Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I think that I may be interrupted by a vote at some point so I will try to be quick, although I might not be.

I thank the Minister for his comments; I will read them in Hansard to make sure that I have understood fully where our interests overlap and where there is any divergence. I also thank all noble Lords who took part in the debate. I listened carefully to everybody. I know that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and the noble Lords, Lord Hamilton and Lord Mancroft, care deeply about these issues. Their views are valuable, but I found them quite repetitive. We have heard all this before. We have been told that the two committees will not clash and will have particular remits that will be extremely clear. I think that we perhaps underestimate the interest of both committees in terms of being able to understand where they might work together and where they absolutely must not because it is not relevant, so I do not have the same fears about any sort of overlapping.

I am happy that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, agree with the concept of policy in the round. The minute they started agreeing with me, I started to wonder whether I did not know what I was talking about, but I will look into that.

The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, is trying to tie the hands of the animal sentience committee. I just do not think that that is appropriate.

The noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, mentioned animal rights activists. This term has been thrown at me since we did round one of this Bill; perhaps he can tell me what he thinks he means by it in reference to me. He can always send me a private email if he would prefer.

I offer a big thank you to the noble Lord, Lord Trees, for his comments and to the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Hayman, for their support, which is incredibly valuable. They both made an excellent summary —much better than I did. I thank them for that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, talked about the committee being a critical friend, which is incredibly valuable and something that the Government do not have enough of. I would argue that your Lordships’ House is a critical friend, but we do not always have the same opportunities to support the Government when they change their mind.

The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, talked about the tsunami of people who wanted us to put animal sentience back into legislation. Of course, most people probably had not used that term before, but they certainly had once the Government had taken it out of the EU legislation that they moved over—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

I apologise to the noble Baroness but I must adjourn the Committee for five minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Committee is resumed and I call the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

Finally, I thank the Minister for his simple explanation of how the two committees will work. That is incredibly useful, and I hope that it calms the fears of the noble Lords who have worried about that during the course of the Bill. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.