Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

Before I call the next person, I gently remind noble Lords that the practice in Committee and on Report when noble Lords speak after the Minister is, first, to be succinct and, secondly, to deliver their comments in the interrogative form. With that, I call the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I have a request for clarification from the Minister. I listened carefully to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Mansion House speech, when he made it very clear that the post-Brexit era must be dedicated to reducing bureaucracy and red tape. The Minister himself said that when he entered government, as I did, in 2010, the first thing he looked at was how he could rationalise the committees, quangos and arm’s-length bodies at Defra.

I am keen to see this committee get going quickly, but why can it not be subsumed into the Animal Welfare Committee? Why can the two not be combined? A budget has been set already. I need not remind him of the fact that my noble friend’s department will be under the most unprecedented spending pressure over the next few years. If we want this initiative to get going and get going smoothly—and, above all, quickly—to satisfy what he claims is public demand, surely the way to do it is through subsuming one into the other. I would be grateful if he could give further clarification on that.