Religious Slaughter of Farm Animals

George Eustice Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Westminster Hall

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the religious slaughter of farm animals.

Before I get to the issue in the motion, I must say that free votes in the House are wonderful. Those moments when the party structures and the Whips withdraw from the debate—when there are no Whips to point to which Lobby to go through—allow each individual to engage with an issue using their own reason and judgment and can be incredibly refreshing for our politics. Some of the best-quality debates in Parliament take place under free-vote conditions. Cross-party alliances form and, in the end, the House tends to arrive at a sensible and proportionate consensus.

Of course, the party system developed because, if there were free votes on everything, the Government would not be able to get anything done or deliver any of their manifesto commitments, but issues of ethics and religious conviction have always been universally accepted as free-vote issues. For instance, we have free votes on same-sex marriages and on contentious issues such as abortion. My key contention is that religious slaughter should be made a free-vote issue by every party in the House.

Whitehall feels awkward about dealing with this complex issue and it is not sure what to recommend to Ministers. Governments of all shades have tended to leave the issue in the “Too difficult to address” box and have talked themselves into a stance that says, “Now is not the time to deal with it.” If we made it a free-vote issue for the House, we would liberate the Government of that burden of responsibility and, more importantly, liberate Parliament to address the issue.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I spoke to the hon. Gentleman beforehand to get his thoughts about what he was going to say. In my council area of Ards, there was an abattoir that carried out some of the ritual killings and stunned and so on. It created jobs and stability and there was a system in place, which seemed to be acceptable. Is he looking for changes in the methodology of killing or does he want to stop it entirely?

[George Eustice]

I will go on to advocate a package of measures to improve our law, having looked at the issue in some depth. I would stop short of banning it altogether, but we could make major improvements, which I will come to.

The history of our current derogation is long. The first regulations governing abattoirs and the humane treatment of animals in them were introduced through the Public Health Act 1875, which said that all animals should be “effectually stunned”. In 1904, a committee of the Admiralty considered in some depth the right methods of slaughter to deliver humane outcomes for animals and recommended that, without exception, all animals should be stunned. Subsequently, however, the Local Government Board issued a circular that drew on the advice in the 1904 report. It recommended that, as a general rule, all animals should be stunned prior to slaughter, but it created what has become a long-standing religious derogation for Jewish and Muslim communities.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I declare a number of interests in the industry. The 2017 Food Standards Agency report revealed that 84% of halal-slaughtered animals were stunned prior to slaughter. That means that when the speed of production is important, people will stun them.

[George Eustice]

I was going to come on to that. There is no barrier to using stunning for halal, provided it is what is called a recoverable stun. That same FSA report also worryingly revealed that 25% of all sheep slaughtered in the UK are slaughtered without stunning. That alarming rise is difficult to explain.

Our laws were formalised by the Slaughter of Animals Act 1933, where the exemptions for religious slaughter were maintained. They have evolved from that through various stages, but the current position has not changed much since 1995. The principal plank of our national requirements on religious slaughter mainly revolve around standstill times. In the case of non-stunned slaughter, sheep cannot be moved until they have lost consciousness or, in any event, for at least 20 seconds. Cattle cannot be moved for at least 30 seconds, or until the animal has lost consciousness. There is a different requirement for chickens, which cannot be moved to the next stage of production until 30 seconds have elapsed or the bird has become unconscious. The purpose of those standstill times is to prevent stress on the animal.

It is worth recognising how animals die in a non-stun slaughter situation. For sheep, most of the evidence suggests—I have discussed this with officials—that they typically lose consciousness in somewhere between 10 and 15 seconds. It takes slightly longer for chickens, which lose consciousness in between 15 and 18 seconds.

The greatest concern, however, is always the impact on bovine animals—cattle—although they are small in number, because their physiology is complicated by the fact that they have a third artery that goes to the back of the head that continues to supply blood even after the cut has taken place. I apologise to hon. Members for going into the gruesome details, but if we allow such things to happen in our name, it is important to explain exactly what they are. For cattle, it typically takes 40 to 45 seconds for the animal to collapse—not to become unconscious, but to fall off its legs due to the lack of blood supply—and between one minute 20 seconds and two minutes for the animal to lose consciousness. A former Farming Minister, Jim Paice, once described a situation that he had seen when visiting a religious slaughter abattoir where it took six minutes for a bovine animal to bleed to death, which he said was a truly horrific event to watch.

I often hear from representatives of organisations such as Shechita UK that the cut is so precise and clean that it all happens very quickly, but there is not really any evidence to support that. In fact, in the shechita slaughter process, if the blood starts to clot in the throat cut, it is permitted for the slaughterman to push his hand into the wound and disturb the clotted blood to resume the flow. Those are difficult situations. For bovine animals in particular, it is a major cause for concern.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate and for his point about it being a moral issue. We rear animals as farmers and we want them to be stunned when they are killed. It is we—man—who decide how they are killed, not the animal. New Zealand has brought in stunning for all the halal it does across the world, and it exports a lot to the middle east. When we leave the European Union, we will have the opportunity to have a similar system.

With shechita, I wonder whether we could not at least have post-stunning of bovine animals. What my hon. Friend has described is horrendous and we need to do more to relieve the suffering of those animals.

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I will come to how other countries address this challenge.

All sorts of difficulties arise through our current rules on halal and shechita or kosher meat production. There are a wide range of definitions of halal. As hon. Members have pointed out, some statistics suggest that 70% to 80% of all animals slaughtered under halal are stunned. The key requirement for halal is that animals receive an Islamic blessing and that any stun should be recoverable, so that in theory they could regain consciousness. It is very hard to define what is halal, because it ranges from simply playing a recording of an Islamic blessing, right through to non-stun slaughter.

