Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Bill

Lord German Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 1st March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to tell noble Lords the story of the campaign run by Redhill Prep School in Haverfordwest in support of this Bill. It is a school in the western part of Wales. This debate gives me an opportunity to offer to all noble Lords a happy St David’s Day, especially in a week when our national pride was so enhanced last Saturday.

The Redhill Prep School decided to support and has been campaigning for Finn’s law. In so doing, it found a way of using parliamentary procedure to make that happen. As part of its campaign to understand what happens in this Parliament, it is engaging in a Parliament week in May and has invited, through the Lord Speaker’s Peers in Schools scheme, one of us to attend. I shall go to the school to talk about this law in particular. I also pay tribute to Sir Oliver and to the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for bringing forward this Bill, which is common sense and understandably a short Bill. It does one thing simply: protect the animals that protect us.

The Peers in Schools scheme has enabled the Redhill Prep School to examine this Bill, as part of the process of understanding how the House of Lords and the House of Commons work. Part of its exercise has been to campaign with its local Members, both of the National Assembly for Wales and the House of Commons. In fact, it campaigned vigorously with the local MP. I would not say it hauled him in, but it invited him in to discuss matters political and then confronted him with this Bill. I was told that the honourable Member for that part of Wales ended the whole session in tears, not because he had been driven into the ground but by the passion with which these young children had spoken about this law. I pay tribute to them. It is also a message to us all that the Peers in Schools process that the House of Lords has put in train, the Lord Speaker’s programme here, does have an effect. It may give us an example of how we can use parliamentary procedure. This is a straightforward, two-clause Bill, which means it is straightforward to understand its purpose. That is helpful, and this is one way we can use Bills of this sort.

In supporting this Bill, I also look forward to understanding the timetable of legislative consent Motions in the National Assembly for Wales. I reassure this House, as I will reassure the children of Redhill Prep School, that the National Assembly for Wales is doing its job properly. I would not want the Members of the National Assembly to be subject to the wrath of these young people by finding themselves delaying the laying of a legislative consent Motion that would bring such a conclusion to this Bill, which we very much hope will become a law very rapidly indeed. I place on record my support for it. I hope that everyone will listen to the children of Redhill Prep School and their support for this Bill, and use it as an exemplar of how we can very well connect young people with the work this House does.