have chosen to help enforce the ivory ban, the Office for Product Safety and Standards, already publishes an annual report which includes its activity over the year for each of the different regulatory areas the body covers. The Animal and Plant Health Authority, which will administer the registration system among other things, submits annual trade data on used permits to the secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species—CITES. This data is available publicly on the CITES database. The National Wildlife Crime Unit, where appropriate, issues press releases on closed cases it has been involved in, often including the penalties issued. These publications will continue, and we will consider how we can provide further information that will complement but not duplicate them. An obligation in the Bill to produce reports would risk duplication and be a considerable and unnecessarily expensive undertaking.

With regard to the Department for International Development, a number of announcements were made at the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference earlier this month about additional funds being made available from DfID and Defra, including £46.6 million to protect endangered species and a £20 million round of UK Aid Match for wildlife and conservation issues. Any programme that is run by DfID must publish an annual review online demonstrating its results.

With regard to nations generating income from ivory, as referred to in Amendment 78, we believe that the decline in elephant populations deprives some of the poorest countries in the world of their natural resources, which impacts economic growth and sustainable development. The illegal ivory trade is conducted almost uniquely by organised criminal groups and the money from this despicable trade rarely reaches local communities and the people who need it.

At the request of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, I will not respond directly to her amendment, but I hope that she takes comfort from my words about the types of data that we will be drawing out and the categories of items that we will be able to summarise.

I hope that I have been able to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and that the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, feels able to withdraw her amendment.

Ivory Bill

Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 12th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, on this probing amendment. Although I accept and respect that it is for the devolved Administrations to set their own penalties, we must keep in mind the difficulties that this will cause. As we all know, the devolved arrangements in Northern Ireland have broken down and there appears to be little prospect of them resuming in the near future. This would leave a situation where the penalties in one part of the UK were lighter than in the rest.

Those seeking to circumnavigate the law and benefit from the proceeds of trading ivory might be prepared to risk a six-month imprisonment term instead of 12 months. These are, after all, hardened criminals. It would be extremely unfortunate if the trafficking in illegal ivory and ivory products were shifted to Northern Ireland because the penalties there were more lenient. I respect completely what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, and I am sure that the Minister will give clarification—but I wonder whether the Government and the Secretary of State might consider having uniformity of sentencing across the UK.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, seeks to increase the maximum prison term for breaching the prohibition in Northern Ireland. As a result of the devolution settlement, Northern Ireland has the power to adopt practices concerning criminal justice that are different from those in England and Wales. The sentence that would apply in Northern Ireland is up to six months and is set out in the laws applying to that nation.

In England and Wales, Section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which would increase the maximum sentence available on summary conviction from six months to 12 months, has not been commenced. This means that currently the maximum sentence available in England and Wales on summary conviction is six months. Therefore, the two are in alignment and thus the penalties are the same across the UK. Should the relevant section be commenced for England and Wales, the maximum available prison sentence would increase to 12 months—the Bill provides for that—and the two would no longer be in alignment. With that explanation, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Brexit: Sheep Farmers

Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am sure my noble friend is well aware that our call for evidence closed today. Of course, we will look at the responses. We have also asked the Farm Animal Welfare Committee to look at the transport of live animals. We will respond to the call for evidence in due course.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I refer to the Minister’s earlier response about upland farmers and their ability to diversify. The Health and Harmony consultation document stated:

“Compared to lowland farms, farms within the Severely Disadvantaged Area have less opportunity to diversify”.


Would the Minister care to comment?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Baroness is completely right. The opportunities for diversification will depend on the type and location of a farm. This is what the consultation tried to draw out. It tried to understand what sort of farmers will need what sort of support going forward. We will have policies supporting diversification, innovation and skills. Noble Lords may be aware that only 12% of farmers benchmark their services against widely available data for farming. That can be improved and if it is, we can improve efficiency.