In the case of kosher meat, there is a further problem. The hind quarters of an animal are not deemed kosher, even if the animal was slaughtered under kosher methods. That means that the rump of cattle and sheep ends up going into the mainstream market—usually the service trade through Smithfield, where unwitting customers in restaurants in London and other parts of the country buy the meat not knowing it has been slaughtered by kosher methods.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the labelling of meat, so that consumers know the exact method of slaughter when they order their food from restaurants or supermarkets, might be a way forward to address overproduction and allow consumers to make an informed choice?

[George Eustice]

Labelling is indeed one option, which I was going to come to. It does not get us all the way, because we have the service trade, where labelling would be ineffective at helping consumers to understand how their meat was slaughtered.

If we had a free vote in Parliament, what types of issues might we want to consider? Although this is a sensitive issue, it is important to ask whether our current derogation accommodates a religious need, or whether it is more a cultural interpretation of such a need. There is wide variance in what is defined as halal, depending on local imams.

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

I am trying to look at the consistency of what my hon. Friend has said. He has acknowledged that, as far as Jewish koshering laws are concerned, the animal has to be killed in a certain way, and certain parts of the animal are not allowed. He started by saying that he would stop short of banning it altogether—I think those were the words he used. How can he reconcile those two things? If we were to have stunning, it would in effect be a ban.

[George Eustice]

I was going to come on to that. Even within the kosher community, there is not a universal view on whether post-cut stunning should be permitted.

A couple of years ago, I visited Kuwait and talked to a meat importer about the issue of halal production. He explained to me that the main requirement in Muslim countries in the middle east is that there is no pork contamination in the food they eat, which is why all their protocols focus predominantly on not sharing machinery between pork production and lamb, chicken or beef production, to ensure that there is no pork DNA. That is their primary concern, alongside ensuring that there has been an Islamic blessing of the food. When I explained to him that the issue of non-stun slaughter was contentious, he said it is predominantly a western cultural interpretation of the Muslim faith. Interestingly, non-stun slaughtered meat is not a particular requirement in middle eastern countries. There are exceptions, but generally speaking that is not their primary concern. Indeed, non-stun slaughter is banned in Australia and New Zealand, which are the largest lamb exporters to all countries across the middle east, from Israel right through to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

The other point about kosher meat is that Shechita UK insists that it is most certainly not a religious ritual, and a Hebrew blessing is not given. It is simply the case that the ancient holy books describe a method of slaughter that they believe remains the most humane approach. The principal concern for Shechita is that there should be no injury to an animal before it is presented for slaughter. They regard stunning as an injury to the animal—that is their particular concern—but that is not a universal view. There has been some rabbinical support for the idea of post-cut stunning, and we know that some abattoirs producing kosher meat allow post-cut stunning of bovine animals.

I turn now to some of the options that we could consider. My hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) mentioned labelling, which is a complex area because there is no single definition of halal. The simplest way would be to label meat as un-stunned, because that is a clearly definable legal definition. That causes some concerns for Jewish communities. They argue that if we did do that, we should also list whether an animal has been killed through anaesthetic gas or electrocution, or all manner of other things. Farmwell, which is a leading charity in this area, established a system that all religious groups are willing to buy into: a coded approach of numbers from one to 10, denoting the method of slaughter. However, it does not deal with the problem of food entering the service trade, where unwitting customers would buy it.

There are a number of other things that we could do, including increasing the standstill time on bovine animals. The current limit of 30 seconds was probably due to a drafting error—we know that cattle do not lose consciousness that quickly. We could therefore move the minimum standstill time to at least one minute and 30 seconds or two minutes, to ensure that there is no movement of a bovine animal while it is still conscious. In conjunction, we could require a post-cut stun on all bovine animals, recognising that there is an issue with the physiology of bovines, which leads to a long and protracted death. I do not believe that a post-cut stun would violate the religious beliefs of either the Halal Food Authority or Shechita UK.

As an alternative, we could simply ban the non-stunned slaughter of bovine animals, recognising that there are issues with that. We could introduce a maximum standstill time, which is the approach taken in countries such as the Netherlands and France, where there is a requirement to use a bolt gun if a period of, say, 40 seconds has elapsed after a cut has taken place and the animal has still not lost consciousness.

We could introduce more formal quotas for abattoirs, which is an interesting idea. It is already the law that only food destined for Muslims and Jews is permitted to be slaughtered under our current religious derogation, but we know that there is a real problem with the mainstreaming of religious slaughter. We know that that provision, as drafted in our law, is unenforceable. When I discussed that with departmental lawyers, their response was that if somebody maintains that they thought that the animal was destined for a religious community when they committed the slaughter, that is sufficient to satisfy the requirement, so it is entirely unenforceable. In Germany they have a much more sophisticated quota system. They make an assessment of the need of orthodox religious communities, and abattoirs must apply for a licence and demonstrate that they have an actual market for the food they are producing.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

If I am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr Rosindell, I will come back to the basic principle. On this specific point, Germany can do it, so why can we not do it? It is not good enough for departmental lawyers to say, “Oh, it’s all far too difficult,” which is effectively what my hon. Friend has said. There is a way through this. We know the market is oversupplied. It should be limited, should it not?

[George Eustice]

I agree that adopting a German-style model, whereby we put in place the measures and mechanisms necessary to enforce something that has been a facet of our law since at least 1933, makes a lot of sense, and is probably the easiest option for the Government, given the alarm that there has been about the growth of religious slaughter.

We could increase the period of standstill time before chickens move on to the next process. There is a very real concern at the moment that there is typically a moving shackle line for chickens, whose throats are cut randomly by people as they go past, but what happens if they miss a chicken? What happens if the chicken is not stunned through a water bath and they fail to cut its throat? The answer is that it probably proceeds to the next stage of production, which if I am not mistaken is a scalding tank to remove the feathers. It could enter that while fully conscious, which is horrific. We should be doing more to check that those birds genuinely lose consciousness before they move on to the next stage. It should not just be a moving shackle line.

