Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 16th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an important Bill, and I thank all those who have spoken in the debate today. We have had a number of interesting and strong views expressed.

Since leaving the European Union, we no longer have legislation that recognises animals as sentient beings, so we strongly welcome the Bill and the opportunities that it provides. The formal legal recognition of animal sentience sends a clear message that we are committed as a country to protecting the welfare of animals, but for this to be meaningful, any commitment on paper must be followed up in practice.

We have already heard that the Bill is vague in many respects, so the challenge for this House is to make sure the Bill delivers on what it is promising. As we have heard, it has been a long time coming. Other noble Lords have spoken about the delays, which go back to November 2017, when the Government rejected a proposal to carry the Lisbon treaty into post-Brexit policy. But this issue has had immense public interest, with consultation and amendments in both Houses—I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Trees, for his role in this. There was previously a widely-criticised draft government Bill—if the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, would like to see a badly drafted Bill, I recommend that he takes a look at it—and a number of false starts along the way.

That is why it is now vital that we grasp the opportunity before us to ensure that this legislation leaves the House a better Bill than when it arrived. We believe that some aspects are particularly welcome: that the Bill covers all departments and that, by implication, it covers wild animals as well as those under the control of man, as wild animals should also be protected from harm by man.

The noble Lord, Lord Trees, referred to Dr Mike Radford of the University of Aberdeen, and I wanted to mention what he said, because he expressed clearly one of our key concerns. In commenting on the Bill, he said:

“there’s the potential – but, as presently drafted, no certainty – for Ministers to be held effectively to account”.

It is that certainty that we will be looking for through debates on and amendments to the Bill. A number of noble Lords have raised concerns that we on this side of the House share: for example, my noble friend Lady Young and the noble Baronesses, Lady Fookes, Lady Jones and Lady Bakewell.

The Government say that the Bill improves on the Lisbon treaty, and it does create an animal sentience committee and requires the Government to respond to it, which creates additional accountability. But it does not place a direct duty on Ministers, entrusting instead much of the responsibility for outcomes to the committee. If this Bill is to be effective in holding Ministers to account, we need to ensure that the animal sentience committee has teeth and not just symbolic value. The UK Centre for Animal Law has called the Bill “a job part done”, raising concerns about its proposed design. We have heard of the huge lack of detail and ambiguity on its membership, resourcing, independence, and accountability.

I ask the Minister, as others have done today: who will serve on the committee? How often will it publish reports?

Sentience is the capacity to have positive or negative experiences. The Minister said earlier that the Government have “all due regard” to an adverse effect on the welfare of animals as sentient beings, but can and should the committee reports also recommend policy that brings about positive impacts on animals as well as addressing negative impacts? How will the duty of the Secretary of State to issue a response provide the kind of governmental engagement with animal welfare concerns that is necessary?

We have heard that the Bill currently provides for Ministers to have to respond to a report within three months with a written statement. Do we feel that this is enough? Will this make a difference, or will it mean that a Minister can simply note what the committee has said and change nothing?

We will be seeking guarantees that the Government will consult on membership; that there will be an open, transparent recruitment process; that wide-ranging expertise will be ensured; and that the committee will have genuine independence and not be incorporated as a sub-committee of the Animal Welfare Committee, as we believe this could potentially damage its ability to hold the Government to account. How will the Government ensure and protect the independence of the committee so that it can fulfil its role?

There should be provision in the Bill for proper resourcing for the scale of the task. Looking at the scale of task, there is a need for the committee to have a clear mandate and duty to look at all relevant policies.

It is paramount that the committee can look at policy right across Government. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, said that the Bill currently creates only a discretionary duty for the animal sentience committee to review whether a government policy has had appropriate regard to the welfare of sentient animals. There should be a mandate with a clear duty for a review of all policies that fall within defined criteria. Will there be a duty on government departments to co-operate with and share necessary information the committee? Is there a mechanism for departments to flag relevant policy developments?

The Better Deal for Animals Coalition is calling for the Secretary of State to create a cross-Whitehall animal sentience strategy, which would include plans for what upcoming policy is then within the scope of the ASC. This additional duty would also require the Secretary of State to report annually in person to Parliament to allow full scrutiny and an evaluation of the effectiveness and impact of the ASC.

To truly improve animal welfare, there needs to be prospective, not just retrospective, consideration of policies. The Bill allows for the ASC to produce a report on policy that “is being” or “has been” formulated or implemented, but, if we consider policy during formulation, the committee’s recommendations can be effected and policy can be improved. Can the Minister confirm that this is being looked at as a potential in future? Will the committee be able to look at the enforcement of existing animal welfare legislation? Where it falls short, can the committee report on what action the Government should take to enhance its impact and strengthen existing weaknesses?

I will look at the scope of the Bill, particularly Clause 5, as other Members have. It defines “animal” as

“any vertebrate other than homo sapiens.”

We have heard about the independent review that Defra has commissioned into whether there is evidence that decapod crustaceans and cephalopods are sentient. As other Members have already asked, when will this report be available?

As noble Lords have said, there is already ample evidence to show that these animals are sentient, so we believe that the definition of “animal” should be expanded and included in the Bill. As we know, this expanded definition was agreed upon by the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission earlier this year. Furthermore, notable animal welfare organisations, such as the British Veterinary Association and the RSPCA, also recognise the sentience of decapod crustaceans and cephalopods and fully support their inclusion. Will the Government expand the definition to include these particular animals?

Animal welfare is a global concern, and ensuring the health and welfare of sentient animals is important as a marker of social progress. We welcome the Bill but urge the Minister to take serious note of our concerns and those expressed by others. We look forward to working with your Lordships’ House to make the much-needed improvements.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Deech (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I shall start by speaking to Amendment 19 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Mancroft, and myself. It is designed to secure medical research and the UK’s world-leading place in it, to ensure that animal activists cannot interfere with future or past research, and to guarantee a safe environment for our researchers. More than that, Amendment 19 is designed to protect human welfare and sentience.

Now, more than ever, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to our scientific researchers who have saved thousands of lives and given peace of mind to British people and people around the world, first in the development of the Covid vaccine, although I will give more examples. I live in Oxford and went straight to the top when investigating the necessity for this amendment and the damage that might be caused if it is not passed. Dame Sarah Gilbert, the developer of the AstraZeneca vaccine, has said that she relied on research using non-human primates, ferrets and Syrian hamsters. How could any committee dare to start pontificating about what research may or may not be carried out using animals in the face of what has so recently been achieved?

Given the age demographics of this House, it is worth highlighting the recent FDA approval for Aduhelm, the first new treatment for Alzheimer’s in more than 20 years and the first therapy to target the fundamental pathophysiology of the disease. A key researcher in this, and winner of the Breakthrough Prize and the Brain Prize, is John Hardy of University College London. It took more than 20 years of research, largely involving work on genetically modified mice, to reveal what leads to cell death and plaque formation in the human brain. According to Sir Colin Blakemore, it is inconceivable that the background knowledge for the development of treatments could have been gained without animal research.

Researchers are also using monkeys for a wide range of disorders and the Covid vaccine. Researchers use them to test the safety of vaccine compounds, and to discover how the virus works inside the body and whether it can reinfect people who have already recovered from the virus. It is vital that such research should be protected. While their use in Europe is very limited, China has recognised the opportunity that this gives Chinese researchers and huge amounts of money have been poured into primate facilities for research in China.

