Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Robathan and Lord Lexden

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall confine myself to speaking to my Amendment 50 for reasons of brevity. The more astute Members of the Committee will have realised that this refers to Section 2 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006, but this seems to me, to a certain extent, the nub of the Bill. It concentrates on what we, as people, are responsible for.

As a slight side-issue, I was asked to change the language because, of course, these days parliamentary language should be gender-neutral. However, surely everyone—however ill-educated—knows that the term “mankind”, or “man” in this context, has always included all human beings, all humanity, of whatever gender. I mention that because language is important, and this is legislation. To have been not specific about “mankind” might have been an example of lack of clarity, of which I fear this Bill is also an example.

On the substance, if I am responsible for an animal, I have responsibilities and duties to that creature, be it my dog, my rather foolish hens—which are not laying eggs at the moment—a cow or, indeed, a pheasant. However, I am surely not responsible for the rats we all live with, nor the squirrels destroying the trees I have planted, nor if my dog catches a rat—it is a terrier, and that is what terriers do. We then come on to fish in a river. Is the owner of a particular stretch of river responsible for a fish moving up and down it? Fish have backbones and are indeed sentient beings. Or is a fishing club responsible? Am I responsible if I run over a squirrel or hit a bird in the road, which I try pretty hard not to do?

I regard myself as a conservationist. The noble Lord, Lord Randall, referred to himself as such in a previous debate. However, unlike him, I see the way this Bill is phrased as paving the way for interference in anything and everything. It has been suggested that it is a Trojan horse and that there will be mission creep. I think it will be an activists’ charter. My noble friend Lord Herbert said in another debate that we need clarity.

The Minister, for whom I have a very high regard—we go back quite a long way and he called me, I think, a “denizen” of the last Chamber we served in—said earlier today that there is a very specific role for the committee. What is that role? It is not clear to me, and I am afraid that the debates so far have not clarified the situation. I hope this amendment may go some way towards clarifying the situation: that we are responsible for those animals for which we are responsible and not responsible for those which we cannot be responsible for.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, the next three speakers—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean—have all withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft.