Zoos

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 8th October 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for giving us the opportunity to debate this issue today. When we are looking at legislation and government responsibility regarding zoos we have to understand how wide the definition is of zoos and how many different kinds of premises can be licensed. As well as the smaller number of large, more professionally managed zoos, there are probably hundreds of zoos in various shapes and sizes and some are clearly more willing and able to follow their obligations under their licenses and EU directive than others.

I am a patron of the Captive Animals Protection Society and a supporter of the Born Free Foundation. I am grateful to both of those organisations for the information and advice that they provided for this debate and also for the wider education and monitoring role that they fulfil, whose value the Government have recognised.

Zoos should operate only under a local authority licence. The system of regulation across the UK is there to ensure that zoos are safe for the public to visit, that they have high standards of welfare that are maintained and that they make a contribution to the conservation of wildlife. The legal basis is the Zoo Licensing Act 1981 which was amended in 2003 to include the provisions of the European zoos directive. That is informed by a set of standards from the Secretary of State for Defra and additional guidance. They are not just there to be bureaucratic. They are there for real value to ensure high standards for both animals and the public.

The legal protection is only ever as good as its enforcement. I refer to a report from the Captive Animals Protection Society which commissioned an independent study. The report was based not just on visits to zoos, but as we are talking about regulation of zoos, official documents from licensing authorities and from Defra. The report was called A Licence to Suffer: A Critical Analysis of Regulatory Protection of Animals in Zoos in England. Unfortunately, its findings give real cause for concern because a fundamental requirement of inspections was not being met in too many cases.

Some 70% per cent of local authorities with zoos have missed one inspection since 2005. That is around 380 inspections missed over the course of the study. I quote from the report which is an indication. In one district council,

“informal inspections were not carried out in 2005 or 2006”.

In Portsmouth City Council, the report stated:

“The only record of inspections on file are 2008, 2009 and 2010. It would appear that with the exception of complaint visits, no inspections were carried out since 2002”.

That was not uncommon. There were a number of areas where no inspections were carried out at all.

For those inspections that took place, there was real concern whether enough inspectors were available for enough time to ensure that the licence conditions of the EU directive and legislative conditions were not being breached. Using the Defra Zoo 2 forms, inspectors, even though they gave a positive report, would then identify that there were problems. In 34% of cases identified from the official Defra forms—more than a third—the inspectors stated that the existing licence conditions were met but then went on to provide additional information as to why they were not being met. I quote from one of them where the inspector marked “Yes” to the question,

“Are on site veterinary site conditions adequate?”

However, he said that the facility was inadequate and,

“should be brought up to a modern standard as a matter of urgency … It is strongly advised that the zoo management discuss these changes with the collection’s veterinarian without delay”.

However, he had been saying that every year since 2007 and no action had been taken.

In one question, where the inspector said that the conditions were being properly addressed, he also said that there are a few issues that need addressing, such as conditions 16, 17, 19 and 30 of the licence. So although inspectors are satisfied that conditions are being met they then move on to list the conditions that are not being met. Clearly there are a number of unsatisfactory issues that are not being addressed. The report stated:

“The study found that 68% of inspection reports had unsatisfactory issues found during inspections that did not make it into suggested conditions and 40% of reports had unsatisfactory issues found which were transposed into neither suggested conditions nor recommendations”.

I appreciate that many people have affectionate relationships with local zoos. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, talked about his relationship with London zoo, as will the noble Lord, Lord Paul, and the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, talked of Chester Zoo. My experience is somewhat different. In my former constituency and my hometown, we used to have a small embarrassment of a zoo of which the highlight was Carla the lioness. An undercover BBC reporter claimed that he was able to buy this sorrowful, pathetic lioness for £1,500 with no paperwork or regard for her welfare. The zoo eventually closed in 2001, but I never understood how it could get a licence or how it had been inspected and allowed to remain open. I draw that distinction because when people think of zoos, they think of the great zoos, the big zoos, which are open to public inspection regularly so that people know what goes on. Smaller zoos and other establishments around the country are not of the same standard. If the inspection regime is inadequate, we must raise concerns about the welfare of animals in those zoos. It got to the point where I dreaded getting another distraught letter from a child upset at what they had seen in that zoo.

Given the report, there was clearly a need for the Government to take the evidence seriously. A second report was given to the European Commission regarding the lack of enforcement action taken against zoos that were not meeting even the most basic legal standards. That is now being investigated by the EU and we hope for a response in the next few months. More immediately, the Captive Animals Protection Society presented its report to local and central government. I congratulate the Government, who should take pride in the way that they responded with new formal guidance and detailed recommendations for local authorities regarding inspection. The Government have beefed up the tools available to ensure that standards are being met and legislation is being enforced. That may lead to some zoos closing down, like Basildon, but if they are unable to meet the most basic standards, that is the right way forward. That is a positive response from the Government on which I congratulate them.

A further inquiry by the Born Free Foundation in 2011 investigated the implementation and enforcement of the EU directive regarding zoo animals across a number of European countries. Again, it gave real cause for concern. Born Free has presented a number of recommendations to the Government, including on inspection, conservation and education. There are some very good examples of zoos that are abiding by the regulations and their licence conditions, but the only way that we can allow all zoos to proceed is if they all abide by their licensing conditions and the European regulations.