European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, the subject of animals is an extremely important one and I have great sympathy with the spirit behind both the amendments in this group. However, this subject needs to be properly dealt with in a statute of the United Kingdom. I know that criticism has been made of the attempts so far, but there is always room for improvement, and constructive suggestions have been liberally made in the consultations. As far as I am concerned, it would be much better to have a good United Kingdom statute for these animals than to try to do it through adapting part of an EU treaty.

The technical question of judicial review is quite difficult. I am not sure just how crucial it is to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Trees, but, years back, skilful Lords of Appeal—Lord Reid, a Scottish judge, and Lord Wilberforce from this jurisdiction—developed a theory that makes it next to impossible to prevent judicial review in an Act of Parliament. They did so by saying that what Parliament has protected is the judgment that is supposed to be come to, but, if the judgment that is come to has been falsified by some mistake or lack of proper process, then it is not a judgment protected by these provisions—Anisminic was the case. As was said by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Hope and Lord Judge, at the end of a long process, the attempt to restrict judicial review was eventually torpedoed by these judges, with support of course. It is for that reason that the Government decided some considerable time ago not to put such protected clauses into legislation, because it is apt to mislead the public—they think that these clauses are, at face value, worth while, but when Lord Reid and Lord Wilberforce got on to them, they were not worth the paper they were written on.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to these amendments. I am one of perhaps three or four people in the Chamber today who took through the original Animal Welfare Act 2006, so I am supportive of anything we can do to make sure that animal welfare is top of the agenda. As an associate member of the BVA and the royal college, and as somebody who has had animals on the farm, this is a key interest of mine.

I have talked often with the noble Lord, Lord Trees, about the fact that although I am 100% behind what he is trying to do, I am not sure in my mind that this amendment is the right vehicle. I apologise if that is a disappointment to him. I am grateful for the observations of the noble and learned Lords, which were above the understanding I had before the debate started. It is very clear that the Government have tried to rectify a problem that was raised in the House of Commons by bringing forward a draft Bill. I think they realise, in hindsight, that that Bill is not sufficient to do what they wish it to. As others have said, it is quite difficult to deal with this on Report because we have to wait and then we cannot come back. However, I am hopeful that the Minister will be able to give us much greater clarification than we have had up to now as to the Government’s thinking about where we stand. While we are not fully behind the wording of the amendment, I hope no one thinks that we in any way do not believe in the full commitment we should have to animal welfare. Although I have no idea what the Minister is going to say, I hope he will bring us up to date on where we are and what the Government’s thinking is.

I say to my good friend the noble Lord, Lord Trees, and others that I am grateful to them for bringing forward this amendment. It has given the House another chance to reflect on an issue that some people might think is not important but which, I say to my noble friend the Minister, is hugely important. I hope his words will give greater resolve to those of us who wish to see this welfare issue taken forward in a meaningful way.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 40 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Trees, to which I have added my name.

The noble Lord made an authoritative contribution explaining why this issue is important, as have a number of other noble Lords. It followed the excellent debate in Committee, which had widespread support from around the House. At that time the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, confirmed that animals should be regarded as sentient beings. The question we are debating now is how best to enshrine that in UK law.

We can all agree that the rushed Animal Welfare Bill was not fit for purpose. As the Commons’ Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said in a scathing report on that Bill, animals,

“deserve better than to be treated in a cavalier fashion”.

As we have heard, the closing date for the consultation on that flawed Bill was 31 January. We are still waiting for the Government’s response. It is now April and we do not have a revised animal sentience Bill or a commitment in this Bill to recognise animals as sentient beings. This is the worst of all worlds.

During the debate the Minister tried to reassure us. He said that the Government would publish their summary of the consultation on the Bill and the next steps in due course and, hopefully, before Report. Indeed, he went further and said that if that was not the case, he would look at what could be done in its place. We still have not got the information that the Minister said—I would not say promised—he hoped to give us before Report. We are therefore left with the dilemma of how to plug that governance gap.

Time is going on. We are leaving next year and, if our amendment is rejected today, we will not have that commitment in the Bill as it stands and we will not have anything in its place. Our amendment provides that stop-gap. It provides reassurance to those in this Chamber and outside it who care about this issue that the recognition of animal sentience will transfer over and will apply from day one.

We await with interest the Government’s future plans to extend the application of animal sentience—they may answer all of the issues raised today—but we do not have that before us and I venture that we will not have it on the statute book before next March. A report on the next steps of a draft Bill, which the Minister may offer today, is not the same as delivering primary legislation before Brexit day.

As time ticks by, the number of Defra Bills promised but not delivered is stacking up. While I do not think that deliberate on anyone’s part, the fact is that the Defra Secretary of State is losing control of his promises and of the scheduling. Perhaps his civil servants are finding it hard to keep up with him or he might be embroiled, as we read in the papers, in the battle for his priorities with other Cabinet colleagues. I am not going to go there. However, I know that the timetables for other Bills are slipping. Any separate animal sentience legislation will need to take its place behind other Defra Bills, including Bills on agriculture and fishing. We have been promised a Bill on the environment and primary legislation is needed for a ban on ivory sales. So an animal sentience Bill will have to take its place in that queue.

A number of noble Lords have said that they want to get this right—I understand that; we all want to get it right—and when the new version of the animal sentience Bill is published and we see it, we will want to get that right too. We do not want to be rushed to agree it; we want to take time on it. The sensible thing to do today is to agree a simple amendment now which sets recognition of animal sentience as a duty in UK law. That is our holding position and our amendment will deliver it. We can then take time to craft a new animal sentience Bill which delivers Michael Gove’s promise of improving animal welfare post Brexit.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, asked whether this Bill was the right place for this issue. Yes, it is, because it is an important environmental principle. We have been promised that before and after exit day, rights and protections will be the same. However, if we do not put it in this Bill in this form, those rights will not be the same the day after Brexit. This is the right place to put it.

In the absence of a government amendment, which is where we find ourselves today, I hope noble Lords will agree that this is the right way forward and, given the dilemma in which we now find ourselves and lacking any other way of plugging this gap, will see fit to support our amendment.