[Giles Watling]

It is known that in many cases stunning fails during the process. Should we not clean up our act on stunning, as well as taking on the issue of labelling? I hate to drag my hon. Friend back to that issue, but why can we not put labelling on menus too?

[George Eustice]

So-called mis-stunning is also an issue. I am not pretending that religious slaughter is the only welfare issue. Another area of concern, about which I commissioned some work when I was Minister, is the make-up of the gas mixture used in the slaughter of pigs, which was also problematic. Clearly, because it relates to pigs, it has no religious dimension whatever. There are other issues, and mis-stunning is one of them. The point about mis-stunning is that even if they get it wrong, they are there immediately afterwards with a second stun, which can resolve the issue.

I will conclude at that point, because we have only half an hour and the Minister will want to come back on some of these points. I seek to liberate him, the Government and all his successors from having to wrestle with this difficult issue. Instead, they should make it a free-vote issue and give it back to Parliament to decide.

Kew Gardens (Leases) (No. 3) Bill [Lords]

George Eustice Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

The hon. Gentleman speaks well for the west London posse. He speaks very assuredly and with great passion as always for Kew Gardens, and we are grateful for that. It is a wonderful institution. I assure him that people not just in west London but across the nation want to visit it, and I hope that that is a boost to the local economy.

We are facing immense challenges in preserving the natural world. Within the challenge it is clear that there is a central role for plants and fungi, and Kew can provide answers about how plants and fungi will help us and our planet not just thrive but survive. Kew is a custodian of world-renowned collections, including the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst and the Herbarium at Kew itself. The restoration and digitisation of the Herbarium will need considerable investment and will make the collection accessible globally.

Kew scientific research leads the world. With more scientists than at any time, its research is crucial in solving the challenges facing humanity today. Kew plays an extraordinary global role, in partnership with scientists, educators and communities, promoting research, education and conservation.

Kew does so much to involve the public, as we have already heard. With over 2 million visits to Kew and Wakehurst each year and around 100,000 pupils on school visits, it is building a wider understanding of plants and fungi and why they matter to us. Across the spectrum of public engagement, Kew is fostering a wider understanding of plants and fungi and why they matter to us.

Kew is not only an extraordinary scientific institution; as visitors and scientists will know, the estate includes many special buildings and structures, more than 40 of which are listed. It is a huge challenge to ensure the maintenance of these structures, which due to their historical nature is undertaken at considerable expense. We have a duty to balance public spending against priorities, and Kew is no exception. In view of Kew’s important role, DEFRA has been able to maintain funding to Kew in cash terms over this spending review period, but a key part of that was to support Kew to develop its other sources of income to deliver its ambitions.

Kew has made great strides in improving its financial sustainability. Kew’s Government grant forms just over one third of its income—37% in the 2017-18 accounts—and its mixed funding model is proving hugely successful, for example by using Government funding to leverage significant philanthropic and grant funding for renovation of the Temperate House, which reopened in 2018. Nevertheless, parts of the Kew estate, including some listed residential buildings near Kew Green, badly need investment to maintain and enhance their condition and enable Kew to realise additional income.

Attracting capital investment to refurbish buildings within the boundaries of Kew is one of the big opportunities available, but the current 31-year limit on leases imposed by the Crown Lands Act 1702 has made this difficult to realise. The Bill will allow leases to be granted on land at Kew for a term of up to 150 years. Longer leases will enable Kew to realise additional income from land and property, and will reduce maintenance liabilities and running costs. The additional income generated will help Kew to achieve its core objectives, maintain its status as a UNESCO world heritage site, and prioritise maintaining and developing its collections as well as improving the quality of its estate.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

We all support the work that Kew does and obviously want to support its estate strategy and the funding, but the point my hon. Friend has just made is important. Will he confirm that this is less about income and more about capital receipts? The significance of going to a 150-year lease is that the seven or so residential properties around Kew Green can be sold on a leasehold basis. Kew Gardens is also interested in developing the car park area alongside the Thames.

[David Rutley]

My hon. Friend speaks from experience; he knows this Bill very well. [Interruption.] Yes, very well. I agree: this is about not just income generation but cost reduction because of the maintenance costs of these properties. It is about getting capital in to help to renovate these important buildings and enable Kew to achieve its wider ambitions, so my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, any development will be restricted by local planning legislation and by Kew’s provenance as a world heritage site. Many protections will be put in place, notwithstanding the need to take forward these renovation works.

The Bill has the full support of Kew’s board of trustees and residents in the Kew area, in particular through the Kew Society. It might be helpful to set out the protections that have already been alluded to, particularly to confirm that the various safeguards that apply now would continue to apply to any lease granted under the Bill.

Kew’s activities are overseen by Kew’s board and by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is an Executive non-departmental public body and an exempt charity. It is governed by a board of trustees established under the National Heritage Act 1983. As an exempt charity, although the Charity Commission does not regulate it, it must abide by charity law with the Secretary of State as Kew’s regulator for charity purposes. This regulation is co-ordinated between the Charity Commission and the Secretary of State.

To ensure that Kew’s operational arrangements comply with the National Heritage Act and with public and charity law, a framework document exists between Kew and DEFRA to deal with business planning, resource allocation, the appointment of board members and, pertinently, the disposition of land. Thus, at all times in the governance process, the board of Kew, the Secretary of State and DEFRA play a key role in determining the operational management, and will continue to do so in the grant of any lease under this Bill.

The Bill goes further on that point in requiring that, before granting any lease, the Secretary of State must be satisfied that the lease—and anything that the leaseholder is permitted to do with the property under the terms of the lease—would not have any adverse impact on the functions of the board of trustees as set out under the National Heritage Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Rutley]

Noted. The hon. Gentleman is well informed, and I thank him. Of course it makes sense to use sustainable transport whenever possible, particularly when visiting Kew.

