European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Bowness and Lord Davies of Stamford

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 5th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I will come to the relevance to EU withdrawal in a moment. I will just say that I feel that I have not lived in vain, because the noble Viscount has listened to what I said and thought about it for several days. I was perhaps speaking figuratively; in this life you can never apply the word “infinity” or “zero” in a completely literal sense. He may have been to the wrong part of Texas, or to parts where there are expensive ranches and the oil billionaires who own them like to have some longhorn on display. Those ranches exist, and I have seen one or two of them. Perhaps the noble Viscount has some friends who invited him there. That is not the heart of the beef economy. If the noble Viscount knows anything about Texas—he obviously does—he will know that Fort Worth used to be the centre of the Texas meat industry. I used to go there very frequently because I had a lot of dealings with Lockheed Martin, which is based there. I went there at different times of the year and I got to know the countryside around Fort Worth and towards Dallas quite well. That would have been cattle country 100 years ago; there would have been cattle on every horizon. I have literally never seen a single live animal in the area around Fort Worth, which was the headquarters of that industry. That is not a part of the United States where wealthy people have ranches with animals on display, which is a very different matter.

The point I was making—I will not say before I was interrupted, because I was pleased to have the intervention from the noble Viscount, particularly if he has been listening to my speeches carefully—was that there is no point in having any kind of regard to animal welfare and persuading ourselves that we are being humane and civilised in doing so if we then let in, in our imports, meat or other agricultural products which derive from inhuman practices. All we are then doing is making sure that the business and the activity moves from this country abroad with not a single iota of gain to animal welfare or happiness, and causing the destruction of the British livestock industry in the process. That makes no sense.

If we are to do this, we have to do it properly. We should make it a matter of moral commitment that when we leave the European Union—if indeed we do—we stick to the high standards which the European Union has set in this matter and certainly do not dilute them, and secondly, that we ensure that we impose those standards if we have left the European Union and are in a position to sign free trade agreements with other countries. I have explained why I think it is unlikely that we will be in that position in practice with the United States, but supposing that we were, we should in that eventuality impose exactly the same standards on anybody who wants to sell us meat or other agricultural products in future.

[Lord Bowness (Con)]

My Lords, noble Lords will be pleased to know that I will be brief. I put on record my support for Amendments 30 and 98, and for the sentiments expressed by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. I cannot imagine what good reasons there can be for opposing this amendment. I appreciate that a number of directives and regulations will be incorporated into our law, but not this important treaty provision. As other noble Lords have already said, a hallmark of a civilised country is how one treats one’s animals, and recognition of animal sentience is key to that.