European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Baroness Byford

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, this is an important amendment. At various stages, I have spoken very strongly in favour of environmental protection. Whether or not noble Lords agree with my conclusion is up to them, but it is very important that the House be aware that I am absolutely 100% in favour of protecting the environment.

I have a difficulty with the amendment before us. Had the Government not brought forward their consultation document, I would be repeating many of the things that have been said. In fairness, however, they have, and I think there are things we can do in the future better than we have done them in the past. I have listed a number of bodies that are either directly or indirectly affected by things to do with the environment. My question to the House at the end of the day is, could we do it in a simpler way and better way, and is not this consultation document exactly what Brexit is about?

With the leave of the House, therefore, I will talk about existing bodies that have some say on the environment. We have the Commons EFRA Committee and the Commons Environmental Audit Committee; the Lords EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee; the Lords Select Committee on the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, which we have just debated; the National Audit Office; the Natural Capital Committee; the Joint Nature Conservation Committee; a committee on climate change, for which my noble friend Lord Deben has done so much; the Environment Agency; Natural England; the Rural Payments Agency—I am not so sure there—and the many groups and charities dealing with wildlife and conservation. We now have the opportunity of a consultation document—and I wonder how many people who have spoken have actually read right through it; I plead guilty to having read right through it—and we are promised that, in the autumn of this year, a Bill will come forward.

Therefore, I ask myself and other noble Lords: are our present arrangements doing what we want them to do? I would be shaking my head and saying, “I think that we can do it better”. We have had an overlapping of many of the organisations, and a waste of money and time. I encourage Members of your Lordships’ House to at least consider what is in here, and for those who think that there is not enough in here, this is our opportunity to do something about it.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for setting out so clearly the arguments for this amendment, and to all noble Lords who have spoken in support of it. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, that he clearly has not listened to our arguments or to the respectful and considered way in which we have conducted ourselves throughout the debate on the environmental and other issues.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Baroness Byford

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

[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.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Baroness Byford

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

I shall follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, because I put my name to Amendment 112, which calls on the Government to look at the independent body. When I spoke at Second Reading I said that it was essential that the proposed new body should have teeth, and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for reinforcing that point. The questions that I posed then—I shall not repeat the excellent contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, because that would test the temper of the Committee to say the least—were: who staffs it? Who pays for it? Who interprets it? What relationship does it have with other agencies? It is key that the new independent body that we are promised should be set up in time, and Clause 112 sets down a timescale. It may be that the Minister is not able to accept the amendment as it stands, but it is hugely important that we realise the strength of feeling about getting this body in place in time so that the laws will be regulated in the way that they have been traditionally—so I totally accept what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned the 25-year environment plan earlier. I hope I misunderstood her, because she is very good on her brief, but I think she indicated that there was no 25-year environment plan. I thought it was out: I have read it and was looking forward to responding to it. The Government are looking to go out to consultation on it. Is the Minister able to give the Committee any direction on the timing of that? Will it be a UK consultation or an England one with the devolved assemblies looking at it from their point of view as well, and will the new body reflect this? It is hugely important that it is a UK one because that is the law that, hopefully, we are taking over from the EU in the way it is now.

On the question of feedback on the environment side, there will be very great differences, I suspect, between how England responds and how Scotland, particularly, and Northern Ireland and maybe Wales do. There are some very real and slightly wider issues here. I think it comes to the amendment to which I added my name because I was clearly very unhappy that we had no timetable. We have no idea whether the body will have teeth or who will impose it—and, importantly for me, who will pay for it and how independent the person paying for it will be. These are questions that we need answered today. I have others, but that is enough from me.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

I will just clarify that I did not mention the 25-year environment plan. I referred to a new national policy statement setting out environmental principles, which I think is a different document. Otherwise, I agree with everything the noble Baroness said.