Another element of protection that will continue under the Bill is that of Kew’s UNESCO world heritage site status, and other designations that offer protection under the planning system. These will apply to any lease granted under the provisions of the Bill. Once again, the Bill goes further, requiring that before granting any lease the Secretary of State must be satisfied that the lease and anything that the leaseholder is permitted to do with the property under its terms would not have any adverse impact on Kew’s UNESCO world heritage site status.

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend will be familiar with the fact that it is typical with leasehold properties, particularly flats, for a leaseholder to have an entitlement to extend the lease before it reaches an 80-year cut-off period. With the type of leasehold we are discussing, will it be possible for a leaseholder to continue to extend in the normal way, or will it be a fixed term of 150 years only?

[David Rutley]

It would be possible to extend the lease in the normal way, except for the fact that a lease would never go beyond 150 years. There are different protections in place because Kew is on Crown land.

It is important to note that the Bill goes further on the UNESCO world heritage site status. Kew was inscribed as a UNESCO world heritage site in 2003 owing to its outstanding universal value as a historic landscape garden and world-renowned scientific institution. As a result, the UK Government, through the Kew board and the Secretary of State, have the ultimate responsibility for ensuring the protection, management, authenticity and integrity of the site. As part of its world heritage site status, Kew has a management plan to show how its outstanding universal value as a property can be served, and that includes protections and mechanisms in the planning system relating to conservation areas in the London boroughs of Richmond and Hounslow.

The Kew Gardens site is also listed as grade I on the Historic England register of park and gardens of special historical interest in England. Much of the Kew site is designated as metropolitan open land, which applies similar protection to that offered to green belt land. Forty-four of the buildings and structures within the site are listed, and Kew is part of an archaeological priority area.

All the protections mean that any building work or alterations to any leased property, including the interior declarations in some cases, would require local planning permission and compliance with the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, the national planning policy framework, and the Government’s policy for the historic environment.

Finally, of course, conditions would apply to the lease itself. In accordance with the duties that the Kew board and the Secretary of State must carry out, the lease itself, while seeking to be commercial, will include any restrictions that the Secretary of State decides are required—for example, to the extension or change of use to protect Kew, its UNESCO world heritage site status, or to ensure that the functions of the board of trustees under the National Heritage Act 1983 are not interfered with in any way.

As I set out earlier, the Bill disapplies the restriction in section 5 of the Crown Lands Act 1702 in relation to the maximum duration of leases of land at Kew. The Bill will remove the limit of 31 years on leases on land at Kew and apply a maximum of 150 years, bringing Kew into line with the provisions made for the Crown Estate by the Crown Estate Act 1961. The changes provide the ability to grant longer leases on the land. The Bill will not alter the many existing protections in place for Kew and its status as a world heritage site. In fact, the Bill strengthens the protections by formalising the duty of the Secretary of State to uphold them.

All proposals for granting leases are subject to scrutiny and must go through both Kew and DEFRA’s governance and comply with the protections in the planning framework, and in every case the lease itself will contain any restrictions that may be necessary.

The Bill will ensure that Kew’s historic properties are afforded the best protection. It is all about empowering Kew to manage its assets on a sound and sustainable commercial footing to enhance the estate and to pursue its core objectives. Kew’s trustees need the Bill to do what is necessary for the future of this national institution, which is part of our shared global heritage.

The modest dimensions of this two-clause Bill belie its importance in helping to safeguard Kew and its invaluable work. This is an opportunity for us to support Kew’s mission, because enabling Kew to maintain and enhance all parts of its estate will be crucial to its long-term success and to its global role in addressing today’s challenges for plants, fungi and humankind.

Mortgage Prisoners

George Eustice Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) on securing this debate and commend the work of the APPG on fair business banking, and in particular the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake).

I have always had an interest in modernising the regulation of our banks. Indeed, in 2010 I introduced a private Member’s Bill—the Secured Lending Reform Bill—that sought to rectify a major deficiency in the law, which is that banks can currently repossess commercial property without even having to go to court to get a possession order. The power that our law grants lenders to repossess property is a rather extraordinary power that should be used lightly, and we should put in place protections for those who offer a lender a charge over their home or other property as a result of that lending. This debate also affects a type of secured lending: mortgages where the home is offered as security. I believe that people who offer their home as security should enjoy special privileges and rights.

I recently had a very sad case in my constituency that is relevant to the issue of mortgage prisoners. My constituent had taken out a mortgage in 2007 with North Yorkshire Mortgages. The circumstances behind that were not altogether happy. This gentleman needed to buy a new bungalow because his son had tragically suffered a sporting accident, and they needed a new property that he could access. His father was also ill, so there were many pressures on the family at that time. Tragically, his son passed away three years later. We all know that bereavement can be difficult, especially the loss of a child, and that affected my constituent’s ability to work at the same level, which affected the household income.

After the first five years, the promotional rate on this interest-only mortgage expired, and it reverted to the standard variable rate of 5.5%. That put pressure on the household finances even further, but when he approached North Yorkshire Mortgages about a switch to a more affordable product, he was told that he could not switch to an affordable product because his income was too low. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dover pointed out, as perverse outcomes of such regulations go, it does not get much worse than this. We are saying to people, “Your income is too low to be able to pay less, so instead we are going to sting you on the standard variable rate.”

My conclusion from all this is that we should revisit the regulations issued by the FCA and reconsider the approach. In particular, the voluntary agreement proposed by UK Finance last year should be placed on a statutory footing. It should not just be a voluntary thing that lenders can opt into. There should be a statutory obligation on them to offer their existing customers a switch to a more affordable product.

If that is something the Government are unwilling to consider, I have a second proposal, with which I will conclude. It is that the Government should, at the very least, issue new guidance to the courts or put in place new regulations under the Administration of Justice Acts to make it clear to the courts that, when assessing any application for a possession order from a lender, there should be a powerful presumption against granting any repossession order where a customer has been refused the ability to switch to a more affordable product. The reality is this: there will be instances where people have fallen into arrears and ended up facing repossession of their home where the lender itself has been culpable in that default and in the repossession proceedings. In my view, our law should have a powerful presumption against granting any repossession order where a switch to a different product has been refused, and I think that would focus the minds of lenders.