Sadly, some animal rights organisations have disparaged the biomedical research process during the past year. They have spread misinformation, and even seem to prefer people to die rather than study animals. The use of animals in experiments and testing is highly regulated in the UK under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which adopts the principles of the three Rs: replacement, reduction and refinement. Let us celebrate the wonderful work done here in the UK to save lives by guaranteeing through this amendment, and by a statement from the Minister, that nothing will be considered or done to impede that research.

Turning to Amendments 31 and 35, I fully support the remarks of my noble and learned friend Lord Etherton. These amendments are designed to restore to the remit of the committee to be established by the Bill the balance that used to be reflected in European law. The committee will have retrospective powers—that is, it can look back over past animal issues and reopen them. If the committee were to raise issues with Jewish methods of killing animals, the Secretary of State would have to lay a response to those views before Parliament. The Government have in the past stated their commitment to protecting that custom, but the Bill could undermine that. The proposers need the Government’s assurance in this debate that, were such a situation to arise, they would guarantee their commitments to religious communities. In saying this, I support the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh.

There are arguments about the least cruel method of putting animals to death. The Jewish way, after much consideration, is regarded as effective because it causes an immediate loss of cerebral perfusion. Stunning, however, is driven by speed and commercial utility and goes wrong in many more millions of cases of animal deaths than ever take place in Jewish killing.

Despite the requirement in European law on balance, the European Court of Justice last year upheld a Belgian ban on Jewish and Muslim practices of slaughter without stunning. The argument that stunning is less injurious than non-stunning does not hold water. We should not apply double standards. The Food Standards Agency survey of 2017 estimated that hundreds of millions of animals were killed without effective stunning; gassing, in particular, causes great distress to animals killed that way. The European Food Safety Authority reported that, in the most recent count, 180 million chickens and other poultry were killed using insufficient electric charge. We do not kill our animals with great attention to their welfare, leaving aside the Jewish and Muslim methods. Rabbits’ necks are broken and fish starved and suffocated. We even mistreat our pets, breeding them to a lifetime of ill health and depriving them of their natural habitats. If the new committee in the Bill is to do any good, it should concern itself with making sure that slaughter methods as they exist are carried out as they should be and existing welfare standards are enforced.

Will the Minister accept these amendments and ensure that Jewish slaughter practices are protected? Not to do so would be seen as an unwillingness to make a home for those elements of the Jewish community —and the Muslim community—to whom this is of major importance.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendments 15, 39 and 45 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville—I thank her for her support—and Amendment 47 in the name of my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone, to which I have added my name. I will make some comments on other amendments in the group.

Amendment 15 provides the criteria for which policies are in the remit of the committee and for the committee to report on those policies while they are being formulated, while keeping the discretionary power for the committee to look at any other policies. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, said, if we do not do that, the remit will become far too wide to be manageable. The current text of Clause 2 allows the committee to prepare reports on any government policy that is being or has been formulated or implemented. While I welcome that wide scope, we need some organisation of activity. Without it, in the face of the overwhelming range of government policy, the committee may well struggle to take a strategic and prospective approach to its work.

Our amendment would answer concerns raised by a number of noble Lords about how the committee would cope with the potential amount of work. The policies that the Government should be looking at are ones that should be reasonably expected to have a significant effect on the welfare of animals, judged by the duration and severity of effects and the number of animals affected. Beyond those mandatory reports on policies within its remit, the committee could retain the freedom to report on any other policy that it felt might have an impact on the welfare of animals as sentient beings.

Crucially, our amendment would also allow the committee’s reports to contain recommendations on how the policy could be made to have a positive effect on the welfare of animals as sentient beings. At Second Reading, the Minister suggested that the committee would be able to

“encourage policymakers to think about the positive improvements that they can make to animal welfare—not just minimising adverse effects”.—[Official Report, 16/6/21; col. 1945.]

We very much welcome these remarks, but the text of the Bill needs to be brought into line with them, as Clause 2 currently specifies “adverse” effects being the subject of committee reports. Given that the Government believe, as we do, that the committee should have the freedom to consider how policies could enhance animal welfare, we hope that the Minister will recognise that our amendment would resolve this issue.

Amendment 39 is also designed to help to structure the way in which the committee would consider government policy with regard to animal sentience in a straightforward way by putting a duty on Ministers to inform the committee in a timely manner of relevant policy development. As I said at Second Reading, it is paramount that the committee can look at policies right across government. The Bill currently creates only a discretionary duty for the animal sentience committee to review whether a government policy has had appropriate regard to the welfare of sentient animals. There should be a mandate with a clear duty for a review of all policies that fall within well-defined criteria. A duty on Ministers to inform the committee would help to achieve that outcome.

Amendment 45 proposes a new clause that is essential to ensure that the Bill provides a functional replacement to the sentience duty that applied in law when the UK was a member of the European Union. We have heard a lot today from noble Lords about Article 13 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and its intertwined elements—recognition of animals as sentient beings and a duty to pay “full regard” to animal sentience in formulating and implementing policy. Although it was limited to certain areas of policy, Article 13 imposed a direct legal obligation on the EU and its member states to pay full regard to animal sentience. It was a direct responsibility on decision-makers, in the form of government Ministers.

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[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I shall speak first to Amendments 5 and 14, which are in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. The noble Baroness laid out Amendment 5 quite clearly. It would ensure that the committee benefited from a diversity of expertise, including, for example, veterinary science, agricultural science and ethical review.

It is essential that such a wide range of informed viewpoints informs the work of the animal sentience committee, and this diversity needs to be guaranteed in the Bill. Under the current text, future Secretaries of State will have full discretion to appoint committee members. Our concern is that that could enable a very narrow committee which could be dominated by one industry or sector. I note that other noble Lords have tabled amendments that also consider the expertise of the committee’s membership, so there is clearly much interest in getting it right—noble Lords have talked about it this afternoon. The committee needs to be able to draw on a real diversity of knowledge so that it can give properly balanced consideration to animal sentience issues across the whole scope of government policy.

Our amendment also lays out further detail on the make-up of the committee and stipulates the appointment of a chair. It is very important to have a chair who is both independent and respected within government and further afield. If you have that, the committee will be listened to with real respect in all the different areas that it will look at. As the noble Baroness said, this will help make it much more effective in its work.

Amendment 14 is designed to ensure that the animal sentience committee is adequately resourced; several noble Lords have talked about resourcing. By that, we mean staffing, accommodation and any other necessary resources to fulfil the tasks the Bill places on it. A small secretariat and other facilities are essential to committee functioning, and should not place an undue burden on public funds. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said that the Bill is very thin in this area, and I agree. Much of her Amendment 13 covers similar ground. We need to look at this very carefully.

