Glue Traps (Offences) Bill

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 25th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Fookes]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to my honourable friend in the House of Commons, Jane Stevenson, who ably took the Bill through all its stages in that House. Without her valiant efforts, I would not be standing here today to introduce this Bill—so my warm thanks go to her and the colleagues who supported her. Before I forget, I declare my interests in the register relating to animal welfare.

I am extremely proud to take this Bill through the House, as it will end a great deal of animal suffering. Let me sketch in the background. Glue traps are widely available and cheaply sold online and in various stores and shops. They are small boards covered by a non-drying glue. They are usually set down on the floor or on some horizontal surface. Any animal that gets on to them is then immediately trapped by its feet or paws. This can lead to horrific injuries and suffering. In a panic, the animal may try to tear itself away, maybe tearing its skin or fur. It will certainly suffer from exhaustion and hunger, if it is not found immediately, and could have a slow, lingering death. That is torture in my language, and no animal, whether regarded as a pest or not, should have to suffer such an inhumane way of dying.

It is not only rodents, for which these traps are intended, that are caught. The RSPCA says, horrifyingly, that over the last five years it has found over 200 animals caught, including an unfortunate cat, many birds and a hedgehog, which is endangered. This is a truly horrifying spectacle.

It is made worse because many members of the public, rather than professional pest controllers, apparently panic when they see an animal caught and then commit the ghastly second torture of either throwing it away or drowning it. That is quite horrible to contemplate. There are plenty of other ways of dealing with this. The gold standard, of course, is to rodent-proof buildings. Failing that, there are traps that will catch the creatures alive, so they can be dispatched humanely, or there are what are usually called snap-traps, which immediately cause the death of the animal. That may be rather sudden but that is all to the good. There is no case for the general use of these inhumane traps.

Every animal welfare organisation I know of deplores them, so does the veterinary profession. Yesterday, I had an encouraging conversation with the noble Lord, Lord Trees, who is one of the most eminent veterinary surgeons in the country. He warmly endorses this Bill, and is sorry that he could not be here to offer his commendations in person.

I turn to the terms of the Bill. Clauses 1, 2 and 10 are the key parts, and I will concentrate my attention on them, since I must not try the patience of the House too much with a lengthy speech.

Clause 1 makes it an offence for a person to set a glue trap if the intention is to kill rodents or if they know it could kill a rodent. It would be an offence for a person to allow or permit someone else to set the trap. In addition, if a person passing sees such a trap and does nothing whatever about it, this is also an offence. Some people have suggested that this could be unfair on the innocent passer-by, but there is a useful addition: it has to be without reasonable cause. A passer-by who would not even recognise a glue trap if they saw one would be quite safe, so there is no real problem there.

Another point that has been put to me is why this is confined to rodents and not all vertebrates. My understanding from the officials is that they could come under this Bill anyway. In any case, as was discussed as part of the previous Bill, the Animal Welfare Act 2006 made it an offence to allow an animal to suffer unnecessarily, which includes an animal that has been trapped, as it would then be under a person’s responsibility or control. I am reasonably happy about that.

The only exception to all these persons who commit an offence is a pest controller with a licence to do so. That brings me to the second important clause, Clause 2, which institutes a licensing regime. Given what I have just said, people may ask why on earth we would want a licensing scheme to permit these traps to be set. In fact, the Bill is tightly drawn: the Secretary of State may grant a licence only to preserve public health and safety and, importantly, if there is no other satisfactory solution.

It may perhaps be helpful if I give one or two examples. Rodents may have gnawed through the wiring in a hospital or power station where there is an imminent worry about danger to human life or health or danger from fire. The other possibility is if an aircraft is in flight, or even taking off or landing, and an animal is found. These traps are useful, in that they are simple and can be tucked into places where perhaps another trap could not.

Interestingly, New Zealand, which we have sometimes looked to for examples, instituted an Act that forbade all glue traps, but had to roll that back a little to allow it in particular circumstances—the kind of circumstances that I have described. Happily, though, I gather that there are very few of these that now take place in New Zealand.

The Secretary of State can attach all manner of conditions to the issue of a licence. It could be for a single person or a group of persons, and the licence can be revoked; a great deal of power rests with the Secretary of State to have a solid and clear-cut set of conditions. Regulations made under the Bill—or Act, if it reaches the statute book—will be via statutory instrument with the negative procedure in place.

I have to declare that, as a former chairman of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I am always very wary of regulations that give Ministers power, now and in the indefinite future, to do whatever they wish by regulation. I would have preferred if it had been possible—it was not possible for me—to ask that draft regulations and a draft licence should be here for us to look at, so that we had a much better idea of precisely what would be covered. For example, I would want to see a regulation stating very clearly that the traps had to be inspected every hour or two hours, so that they were not left for a long time, which is one of the horrors of the regime as it currently stands. However, I am in the hands of my noble friend the Minister as to what he may be able to tell us in response. The Bill has government support, so I live in hope.

The final clause, Clause 10, is also of some importance. It applies only really to England because the devolved Administrations have the power to work on this issue themselves. My understanding is that the devolved Administrations are very likely to have Bills very similar to this one, or may already have them, and I hope that is the case.

The other part of Clause 10 relates to the time when the Bill, if it became law, would be implemented. The Secretary of State has the power to decide the day on which it should be implemented, and it could be that different parts of the Bill were implemented on different days. My understanding, from discussions with officials and from the Explanatory Memorandum that the Government produced, is that they have in mind about two years. I have to say that that is a disappointment to me. I understand that those who produce these traps have to change their ways of doing business and that a licensing system needs to be set up, but I still think that the two years that has been suggested is far too long; I would like to see a much shorter time span. That said, I believe the Bill is three-quarters of the way to where I want it to be, and I very much hope that it will receive a fair wind through this House.

I must add by way of warning that, if anyone seeks to amend the Bill, it will have to return to the House of Commons and the Bill will then be lost. I issue that as a final warning. I hope very much that it will be sufficiently good to win the acceptance of this House and will soon pass on to the statute book. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, in turn, I thank all those who took part in this debate. I also thank the Minister. I was much encouraged by most of his remarks. The old schoolteacher in me says, “Seven out of 10”.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will take that.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

One query about bodies corporate was not answered by the Minister. My understanding is that this is simply to ensure that corporations cannot get away with it because they are corporations and so can give the blame to somebody else, which is why there is a reference to particular senior people in a corporation who would have to take the blame if anything happened.

The noble Baroness made another point, which I did not quite get, but which related to the paragraphs about inspectors on premises. I know these look rather detailed, but the idea is to make sure that nobody has any wiggle room. They perhaps rather overegg the pudding, but better that than to underegg, in the circumstances.

I very much hope that the Bill goes through unamended, because of the danger that it would otherwise be lost altogether. I will be closely following the speed with which the department acts in dealing with these matters and the care that it takes in drawing up the conditions attached to licences. I forewarn my noble friend the Minister that I will be after him if progress does not seem satisfactory.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.