Wild Animals in Circuses (No. 2) Bill

George Eustice Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I support the Bill, not least because, as a Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I spoke in favour of such a Bill on many occasions. As a number of Members have pointed out, it has been on the agenda for some time—it was a manifesto commitment in both 2015 and 2017—and, as the Minister said, the existing licensing regulations will expire in 2020, so it is necessary to ensure that we have something with which to replace them.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, of which I was a member before I became a Minister, examined this issue in some detail. At that point, the committee proposed a slightly different approach to dealing with this challenge. It proposed an annexe to the Bill listing the animals that would not be allowed to be in travelling circuses: a negative list. We envisaged that the most controversial species—lions, tigers and elephants—would be banned immediately, and that other species, such as snakes and camels, could also be removed in due course. I understand that, in the event, DEFRA took the view that that was over-complicating the issue, given that 19 species were involved, and that a simple ban was what was needed.

As the Minister said, this has been on the agenda since 2011. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), who has just left the Chamber, initiated a number of debates at that time. The initial debate followed a public reaction to the terrible abuse of Anne the elephant in one of the circuses in this country. I am happy to say that a couple of years ago I visited Longleat safari park, where Anne now has a new home, is being properly cared for, and is ending her days in a suitable fashion.

Now that the Bill is before us, I think it important for us to perform our role as legislators: to scrutinise it, and to ensure that there are no inconsistencies in its application. As the Minister pointed out, it is a rather unusual Bill to deal with the regulation of animal welfare and the way in which we manage animals. It imposes a ban not on the grounds of animal welfare, but on ethical grounds.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I have great respect for the former Minister, as he knows. Does he share my lack of understanding of the fact that animal welfare was never a reason for us to ban wild animals in circuses, and that—as he has just mentioned—we had to find alternative ethical grounds? Surely the Animal Welfare Act 2006 was the appropriate vehicle for these measures.

[George Eustice]

It was, but, as the hon. Gentleman says, the legal advice was that these were not necessarily animal welfare issues per se.

I support the Bill. I have argued for it, and I want it to be passed. A number of Members have said that it is perhaps a little overdue; I was in the Department and it took time for this to be done, so I cannot criticise others on that front.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[George Eustice]

I am going to make some progress.

However, the Bill does raise some anomalies. For instance, two or three of the animals in the list of 19 are camels. They will be banned from circuses in future, but I understand that camel racing takes place in some venues in the country, and that that practice would continue. Only a few years ago, there was a dancing raccoon on “Britain’s Got Talent”, the ITV show. Do we think that that is ethical? If it is not ethical to have a dancing raccoon in a circus, why is it ethical to have one on “Britain’s Got Talent”?

What about falconry displays? They travel from agricultural show to agricultural show. Falcons are wild animals. What is the difference? We are starting to enter borderline territories.

Then there is the issue of snakes. There is a growing trend for the keeping of corn snakes and other exotic pets such as bearded dragons, a type of lizard. Are we convinced that every 10-year-old boy in the land who has a corn snake or a bearded dragon is looking after that pet adequately? A number of vets are increasingly concerned about the welfare of some of these pets, not least because many vets lack the expertise to deal with their specialist needs. Why is it OK to have pet snakes with, in many cases, no regulation at all unless they are deemed to be a species of dangerous wild animal, while having one in a circus is seen as wrong? And what about reindeer? There is nothing in the Bill to prevent a reindeer from being outside a Santa’s Grotto, yet reindeer in circuses will now be banned.

I have made all those comments not to suggest that I will oppose the Bill—as I have said, I fully support it—but simply to highlight a matter that I think we ought to consider. As we introduce a rather unusual Bill that is based on ethics rather than animal welfare, it will throw up issues that we, and those tasked with implementing the policy, will have to resolve, and we ought to be thinking about those issues now.

Privileges

George Eustice Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

Indeed. The questions that we wished to put to Mr Cummings were highly relevant to our inquiry. They were also highly relevant to evidence presented by other people, including representatives of organisations that had worked with him in his capacity as director of Vote Leave. I think that we should have had an opportunity to put those questions, as a relevant part of our inquiry and the work of the Committee. As the Committee of Privileges says in its report, it cannot be for individuals to seek to interfere with the work of a parliamentary Committee. We should regard that as a very serious matter.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I understand the point that my hon. Friend is making, but is there not also an issue of consistency? I am told that Mark Zuckerberg also declined to give evidence to the Committee during the same inquiry. Moreover, it is quite common for Ministers to decline to give evidence to inquiries, including Ministers in some of the devolved Administrations and Assemblies. I think that the point my hon. Friend is making should be applied consistently and across the board to all potential witnesses, and that we should not fall into the trap of singling out one individual.

[Damian Collins]

I do not believe that we are singling out one individual in this case. It is highly unusual for anyone to behave in the way in which Dominic Cummings behaved towards the Committee. My right hon. Friend is right in saying that we issued an invitation to Mark Zuckerberg, but that is all that we could do. We did not issue a summons or an order for him to appear, because we do not have the jurisdictional powers to do so. He is not a UK national, and is not resident in the UK. We can only issue summonses of that sort to foreign nationals if they happen to be in this country. We said that we would do that, but obviously we do not have an opportunity to do it. So the circumstances in that case are very different.

On the day that we issued the order for Dominic Cummings to appear before the Committee, we also issued an order to Alexander Nix, the chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, and he chose to accept. The personal circumstances of Mr Nix at the time, in terms of the investigations of him and his former company, gave far greater reason for him not to attend than Dominic Cummings, who was not under personal investigation at all at that stage. There were no reasons in law why he should not appear. The normal sub judice rules that protect witnesses from incriminating themselves did not apply in his case. The Committee sought legal advice in that regard. I think that, when we have gone through a thorough process and there are no particular grounds for a witness not to appear, if the Committee and the House believe that it is important for that witness to appear, he should do so.