I jotted down some examples of previous annual costs for a committee in Defra. There is quite of range of costs that committees can incur to government. The former Farm Animal Welfare Committee operated on a similar basis as is proposed for the animal sentience committee. It required less than £300,000 a year in funding. Clearly, this committee will have a much broader remit, but to put that in context, a 2016 Cabinet Office review found that 141 bodies advising government typically each had an annual budget of between £100,000 and £1 million. That is a hugely broad range. Considering that a number of noble Lords have expressed concern that resourcing needs to be properly done, I should be interested to know what work has been done on the resourcing that may be required and whether the Minister can yet clarify what he believes will be adequate for the committee to carry out its work effectively. It is vital that appropriate resourcing is made available. I also support the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, in hoping that this is without cuts to any other department.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Fookes, have tabled Amendments 6 and 62, which would also secure a welcome diversity of expertise and an independent chair, as well as ensuring that the committee received early notice of any policy that could have an adverse effect on the welfare of animals as sentient beings. The noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, is right to ask for more detail in this area.

As we have heard, Amendment 2, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, suggests merging the Bill’s animal sentience committee with the existing Animal Welfare Committee. We would support what the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, said about this. We do not believe it is a practical suggestion, as the Animal Welfare Committee and animal sentience committee will have very different roles.

The Animal Welfare Committee provides scientific advice when asked to by Defra and works only with that department, primarily on farm animal and welfare issues. It is fundamentally different from what is proposed for the animal sentience committee, which will proactively review government policy decisions across all departments. It will also have the power to choose which policies to review and a scope that covers companion animals, farm animals and wild animals. Merging these two, very different committees into one would be an error and reduce the effectiveness of both, so we cannot support this amendment. However, we need clarity on how the relationship between the committees will work.

I conclude by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, for recognising some merit in my Amendment 5, but I clarify for noble Lords that animal welfare science is a reality. You can study for a degree in animal welfare science at a number of universities—for example, Glasgow and Winchester—and the Royal Veterinary College has an animal welfare science and ethics group which specifically researches in the fields of animal welfare, animal behaviour, veterinary ethics and law. I hope that clarifies that.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their amendments and hope to provide some reassurance and clarity. I start with Amendment 2, in the name of my noble friend Lord Forsyth, who, as my noble friend Lord Randall reminded us, referred to himself as an “extinct volcano”. Volcanologists will probably warn of an eruption if I do not achieve some degree of reassurance.

The first reassurance I will give my noble friend is that, when I arrived as a Minister in Defra in 2010, we had inherited 92 arm’s-length bodies, which we reduced to 33. It was a brutal process, but we got it about right. It shows a desire for simplicity, and direct accountability to Parliament is something I hold dear.

My noble friend Lord Forsyth has concerns about the animal sentience committee’s relationship with the Animal Welfare Committee, which have also been articulated by other noble Lords. I emphasise that the two committees have important roles and different remits. The Animal Welfare Committee provides substantive policy advice on request to Defra, as well as to the Scottish and Welsh Governments. By contrast, the animal sentience committee will review and scrutinise the Government’s policy-making and, in doing so, facilitate Parliament’s scrutiny of the Government. It would be rare for the two committees to address precisely the same questions in the normal course of their work, nor do we want to prevent them delivering their distinct roles.

The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, referred to the committee possibly becoming a runaway horse. In that unlikely event, it would be reined in. There will be performance reviews of the committee and, if it is ineffective, action will be taken to change its membership.

Amendment 11, also in the name of my noble friend, would have the structure and make-up of the animal sentience committee established by regulations or otherwise subject to parliamentary approval. My noble friend raises an important point, which is that the establishment of the committee should be a transparent and collaborative process. I have already committed to sharing draft terms of reference for the committee before this Bill returns to the House on Report. I would, however, be wary of defining the terms of reference and the membership of the committee too rigidly in statute.

This committee is an entirely new entity with a new and specific remit and, to some extent, its first steps will involve learning and refining how it wishes to operate and what expertise it requires. Normal practice with such committees, in line with Cabinet Office guidance, is that they are funded from within a departmental budget. We are clear that the committee should be made up of members who collectively have the appropriate expertise to enable the committee to perform its role. The code on public appointments provides a robust framework for appointments to the committee.

However important the Bill and the committee it establishes, the fact is that parliamentary time is limited and must be used to best effect. Discussing the substance of the reports, where noble Lords and honourable Members in the other place wish to do so, will be far more illuminating than debates on, say, the precise nature of the committee’s composition.

The animal sentience committee will be a committee of experts that publishes reports. It will not make policy decisions, nor will it be a delivery body. It therefore lacks the sorts of responsibilities described in the Public Bodies Handbook that might warrant use of parliamentary time to oversee the committee’s membership and internal processes. Although I would not wish to place the terms of reference in statute, I reiterate my commitment to share them in draft for your Lordships’ consideration, ahead of Report.

Looking around this Room, I see people who have great experience of legislating down the years from within the Government, the Executive, and the legislature and it is entirely right that people in my position are pushed as far as they can be to give details. But to those of us who have been in government, I say that we also want the flexibility to make sure that what we are creating here works. Sometimes, if we are too rigid in our legislation we make that more difficult to the point whereby it could become ineffective and a point of continuing debate. I want to give flexibility to the new committee and future Ministers to create something that is not only effective but can be held to account for what they do.

I turn to my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s last amendment in the group, Amendment 40, concerning the work programme and resourcing of the committee. It will be comprised of experts. It is they who will be best placed to decide what the committee’s priorities should be, although they can of course consult others. I can reassure my noble friend that the annual work plan of the committee will be made publicly available. This will ensure that its priorities and approach are fully transparent. It is right that the committee should have the freedom to set its own agenda. Committee members are the experts on sentience and will be able to offer informed views that Ministers can consider alongside other important social, environmental, cultural or economic issues.

Both my noble friend Lord Forsyth and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, in her Amendment 14, have rightly highlighted the need to furnish the committee with the appropriate resources to perform its function. I can confirm that we shall do so. There will be a dedicated secretariat.

I turn to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and her Amendments 6 and 62, with which I will consider the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, Amendment 5, all concerning the membership and operation of the animal sentience committee. The committee has a specific, well-defined function set out in the Bill. It is there to provide assurance that the Government are having all due regard to the effects of policy decisions on animal welfare. The ultimate objective of the committee is to raise the bar on how animal welfare implications are considered as policy across government, and how that is made and implemented. This task demands that the committee’s members have a breadth of expertise and experience.

The committee will, of course, not exist in isolation. I hope it reassures a number of noble Lords that the committee will be able to consult other able external specialists as required. If, for example, the committee felt that it wanted to reach out to a government advisory body such as the Animal Health and Welfare Board, it would be free to do so. We want to ensure that there are high-quality applicants for vacancies on the committee, and we want to find the very best people for the role. We also want to future-proof the committee as far as possible. As our scientific understanding of sentience develops, so too could the appropriate balance of expertise. That is crucial. If we restrict the membership of the committee to just a few types of people, that may not be appropriate in the future.

I turn to some of the other suggestions made by the noble Baroness. I can assure her that the Secretary of State will appoint no MPs to the committee. I clearly take the point of my noble friend Lord Caithness that there are Members of this House who have or might have in future the kind of expertise we are looking for, but I want to keep politics out of it. We politicians are not always known for our strict impartiality. We will have to find other means to contribute to the animal welfare cause. However, as we all know, there are Members of this House who are not affiliated to any political party.

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[Lord Carrington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a farmer, as set out in the register. My remarks on the Bill are as a farmer, particularly as a livestock farmer. I support Amendment 10 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, but my remarks apply also to other amendments to Clause 1, covering the issue of the membership of the animal sentience committee.

It is the vagary of intention, purpose and operation of the Bill that causes worry among those who deal with animals in the course of either work or play—or any number of things in between. The farming sector in particular is concerned by this lack of detail. In this situation, the best assurance that can be provided is a balanced and knowledgeable committee that can properly and impartially adjudicate on the issues before it.

To illustrate my point, the following concerns have been highlighted but not thoroughly resolved: the lack of definition of animal sentience, respect of religious and local customs, distinction between wild and tame animals, control of predators, the agenda of the animal rights lobby, the position on the welfare of foreign animal imports—dead or alive—and consideration of public interest. I could go on. Others have spoken and will speak eloquently on all those points, but the list explains why the composition of the committee is so important. Reassurance is required.

Most importantly, it should be specified, as in Amendment 10, that there should be at least one of the following: the commercial livestock farmer, the vet and someone with knowledge of slaughterhouses. I add to that a representative from the food service and retail sector. In order to ensure a representative range of expertise and insight and to enable informed policy oversight, the committee must include those with practical animal husbandry experience in the agricultural sector. Farmers are involved in the day-to-day care of livestock and have a practical understanding of their animals. It is therefore vital that a proportionate number of members of the committee has this background and expertise in order to provide a practical insight into how livestock husbandry can support improvements.

In other amendments, there are lists of potential membership qualifications, such as scientific knowledge, expertise in animal behaviour and neurophysiology, or experience in fishing, game shooting, animal welfare, ethics, law and public administration. A committee with all these will agree on nothing, particularly if it is full of scientists and lawyers, who will even argue about what is black and what is white. Add to this a failure to define “sentience”, and we end up with the ingredients of indecision and worse. The Minister needs to add some clarity on all these issues and to tell us why there is the need for a learning period—how long will this be?

These decisions affect real people and real livelihoods; they are not academic. I therefore request that the Minister clarify the membership of the committee as a matter of urgency and to ensure that it is composed of people with practical knowledge and, most of all, common sense.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The amendments in this small group look particularly at the make-up of the committee’s membership, some of which align with our Amendments 5 and 14, which we have previously debated.

Amendment 4, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, provides that the composition of the committee and its terms of reference must be set out in regulations and approved by both Houses. It is clear that the committee’s composition and terms of reference are considered extremely important by noble Lords, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, we have covered this in the previous debate, so I shall move on.

Amendment 9, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, would provide that a committee member’s term may not be longer than three years and may not be renewed after the first term. As the noble Lord explained in the explanatory statement to his amendment, this is to ensure that the committee

“benefits from fresh knowledge and new perspectives”.

We have some sympathy with that proposal and agree with the noble Lord that the term should be no longer than three years, but we believe that there may be circumstances where it would be helpful to reappoint a member for a further term of office if that was considered appropriate.

Amendment 10, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, provides that the committee’s membership must include, among others, a veterinary surgeon, a farmer or person with knowledge of livestock production and land management, and a person with knowledge of slaughterhouses. On this amendment and the other amendments we have looked at about who should be on the committee, I take the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, that we need practical experience—that is important—but although we have talked about Defra legislation, we need to remember that the committee will be looking right across government. It will also need people who have experience in how to manage that and what needs to be looked at. I am beginning to think that we are going to have the largest committee ever created if we have all these people on it. The Minister needs to take away the debate that we have had on both this group of amendments and the previous one and think about how we can practicably move forward to ensure that the committee has the membership it needs but is also flexible enough to cover all the work that it will need to do.

Amendment 8, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, would require 50% of the committee to have had recent commercial experience of farming or managing game or fish stocks. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said that it should not be interpreted as stacking the committee, but we need to make sure that we do not end up with a committee with a bias towards one group—the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, said that it was important that we make sure that we do not have an imbalance one way or another. We need recommendations that come from a diversity of viewpoints and proper knowledge bases. It is absolutely right that we look at all these membership criteria, but we need to think about where we are going, what we want the committee to achieve and what its priorities will be. We need more clarity about its focus; otherwise, we will have membership of the committee from everything under the sun. On that basis, I will hand over to the Minister to take that headache away.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness very eloquently makes the point I was going to make. I have clearly had representations from a lot of parliamentarians and different interest groups, saying that they must be represented or that this or another interest should be represented on the group and I start wondering whether the Albert Hall will be big enough to contain this committee.

Of course, I would have to be a Minister of very little brain if I did not have a view on the sort of people I think should be on the committee. The problem is that if I start listing them to the Committee now, although it would have the virtue of giving some of the clarity that certain noble Lords seek, it could also constrain the creation of a committee that, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and others have said, should contain practical experience and common sense. I entirely agree with him on that.

I take the point made eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, that the committee should not contain representatives of pressure groups, particular groups who are obsessed with one narrow field of animal welfare. If I, or the Bill, were to constrain the membership of the committee so that a particular interest had to be represented, if that individual was off sick or had not been reappointed following the end of their term, and the committee made a decision in that particular area of expertise, noble Lords can see that this would create opportunities for legal challenge. I am not going to satisfy the Committee because I cannot give clarity on the type of people that we want to see on the committee. I will try to give the reassurance that I know what noble Lords are thinking and I hope that we can achieve a committee that has balance, practical experience and common sense.

I will try to address in more detail some of the points that have been made and I apologise if I slightly repeat myself; I will try not to. My noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean proposed Amendment 4, suggesting regulations that the animal sentience committee might adhere to. Although I would not wish to place the terms of reference in statute, I reiterate my commitment to share them in draft ahead of Report for your Lordships’ consideration.

This committee is an entirely new entity with a new and specific remit and to some extent, its first steps will, as I have said before, involve learning and refining. We are clear the committee should be made of members who collectively have the appropriate expertise to enable it to perform its role. I refer noble Lords to the Governance Code on Public Appointments, which provides the framework from which we will be operating. As I have said, it will be a committee of experts who publish reports. It will not make policy. It therefore lacks the sort of responsibility described in the Public Bodies Handbook that might warrant parliamentary time to oversee its membership and internal processes.

I will take together Amendments 8 and 9 in the name of my noble friend Lord Moylan with Amendment 10 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. I think we have covered membership. It is not the role of the committee to consider the interests of those who work with animals or to identify an appropriate balance between their interests and animal welfare. That is for Ministers to weigh up and decide. That is why I take this opportunity to dispel any notion that a sector could find itself at a disadvantage if it is not physically represented on the committee. That would be a misunderstanding of the committee’s role and how it will interact with Ministers. It takes a wealth of knowledge and experience to understand the implications of central government policy on particular aspects of animal welfare, more than any one person or any one group of people could ever possess. There is, of course, a practical limit to the size of the committee so, naturally, we expect that that it will seek the views of other specialists who exist outside the committee to assist in its understanding of specific issues.

We are in the process of gathering views on the best range of expertise the committee can have to support it in its specific remit. We will also want to consult its chair. I would most certainly welcome contributions from your Lordships, but again I caution against creating a precise list in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

That document was misleading, and the mainstream charities and organisations should be aware of being used by those with a very different agenda, as should we in Parliament. The membership of this committee must be independent of pressure groups, from whichever side they come.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Amendment 12, which would ban anyone from the committee if they had involvement with animal rights groups, seems to come from the viewpoint that the Bill and the committee that it establishes will be hijacked by a radical animal rights agenda.

A commitment to animal welfare requires us to treat animals humanely, compassionately and properly. To treat animals properly, we must factor in the key facts about them, including the sentience that we know they possess. I am sure the Minister will be able to reassure noble Lords that the membership and remit of the committee will be based on expertise, including from those with animal welfare expertise and experience, but will also use scientific analysis and the right knowledge when required. We have discussed this point in great detail, and I am sure the Minister will be able to reassure us on it.

Amendment 43, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, would require a Minister responding to a report by the animal sentience committee to include the views of other expert committees, such as the Animal Welfare Committee. We certainly agree that the committee should consider the views of other experts, be they committees or independent experts. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether he is looking at that as useful in the setting up of the committee. If that is the case, how will that relationship be developed? We have discussed the relationship between the Animal Welfare Committee and the animal sentience committee. How will the joined-up thinking come forward from other expert committees as well?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to noble Lords and to my noble friend Lord Mancroft for his Amendments 12 and 43. There is much I could say that would repeat what I said on earlier groups about the make-up of the committee, but I am grateful to him and others for highlighting an important consideration for Ministers as and when the Bill reaches the statute book. As my noble friend said, it is not just about who we put on the committee but about who we do not. I am clear that we want people who will take a collegiate view and who are not there to represent some narrow sectoral or even extreme point of view. The committee will look at issues such as the eating of meat and how we get meat from field to fork. The process of rearing stock and taking it to slaughter is something that we want to make sure we get absolutely right. If somebody’s opinion about that is clouded by an extreme view that the whole process is wrong, it will not be an effectively functioning committee with that individual in place, so I totally hear what has been said.

I could repeat all I said before about not wanting to constrain things by putting details about what sort of people we want to do this in the Bill. We want this to be an expert committee of professionals who really good people will want to work with. If they feel that the committee is being hijacked by extremists or, indeed, one sectoral view, it will not be working by the terms in which, I hope, it will be put on the statute book by Parliament.

I have already spoken about the very important points made about how the committee will work with other organisations, not least the Animal Welfare Committee. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, made an important point. There will undoubtedly be scope for a productive and mutually beneficial relationship between the two organisations and the broad principles of this will be outlined in the animal sentience committee’s terms of reference.

Indeed, the animal sentience committee may wish to draw on the expertise of other bodies and experts where it sees fit. The Bill places no limits on this. It will then be for the committees to decide where and how it would be most productive to work together within that framework. This might not always result in outputs so reassuringly concrete as the report on reports envisaged by this amendment. The freedom to co-operate and to inform each other’s thinking, where useful, is there.

I could go into more detail. We may tease out aspects of the points raised by noble Lords in subsequent questions, but I hope my noble friend will be content to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I join my noble friend Lady McIntosh in opposing this clause standing part, because any Conservative—and, I think, any sensible parliamentarian and the Minister—should be concerned about setting up committees, per se. We have a proliferation of committees everywhere and, here we are, creating yet another one. If this committee were doing something uniquely special that was not being done by anybody else, it might have more to say for itself, but we already have the Animal Welfare Committee. Does my noble friend not consider it possible to amalgamate the activities of both committees, so that we do not end up with two doing similar things, but with one?

As my noble friend Lord Mancroft said, there could easily be conflict between the two committees anyway. Which advice would the Government take if the advice between the two varied? This is a recipe for chaos. To constantly set up committees is not the right way to run government. As my noble friend said, they develop a life of their own, get bigger and bigger, and more officious and difficult. This is not the way to deal with problems of cruelty to animals. We all want to see people punished for being cruel to animals, and I do not think an animal sentience committee is the way forward at all. I would like to see this clause voted down and the whole idea of an animal sentience committee dismissed. We already have a committee dealing with this and should not have two, because that is a recipe for chaos.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I would like to follow those last comments from the noble Lord. Earlier, we discussed the difference between the animal sentience committee, the Animal Welfare Committee and other committees. The sentience committee is not being set up as just an advisory committee, as the Animal Welfare Committee is. It is designed to have a different role and remit, and will need different expertise to the Animal Welfare Committee. It has its own important role to play in something that is strongly supported by the general public.

It is important for the Minister to hear that noble Lords are concerned by the lack of detail in Clause 1. People feel that the Bill needs improvement, and there have been many issues raised during the debate. From my perspective, more clarity and focus are needed, if it is to achieve what the Bill intends and answer many noble Lords’ concerns. We do not support voting to remove Clause 1 from the Bill, but there is work to do in the time between now and Report. I urge the Minister to work across parties to look at how we can improve the Bill and address many of the concerns that have been raised.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

In this group, I support Amendment 46 in the name of my noble friend Lady Young, to which I have added my name. This is a fairly straightforward amendment designed to enable the animal sentience committee to submit annual reports to both Houses of Parliament. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for their support. The amendment would ensure transparency and oversight of the work of the committee.

Coming to the points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness—I thank him for his introduction to his amendment—he referred to the three points in subsection (2) of the proposed new clause in our Amendment 46. The first is

“a statement of the policies on which the Committee has reported”,

which I cannot imagine anyone would object to, as we need to know what the committee has been looking at. Then there is

“an overview of the implementation of animal sentience requirements”,

which is the part the noble Earl raised.

The reason for this provision is that I have often seen in pieces of animal welfare legislation, covering wildlife crime, for example, that legislation is brought forward in good faith but then not enacted. It does not get enforced and is not implemented properly. Often, that legislation does not work to deliver what it was designed to deliver. We want to have oversight of that and to ensure that other government departments co-operate with the committee in the way that is expected. That is the purpose behind it and I hope I have explained it to the noble Earl. Lastly, there is

“a statement of the other activities”.

I am aware that the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, took exception to that, but we think it is important that we get proper oversight of everything that the committee is currently expected to look at.

Just before I finish on these, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, introduced his Amendment 38. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, that it could bring in unnecessary bureaucracy. However, there are clearly important questions that he has asked the Minister to consider.

I support Amendment 20, in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Fookes, which would provide that the committee “must” produce a report when any government policy is formulated or implemented. Again, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, that we need a strong, broad-based committee that looks at everything in the round. We have talked about this before: the remit and the focus are of such importance that we all know exactly what is expected from the committee once it starts working.

I also support Amendments 27 and 41, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Fookes, and the noble Lord, Lord Trees. I thank the noble Lord for introducing that amendment clearly. Again, this is all about proper reporting, which will be critical.

On Amendment 44, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, we agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, that this does not necessarily need to be in the Bill. But in introducing his amendment, the noble Lord asked some important questions that need to be considered as we move forward.

Finally, Amendments 21 and 22, tabled in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Etherton, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, were introduced today by the noble Viscount. We believe that these amendments are unhelpful. Amendment 21 amounts to a significant weakening of the animal sentience committee because of the way it restricts the committee’s work. By not being able to report on existing government policy, it rows back from the original vision of a body that is free to consider sentience questions right across the range of government policy. I know a number of noble Lords do not think this is necessary, but we think it is very important.

We also think it is important that the initial vision is retained in the Bill so that the animal sentience committee can make a positive contribution to policy-making. It can best do that as a public body that provides expert input to inform complex policy questions that touch on the welfare of animals as sentient beings. As we and the Minister have said, this is not about the committee making policy; it is about the committee informing, answering questions, passing comment and being there as a critical friend, if you like, for policy decision-making in this area.