I agree with what my hon. Friend said about the privileges of Ministers, but the rules of the House in that regard are very different from those applying to private citizens.

[George Eustice]

Will my hon. Friend confirm, then, that it is his view that it is illegitimate for Ministers ever to claim that they cannot give evidence to a Committee because legal proceedings on a particular issue are under way?

[Damian Collins]

The House does have rules relating to matters that are before UK courts and may prevent witnesses from giving evidence, but I agree with the principle that my hon. Friend has cited. I do not believe that Ministers should claim special privileges in order not to give evidence to a Committee, but they do have a different status. I do not think that that different status should give any individual in the country an opportunity to ignore an order from a Committee or a summons to appear before Parliament simply because they happen to take exception to the idea that Ministers have special privileges that they do not have—as, indeed, do Members of the House of Lords.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Collins]

As I said to other hon. Members, I am sympathetic to any Select Committee that seeks to interview a public official or Minister as part of their inquiry. In my three years’ experience as Chair of a Select Committee I have never had that problem, but others have. There is a big difference between a Minister of the Crown and a private citizen, in that a Minister is a Member of Parliament and can be questioned, in this House or in the House of Lords, as part of their ministerial duties. The only opportunity we have to question people outside Parliament, as part of an inquiry, is to invite them to appear before the Committee. There is no other avenue, be it a ministerial question time or debate, where we can pursue that person. That is why the rules concerning private citizens are particularly important. I would be very sympathetic to the idea of looking at the rules for Ministers, but at least other avenues are open for challenging a Minister as part of parliamentary process.

[George Eustice]

I recall, as a Minister, having agreed to give evidence to a Committee of the Welsh Assembly and being told that it was not Government policy for Ministers in Westminster to attend such Committees, since they had no rights to hold us to account. Does my hon. Friend think that, bearing in mind what he has just said, perhaps a different set of rules should apply to the devolved Administrations, and that Westminster Ministers should be required to attend such hearings in devolved assemblies?

[Damian Collins]

As I said to my hon. Friend earlier, I think there is a basic principle and a presumption that witnesses, be they a Minister or not, should attend Committees conducting inquiries. Select Committees conduct such inquiries on behalf of the House, with powers delegated to them by the House. I also believe that if a Member of the House of Lords chose to use their special privileges as a parliamentarian not to be summoned in front of a Committee, that would not be appropriate if that Member of the House of Lords held an important public position, as many Members of the House of Lords do.

Other options are available to question Members of Parliament and Ministers that are not available to question a private citizen. The only forum we have to question a private citizen as part of a parliamentary inquiry is to invite them to appear before a Select Committee. That power is incredibly important, because the role of a Select Committee is not just to scrutinise the work of a Government Department or a public body, but to scrutinise other matters of public interest, where a Committee believes there is a case for Government intervention, new rules or new laws on something important. It is for the Committees to determine the scope of their inquiries, and witnesses should attend when required. It is very rare that witnesses choose not to attend.

[Damian Collins]

The correspondence between me as Chair of the Committee and Mr Cummings is published in full in the Committee’s report, so any Member can read that and make their own judgment as to the case that Mr Cummings made. Obviously, the matter was also reviewed by the Privileges Committee, which also invited Mr Cummings to speak to it as part of its inquiry, which he declined. Mr Cummings stated that other cases were involved, and that he had been guided by the people he had spoken to not to appear, but there was no reason in law for that. He was not under personal investigation; he was not likely to be charged with an offence. He may have all sorts of private grounds for not wanting to do it, but unless there is a particular legal reason why witnesses should not appear, I do not believe it is good enough for them to create reasons why they would rather not give evidence; that would undermine the whole process. If a witness declines to give evidence simply because it is unsatisfactory to him to do so, I do not think we should accept it.

[George Eustice]

Does my hon. Friend not have at least some sympathy for the argument that Vote Leave was under investigation by the Electoral Commission—a full-scale legal investigation? Given that that was an ongoing investigation, a request to give evidence after that had concluded was not at all unreasonable.

[Damian Collins]

We had a similar issue with other witnesses during the inquiry. When Arron Banks gave evidence to the Committee, some aspects of Leave.EU’s work that were relevant to the Committee investigation were under investigation by the Electoral Commission at that time. My hon. Friend may check the official record of the evidence session. We told Mr Banks at that session that we would not question him about matters that were under investigation by the Electoral Commission, as it would not be proper to do so, but there were a large number of other topics on which we wanted to pursue relevant lines of inquiry.

It was exactly the same with Dominic Cummings. We could have reached an accommodation, but he was not prepared, in principle, to attend. During the course of our correspondence we set out why we thought he should attend, and it became quite clear that once he was aware that we were determined to issue an order requesting that he appear on a certain day, he would refuse point-blank to appear at all. He then requested all sorts of other conditions—that he would not appear before the DCMS Committee but he might appear before a specially constructed ad hoc Committee of the House, and that members of the Committee should swear an oath before questioning him, in addition to his swearing an oath. This is nonsense. We either respect our rules and the powers that we have, or we do not.

Not just my Committee found this. I am sure that the Chair of the Privileges Committee will speak for herself about her inquiry. During the Treasury Committee’s inquiry before the referendum, different parties were invited to give evidence, and it too is scathing about the experience of dealing with Mr Cummings and the general contempt that he showed. We have to accept that if we do not really take our own powers seriously, other people will behave in a similar way. Other people will look at this case and say, “Actually, you can just ignore the Committees’ requests. There is nothing they can do.”