If we erect arbitrary barriers to that expert advice, it will impoverish the policy process. We should not make laws that prevent Ministers accessing knowledge that could improve their decision-making. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, mentioned the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission, which we know is carrying out this important work. It is an interesting example of what could be achieved if we move forward with the Bill as proposed. As the Minister said on the first day of Committee:

“In our manifesto, this Government as a whole committed to the introduction of new laws on sentience, with no suggestion of carve-outs or exemptions.”—[Official Report, 6/7/21; col. GC 288.]


We strongly support him in that ambition.

As we heard, Amendment 22 would require permission to be received from the Defra Secretary of State before a report could be prepared. We believe this would also significantly weaken the committee and reduce it from being a body that is free to consider sentience questions across government policy to basically a Defra scrutiny committee, which would then scrutinise only with the Secretary of State’s permission. We therefore cannot support the amendment.

This has been a really interesting discussion on this group. It has been good to hear all the different contributions from noble Lords. I now look forward to hearing the Minister’s contribution.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I entirely agree: this has been a really interesting discussion.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for her Amendment 20, which would place a legal duty to publish reports on the animal sentience committee. This Bill makes provision to empower the committee to scrutinise Ministers’ policy formulation and implementation decisions with a view to publishing reports containing its views on whether Ministers have paid “all due regard” to the welfare needs of animals as sentient beings. When the committee publishes a report, this will trigger the accountability mechanism to ensure Ministers respond formally to Parliament. The committee will be able to issue reports on central government policy decisions, without exception. This includes past policies as well as policies in the process of being formulated.

Naturally, the committee will not be able to scrutinise every single policy-making decision. This would be an impossible undertaking for a single committee, so we will support the committee to identify and prioritise areas where it can have the most important impact. I am sure your Lordships would agree that the committee should focus on policies where it can add the most value.

As the experts, it is ultimately for the committee to decide how best to use its time. We therefore do not want to prescribe what it must do any further in statute, beyond the powers given to the committee in the Bill. We want to give the committee flexibility to work in a way that best suits its priorities. For example, the committee may decide to issue advice and input as a policy is being formulated. We will support the committee in identifying opportunities for this. I assure the noble Baroness that the committee will have a work plan that will be made publicly available. We think it best for the committee, as the experts, to decide what it chooses to look at.

We will, of course, work closely with the committee, which will have a dedicated secretariat to support its work. We want to ensure that the committee is appropriately resourced with sufficient membership and administrative support to make an impact and scrutinise the most important decisions but is not so large as to become unmanageable or overbearing. Your Lordships tried to pin me down on this when the Committee last met. I am happy to give a little more clarification. As has been said, your Lordships can look at the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission, with its 12 members and a proportionate dedicated secretariat, as a rough indication of the scale that we are looking at.

I offer my reassurances to the noble Baroness that it is very much intended that the committee will publish reports on how Ministers have paid “all due regard” to the welfare needs of animals as sentient beings. This will be a key tool in embedding consideration of animal welfare into the policy decision-making process.

--- Later in debate ---

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

The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, whose name is next on the list, has withdrawn.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I am speaking to Amendment 49 in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. I thank them for their support. Before I move on, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that he has understood the purpose of my amendment completely correctly. We also support Amendment 51 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Fookes.

Clause 5 currently defines “animal” as any vertebrate other than homo sapiens. Amendments 52 and 53 talk about adding “fish” and “birds” to the scope of the Bill. I know that they are probing amendments, but they are vertebrates—

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

After “except homo sapiens”.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Okay. As I was saying, they are probing amendments that are basically asking for animals to come in that are already covered, as they are vertebrates. I am just a bit confused about that. If we look back to the European Council directive in 1998 which preceded the Lisbon treaty, fish and birds are included all the way back to then. I will be interested in what the Minister has to say and why the probing amendments are felt to be necessary.

Looking at Clause 5(2), we have had some debate about the fact that the definition could be widened in future to include invertebrates if evidence of sentience among invertebrates comes forward. We have put forward this amendment because we believe that evidence of sentience among two groups of invertebrates, cephalopods —for example, octopuses—and decapod crustaceans, is already established and has been for a number of years.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, spoke about the importance of scientific evidence in the debate on an earlier group, so I am sure he will be interested in the fact that back in December 2005, the Panel on Animal Health and Welfare of the European Food Safety Authority published a report that examined the scientific evidence about the sentience and capacity of certain invertebrate species to experience pain and distress. It concluded that decapod crustaceans and cephalopods can experience pain and distress, and that the largest decapod crustaceans are complex in behaviour and have a pain system and considerable learning ability.

As regards cephalopods, the scientific panel concluded that they have a nervous system and a relatively complex brain similar to many vertebrates and sufficient in structure and function for them to experience pain. Notably, they can experience and learn to avoid pain and distress, such as avoiding electric shocks. In addition, they have significant cognitive ability, including good learning ability and memory retention, elaborate communication systems and individual temperaments. More recently, a number of scientific papers strongly point to the conclusion that both cephalopods and decapod crustaceans are capable of experiencing pain and suffering.

Even more recently—the noble Lord, Lord Trees, referred to this—evidence was given to the Select Committee in July, this month, by Dr Jonathan Birch from the LSE, who is, of course, the author of the report that Defra is producing. He provided written evidence, along with Professor Nicola Clayton and Dr Alexandra Schnell from the University of Cambridge, and Dr Heather Browning and Dr Andrew Crump from the LSE. These are serious academics, who are the kind of people we should listen to when we consider scientific evidence in making decisions. If noble Lords will bear with me, I just want to pull up a couple of their points on this Bill. They say:

“In our opinion, the evidence vindicates the 2012 extension of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 to cover all cephalopod molluscs. We now have a very strange situation in the UK: all cephalopod molluscs are protected in science but they are not protected by robust animal welfare laws outside scientific settings.”


Coming to Amendment 57 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan—and perhaps to answer his considerations about this—they also say that:

“Regarding decapod crustaceans: although it would be possible for animal welfare law to protect some infraorders while excluding others, this has the potential to generate significant confusion. A better approach would be to protect all decapod crustaceans in very general legislation such as the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill”.


Having made that point, I would like to look at the work of the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission. In February this year, it issued a definition of sentience to cover both groups we have been discussing in light of the accumulating evidence, and that preceded the evidence I have just read out to noble Lords. Our amendment acknowledges this growing amount of evidence and seeks to embed it within the Bill by extending the definition of “animal” to cover cephalopods and decapod crustaceans. We know that they are already protected in some other countries—Australia, Switzerland, Norway and New Zealand—and in some states in the United States and Australia. The recognition of cephalopod and decapod crustacean sentience has already been acknowledged within the scientific community, so in our mind there is no good reason to delay acknowledgement of it within the Bill.

The independent review has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Trees, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes. There is huge expectation that this report will be published soon, and it has a significant role to play in informing the Bill we have been debating in this Committee. It would be extremely useful if the Minister could give us an update on its progress because to have it before us before Report is very important.

Before I finish, I want to speak very briefly to a couple of the other amendments. First, on Amendment 50 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, I just feel a bit disappointed that it has been tabled to remove wild animals from the scope of the Bill. I do not think there is a case for their removal. I heard the noble Lords’ concerns around responsibility, and I would be very keen to hear some clarity from the Minister on this area. I really think that if we accept that animals are sentient by virtue of their biology, sentience applies whatever the condition an animal is in, whether it is wild, farmed or kept as a companion. Human activity—what we do—impinges on wild, farm and companion animals alike. So, consideration of how our activity impacts on the welfare of sentience should cover all animals that would come under the scope of the Bill at the moment.

Amendment 48, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and other noble Lords, would limit the Bill’s coverage to mammals, as we heard in the introduction. I would just like to make this point: when we consider whether an animal is sentient, we should not be affected by how like it is to us. That is not the point of sentience. As noble Lords, we need to consider this fact very carefully, and that is borne out again by the scientific evidence. On that basis, being an invertebrate should not automatically preclude sentience, so the limitations proposed by the amendment would then become an entirely arbitrary limitation given the overwhelming evidence I have just expressed concerning the fact that sentience exists across vertebrates.

I am aware that there has been quite a bit of press interest in our amendment. I know we are not allowed to use props, but I have a newspaper here, the Times, whose editorial on 8 July said, “Considering the Lobster” —it is almost getting a bit Lewis Carroll, is it not? The subheading was:

“Ministers are right to ban the practice of boiling shellfish alive.”


In light of this, I urge the Minister to take action and accept our amendment.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard - part one
Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Moylan for that remark.

I am going to go on and query the path the Government have gone down and why aspects of the committee may be subject to judicial review in connection with this Bill, whereas every other Bill that has been put forward by this Government has not been deemed to be subject to such a judicial review. If the Minister will reassure me that there will be no retrospective effect and that we will revert, if possible, to the very limited effect of Article 13, I think it would have the unanimous support of the House today.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, these amendments broadly consider the remit of the committee regarding policy. Clause 1 sets up the committee. The stated purpose of the Bill is to make sure that animal sentience is taken into account when developing policy across government, but policy is not always set in aspic and I find it concerning that the majority of the amendments that have been put down in this group would prohibit the ASC considering policy formulated and implemented before the committee’s formation.

At the start of his speech, the noble Lord, Lord Trees, talked about unintended consequences, but we should also look at the unintended consequences of this group of amendments if they are accepted. We believe that the prohibitions that are being put forward would prevent the committee considering how the ongoing implementation of recent and historic legislation affects the welfare of animals as sentient beings. The impacts can be significant. To take an example, the primary legislation used to prosecute hare coursing is the Hunting Act 2004 and the Game Act 1831. We believe that the ASC should be free to consider how the implementation of those laws affect the welfare of hares as sentient beings. While the ASC will be likely to focus its work on emerging policy, we believe it needs the freedom to consider existing legislation where it feels it is appropriate to do so.

Amendment 18, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, would require scientific evidence to be published. It is very important that scientific evidence is taken into account right across the committee. It is clear from the terms of reference that that will be an important part of its work. But again I have concerns: requiring things to always be published before being presented to Parliament could place an unintended scientific barrier in front of the committee. I worked in publishing for many years, and I know that sometimes it can take a long time. I would not want to see the committee’s work hugely delayed as an unintended consequence of this amendment.

I will keep my comments brief throughout Report. We discussed at length in Committee many of the amendments before us again today. I do not want to waste time going back over issues that we have already spent a lot of time on, but I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to people’s concerns.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Trees, the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and my noble friends Lord Howard and Lord Caithness, for their amendments on the subject of the animal sentience committee’s remit with respect to existing policies. My remarks will address all the amendments.

This is the first piece of legislation I have steered through the House. I am conscious that I am in the presence of experienced legislators and people very much more experienced, perhaps, that I was in the other place where, when a piece of legislation was described as “terrible” or “poorly drafted” it was usually code for the fact that the speaker did not agree with it. Here, I am sure that that is not the case and that noble Lords are much more discerning, and I will seek to answer their points, be more conciliatory in my remarks and address their concerns.

I thank noble Lords for their discussion on this issue, and for the opportunity to put on record a clear statement on the remit of the committee. The Bill is already drafted so as to ensure that animal sentience is actively considered in current policy-making and implementation and, in line with its statutory function as set out in the Bill, the committee will be expected to prioritise current or recent policy decisions. Prioritising policies that the Government are currently pursuing fulfils the committee’s statutory function under Clause 3. This clause requires the Secretary of State to respond to the committee’s reports and is the only legal consequence the committee reports have. As I have repeatedly stated, the purpose of the Bill is to provide a proportionate, targeted and timely accountability mechanism. There are limits to how far you can hold a current Government to account for the decisions they did not make, and this would certainly not be timely. I hope this addresses points made by my noble friends Lord Moylan, Lady McIntosh and others.

However, the value of the committee is in looking at policy issues that are live in some way, and the committee would not be acting in the public interest if it did not do that. There would be no benefit for animal welfare, for the public, for Parliament or for the Government in discussing policies that have long been customary, revised or resolved. To put it more simply, the committee would not be doing its job properly if it sought to rake over old coals and to reignite past policy issues that are now closed. If this happened, it is something that would need to be raised with the committee chair as part of the performance management and governance processes that will be in place.

Seeking to impose a rigid form of words in legislation on these matters risks excluding the committee from areas where its scrutiny would be valuable. Attempts to distinguish current policy from established policy in statute would leave the committee wide open to challenge if interpretations of the wording differed. We are also of the view that, for the committee to provide targeted and effective parliamentary accountability, the committee’s report should not be subject to approval or preselection by Ministers. I would caution against the approach proposed my noble friend Lord Caithness, which would require Ministers to agree to the preparation of any report.

The noble Lord, Lord Trees, talked about process. Clause 2(2) envisages that the committee can examine what adverse effects a policy might have on the welfare of animals and whether the Government are aware of all those possible adverse effects and fully understand them so they can properly take them into account in their decision. This is clearly about the process followed in decision-making.

My noble friend Lord Ridley talked about the committee’s ability to consult stakeholders. He is right that the committee may choose to engage with a range of external bodies and individuals, as it sees fit. This stakeholder engagement is important as it will allow the committee to prioritise policies that are more significant in terms of the nature and scale of their effect on animals or the extent of parliamentary, departmental, stakeholder or public interest.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard - part two
Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, this small group of amendments, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Marland, deals with the work of the animal sentience committee and touches on the issue of religious rites in Amendment 27, spoken to by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. It is obvious from the contributions made that everybody feels very passionately about this.

Medical science is important and should be confirmed wherever possible. As the noble Lord, Lord Trees, said, lots of safeguards around licensing of medical science are already in place. There is obviously a need to ensure that those for whom religious rites are an important part of their lifestyle are respected, as set out in Article 13 of the Lisbon treaty. Despite the fact that this was before Brexit, I believe the Government should and do respect this right, upholding the values of those for whom the method of slaughter of those animals which form part of their staple diet is protected.

Amendment 48, which has not had a huge amount of debate this evening, is consequential on Amendment 2 and sets out the detail of the way in which the committee will be constituted and work. The noble Lord, Lord Marland, has just set out a bit about that and there is detail in the amendment. However, I am afraid I do not agree with either him or the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, on parts of the amendment.