There are often important reasons why Committees wish to call in private citizens to account for their work. Mr Cummings is not just a private citizen going about his business in a quiet part of the country. He has held a series of important offices, he is a former Government special adviser and he was director of an incredibly important national political campaign. The work of that campaign had been referenced already in a parliamentary inquiry, and we wished to ask him about the evidence that had been given, of which he himself was critical and to which he felt there should have been some right to reply.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Collins]

Those conditions certainly applied in the case of Rupert Murdoch, because he was asked expressly what he knew about the practice of phone hacking at his newspapers, as was Rebekah Brooks, who gave evidence on the same day. That was a major part of the hearing. Those people could have used that excuse. There are different questions involved here. The right to non-incrimination for someone who is likely to face court proceedings and be charged with a particular offence, or who has already been charged, is already covered by the House’s sub judice rules. There are already clear rules in place for that. In this case, however, Mr Cummings had not been directly charged with an offence, although there were other ongoing investigations. As I have said, we agreed with other witnesses that there were certain things that we would not discuss as being on topic, so as not to interfere with other ongoing inquiries. Nevertheless, we managed to conduct a proper hearing with those witnesses and gain valuable evidence from them. There is no reason why that could not have been done in Mr Cummings’s case.

[George Eustice]

The argument that my hon. Friend is making is a curious one, because Dominic Cummings was the director of Vote Leave, and the investigation into Vote Leave was ongoing. As the former director of that organisation, it was obviously legitimate for him to be concerned that the investigation might be prejudiced, in much the same way as a Minister, while not being directly charged with anything, might nevertheless have concern for proceedings being made against the Government.

[Damian Collins]

Well, it sort of depends on what Mr Cummings thought he was going to say and whether he thought he was likely to be in that position. As I have said, the Committee wished to discuss a range of issues and topics with him that were not at the time being expressly investigated by the Electoral Commission. Its investigation was largely to do with funding issues and the co-ordination between Vote Leave and other campaigns involved in the referendum. We had lots of questions about Vote Leave’s work with AggregateIQ and about its involvement in data analytics and the way data was being gathered, stored and used during the campaign that were highly relevant to our inquiry. He could have come in to discuss those issues. If there were no grounds for him not to appear, and he just did not want to appear, I do not believe that the House should accept that as an excuse.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the direction that Mr Speaker gave at the beginning of the debate was for an important reason? This is a serious discussion of an admonishment for someone’s failure to appear before a Committee. It should be about the facts of that decision not to appear or otherwise—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I, too, know what was said, and I will be the judge of whether something stretches beyond or remains within the advice that Mr Speaker gave. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I am listening carefully. At the moment, we have not stepped outside the limits, and the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) is coming towards the end of his speech. We all know that there are limits that we should not go beyond. To mention someone in passing is one thing, but I do not want to get into an argument about the weakness of examples. It is purely about privilege, and we certainly have not stepped outside those limits.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

I was not going to conclude that we should stop asking people who do not have a well backed up job, but we need to understand, as I am sure my hon. Friend does, that if we are asking an individual who was once in an important position, with all that back-up, to come and talk about events of a year or two years ago, and if they do not wish to mislead the Committee and they wish to be factually accurate, they will need somehow to get access to the records of their past institution and they will need to go through a lot of preparation, and they will have to do it all for themselves or spend their own money on getting advice and legal support.

[George Eustice]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to be mindful of the unintended consequences if we were to introduce a stronger sanction on witnesses for failing to appear? What if, for instance, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee were holding an inquiry into phone hacking and decided it would be newsworthy to force the parents of a murdered schoolchild to appear before the Committee? That would clearly be inappropriate, and it would clearly be inappropriate to use such a sanction in that situation.

[John Redwood]

That is another hard case I had not thought of, and it needs to be taken into account as we pursue this general issue of what would be a relevant sanction.

The third category of people is senior officials and Ministers who receive salaries from the public via the Government. I think they should be more answerable than anybody else, because they are, by definition, primarily remunerated by and spend much of their lives working for the Government and the public. I would have difficulties if we found that Committees could not get access to senior officials who work full time for the Government and the wider public or if, in certain cases, as my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) mentioned earlier, Ministers did not think they should be answerable to elected Assemblies because they thought it might be inconvenient to give more background or detail on the policies they have been pursuing or the decisions they have taken.

I would want to weight things a bit more heavily in favour of this House having extremely strong powers to demand the presence of senior officials and Ministers, who should not be able to refuse to answer, unless it is a state secret or a matter of national defence, just because it is embarrassing or might reveal that the Government have made a mistake or wasted a lot of money—as if those things never happen. It is our job to tease out those things, and to do so we need direct accountability.

Our Ministers are normally very good, and they have to be, because Mr Speaker or the Deputy Speakers will grant urgent questions, or there will be a statement or a Question Time at which Ministers have to come and give answers. Ministers also normally come to Select Committees. The system is not perfect, but it is rather less satisfactory with senior officials, and there have been occasions when Select Committees have found it quite difficult to get access to very senior officials who know a great deal that is of public interest and should not be secret.

From my memory of my past life as a Minister, there was a bit too much secrecy in government, and there was a feeling in the official machine that everything that happened before a Minister made a statement was somehow private, whereas I felt it was often better to explain some of it. If I had made a 51:49 call but had a lot of sympathy with the 49%, because it was a collective decision, I found it helpful to explain to the House that I could see both sides of the argument, that we had to come down on one side or the other but that it was a marginal call. That is helpful to the House, but sometimes Ministers seem to think that the 51% call has to be put up as the only possible answer and all other answers are stupid, which does not make for good inquiries or for a good understanding of the difficult and sometimes messy business of government, in which Ministers often make imperfect decisions on insufficient information because a decision has to be made.

Something good can come out of this incident, which may be a more general recognition by this House that we need a stronger sanction for anyone in future who has no good reason for turning down a requirement to come as a witness. We need all UK citizens to feel they should come unless there is a compelling legal reason, but we need to be sensitive to the different categories of witnesses, and we need to have proportionate and sensible responses, according to how powerful a witness is and how much access they have to support and legal advice.

Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)

George Eustice Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I rise to support these two statutory instruments. I will be brief because, although I intended to serve on the original Committee, I appreciate that I have not had a chance to give you a great deal of notice of my intention to speak in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I pay tribute to our civil service and the officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who, on these regulations and many others, have done a sterling job in making sure that retained EU law is operable should we leave without an agreement at the end of this month. Over the past six months, I have seen at first hand the huge amount of work put in by DEFRA officials, working late at night, to ensure that we have such statutory instruments in place so that retained EU law is operable when we leave.

We often read media reports that we are not ready for a no-deal exit and that we could not possibly leave without an agreement, and on that basis Parliament decided last week to vote to say that we should not leave without a withdrawal agreement. My experience in the Department until quite recently is that a huge amount of work has been put in, and the civil service has made sure it is an option for us to leave without an agreement, should that be necessary and should Parliament have the courage to do so. Obviously, we will find out in the next couple of weeks whether, indeed, that is still necessary.

Both sets of regulations, in common with all statutory instruments tabled under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, make very minor changes simply to make existing retained EU law operable.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my fear that people working extremely hard very late at night to get through vast quantities of regulations might make some mistakes?

[George Eustice]

No, I do not. Having worked in DEFRA for five and a half years, I have tremendous admiration and respect for all those people. Although they work very hard through the night, somebody will mark and check their work the next day. That is how our civil service works, and it has made a sterling effort to make sure we have all these regulations in order.

As a general rule, almost every regulation of these two statutory instruments substitutes “Secretary of State” for “European Commission”. These regulations are not complicated but rather straightforward. We often hear a lot about so-called Henry VIII powers in such debates, and there is a suspicion that, through the use of statutory instruments, we might be making changes to primary legislation that should not be made.

In truth, the most pernicious use of a Henry VIII power in modern times has been section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, which has run rampant through whole pieces of primary legislation, even important flagship Acts that predate our membership of the European Union. We are in a rather odd situation in debating on the Floor of the House whether it is okay to change “European Commission” to “Secretary of State”, as the original powers implied by these statutory instruments were imposed by the European Union without any debate in this House, typically through either an implementing Act or a delegated Act, and therefore with little or no scrutiny by the European Parliament and often with little or no scrutiny by the European Council. The role of this Parliament, if it was lucky, was to receive an explanatory memorandum but, by and large, only ever to receive letters to the European Scrutiny Committee advising on what the European Union had done to us.

Nevertheless, this is what taking back control means. It means that our Parliament, for once, is starting to take an interest in these matters, rather than leaving them to the European Union.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I pay enormous tribute to my hon. Friend. I was his Parliamentary Private Secretary when he was an Agriculture Minister, and I went through a great amount of this important work with him. On organic standards, is it not the case that we very much see ourselves as setting the bar not just nationally but across Europe and across the world, that we have influenced Europe on these standards and that we ought to keep these standards as high, if not higher, in leaving?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course, that is exactly what the regulations are about. We have had some influence on the organics regulations. Indeed, when I first became Agriculture Minister, something called the organics dossier was going through the European Parliament, and it concluded that journey only around six or nine months ago. Along with the smarter rules for safer food dossier, it became something of an internal joke about an interminable debate taking place in the European Union. In the end, we managed to get that agreement into something that was satisfactory to us, although it meant that not much had changed.

Finally, let me recognise something in the statutory instrument related to the control of imports. As the shadow Minister said, we are indeed ready to replace the EU trade control and expert system with a new UK system that has been in development in DEFRA for at least the past nine months. There has been a prototype version for several months and it will be ready to replace TRACES from the point at which we leave the European Union. I welcome the Minister’s point about the recognition of existing EU logos and standards for a 21-month period. Of course, we all hope that the European Union will do the honourable and sensible thing and reciprocate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate; I think that we should perhaps get back to organic farming. It is nice to speak after my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice). I would like to put on the record my thanks for all the work that he did as Minister and all the great, detailed help that he has given the whole agriculture sector over this five-year period.

I welcome this debate tonight. We must remember that organic production in the UK is probably one of the best—if not the best—in the world. Converting to organics takes longer in this country than it does in other EU countries, even under present legislation. We must remember that our poultry, pig, beef, lamb and dairy industries all operate under very high standards of organic production and people respect and trust that production. We must remember, as we move forwards, to make sure that imports meet our very, very high standards.

We also have a lot of vegetable and fruit production, but much of that is organic. Again, it needs a great deal of labour. If a farmer weeds organically, they are not using any form of chemicals to destroy those weeds, which means that they have to use extra labour in order to keep that production going. We may in the future be able to electrocute weeds provided that we get them at a very early age. Seriously, this is something that may well help with the labour requirements in production in the future, but again that will not happen overnight, so we must be realistic as we move forward. I agree very much with the Minister and the previous Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth, that DEFRA has done an awful lot of work to prepare either for a deal on Brexit or for no deal.

We can deal well with the imports of organic food, because we can bring products in, check the standards and ensure that they flow freely into the country. Where I have slightly more of a problem—DEFRA has admitted this to me, although it is not its fault—is that every time the Department contacts the European Union about registering as a third country and ensuring that there is third country equivalence, we just do not get a reply. To a degree, we can let the imports flow in because we can recognise the previous EU standards, but it will be much more difficult to get that food across the channel if the EU decides to play hardball.

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about being listed as a third country so that exports can continue. Shortly before I left the Department, there was a request from the European Union that we dynamically align our regulations for a period of nine months, and in return the EU would recognise our third country status from the start. We are obviously willing to agree to that.

[Neil Parish]

I very much welcome that comment, because two or three weeks ago, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee went to DEFRA, where we saw the regulations being laid out and had a look at what was happening. I welcome what my hon. Friend said, but I reiterate that as much as I may love our French cousins, they can be very difficult when it comes to trading into the European Union. Much of our produce will have to pass from Dover through into Calais, and we have to be absolutely certain that they will process our food and let it into the EU.