Limiting the term of office to four years could lead to a loss of expertise on the committee, especially if all members were appointed at the same time—which could happen, since it will be a new committee—and, therefore, rotated off at the same time. Further, I find the list of who may not sit on the committee very restrictive. It could lead to someone with the necessary expertise and knowledge being excluded from being a committee member. However, I agree with this amendment in that there should be transparency and independence. That is the direct opposite of the first group of amendments, which sought to fetter the committee’s independence.

The detail in Amendment 48 is extensive. However, the draft terms of reference document is also comprehensive and indicates that Defra has thought carefully about how the committee is to be constructed and how it will carry out its functions. On balance, I am inclined to go with the Defra guidance on this issue but will be interested in what the Minister has to say on this subject and on the knotty issues around Amendment 27.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will talk first about the first part of Amendment 2, which looks at committee remit and policy. That has not really been discussed much in this debate so far. I draw attention to the terms of reference, because they include a lot of information about the role of the committee and policy. I put on record that we welcome a number of formal recognitions that the committee will have. It will: consider positive effects on animals as sentient beings in the policy-making process; report on any policy for which UK Government Ministers are responsible; examine policy decision-making by previous Governments where this has a significant bearing on ongoing policy-making. It is also important that the selection of the policy decisions it will choose to scrutinise will lie within the committee. I will make a final point on policy before moving on. I draw attention to the fact that it is not for the committee to reach a value judgment on whether a given policy decision balanced the welfare of animals with other matters of public interest.

On Amendment 48, the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, has pretty well covered all the areas I wish to draw attention to, so I will move on. The second part of Amendment 2 and Amendment 27 refer to having regard to cultural and religious considerations, as we have heard. Clearly, this is extremely important; the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, in particular, demonstrated that passionately in her speech. As we have seen, Amendment 27 seeks to sustain an aspect of the sentience responsibility that applied when we were EU members: the derogation to Article 13 of the Lisbon treaty, which exempts cultural practices from animal welfare considerations.

Again, I draw noble Lords’ attention to the fact that this derogation was negotiated during the Lisbon treaty by a very small number of EU Governments particularly looking to preserve practices such as bullfighting. I believe that we now have the freedom to widen our ambitions for animal welfare while still respecting cultural and religious practices. Indeed, the restrictions in Article 13 have frequently been cited as one of the key flaws in EU sentience policy that post-Brexit UK sentience policy can improve on. In fact, the then Secretary of State at Defra Michael Gove said in 2017:

“The current EU instrument—Article 13—has not delivered the progress we want to see. It does not have direct effect in law—in practice its effect is very unclear and it has failed to prevent practices across the EU which are cruel and painful to animals.”


Article 13 has not stopped any of those practices, but leaving the EU gives us the chance to do much better. This matter was discussed at length in Committee and the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, made some good points about existing legislation. In Committee, in response to noble Lords’ concerns, many of which were exactly the same as those expressed today, the Minister assured us that any Minister would have to take into account the wider considerations of cultural and religious organisations and form views in accordance with them. I hope that he can similarly reassure noble Lords today.

Finally, I say to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, that I am always happy to meet to discuss policy and legislation with anybody.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

I start by wishing my noble friend Lord Mancroft a speedy recovery, and I am sorry he is not here. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Marland for moving his amendment and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and others for speaking to it.

The amendment seeks to clarify the role and detail of the animal sentience committee. I reassure my noble friend Lord Marland and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that the Bill already makes it absolutely clear that the only role of the committee is to provide an assessment of the extent to which policy decision-making has considered whether a policy may

“have an adverse effect on the welfare of animals as sentient beings.”

We are sure that the Bill already makes it clear that the committee will not be authorised to stray into making value judgments, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, just said, on how well a given policy decision balanced the welfare of animals with other matters of public interest. There is no need to specify explicitly in the Bill that it is for Ministers to take other public considerations into account when formulating and implementing policy, because this requirement applies as a matter of course.

Amendment 48 concerns the structure of the committee, criteria for appointments to it and how it is to operate. My noble friend’s amendment raises a number of points about the design of the committee, which I will address in turn. I agree with him about the optimal size of the committee. That is why we have already made it clear that there will be eight to 12 members, working part-time. We want the committee to have everything it needs to do its job well, and its members will be its most important asset. We are committed to ensuring that the committee is large enough to have a suitable breadth of expertise among its members, while not making it so large as to be unwieldy. Of course, the committee will always be able to consult outside experts when needed. Defra’s hosting allows it to be affiliated to the animal welfare centre of expertise and, as I have said, this means there will be enhanced liaison and co-operation between experts.

The committee has the statutory power to issue reports giving its opinion on whether, or to what extent, the Government are having, or have had, all due regard to the ways in which a policy might have an adverse effect on the welfare of animals as sentient beings. The Bill already places a legal duty on Ministers to respond to the committee’s reports within three months of their publication. Once established, it will be for the committee to determine how it fulfils its statutory functions. The draft terms of reference set out how we expect it to work.

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[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, this block of amendments goes to the heart of what is wrong with the proposal. We all have an idea of who “the expert” is and what kind of person will give us the answers we want, whether that is a vet, someone banned from being a member of an animal rights movement, or whatever. The idea that there is some disinterested, impartial, patriotic expert who can somehow rise above the rest of us and be the only objective person is one of the most pernicious ideas in modern politics. We all have our opinions and starting assumptions, the “expert” more than anybody, if by “expert” we mean someone has spent his or her career in one field. They are the last person to whom we should contract out our decisions as a parliamentary assembly.

I totally understand that the Minister will want some flexibility, but a later amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising proposes a sunset clause. Maybe we could see whether the committee works out with the experts as proposed in the way the Minister assures us. If it does there will be no problem, and, if not, we will have another go at it. Perhaps that would be the wise amendment for the Government to accept.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group all refer to the make-up of the membership of the committee and how it is appointed. Noble Lords who were with us in Committee may remember that when we debated membership of the committee, a number of us, including me, put forward amendments about its make-up and who should be on it. By the end of that debate, I felt that it had become absurd to prescribe exactly what kind of expert we should have and what area they should come from, because by the time we had finished it looked like the animal sentience committee would have a membership of around 170. We have to be practical and make sure we get the right kind of people on the committee without being specific in the Bill about exactly what job or experience they should have, because where do you end? At what point do you draw the line?

So it is important that within the terms of reference we have a clear understanding of what the committee’s role is; that is, to underpin and enhance a fundamental constitutional principle—namely, ministerial accountability. It is also important that the terms of reference make it clear that the committee is expected to operate and promote a culture of openness. It is therefore important that we have the right and proper people on it.

I am sure the Minister will point it out when he speaks, but the terms of reference clearly state that appointees will be experts—I am disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, is of the same opinion as Michael Gove that, we “have had enough of experts”, but there we are. Appointees will be experts with the appropriate experience relating to policy decision-making and the welfare of animals and the Secretary of State may seek to promote a diversity of expertise—which is important, as we need a proper diversity of expertise—so that the committee can offer high-quality advice on policy decision-making and its animal welfare implications.

From my perspective, and that of these Benches, the concerns that we raised in Committee about what the committee should look like and who should be appointed as a member have been answered by the terms of reference, and we are happy with what we see in that document.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard - part three
Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)]

I am the lucky recipient of yet another of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft. He did not indicate to me why he had decoupled it from the previous group. I think the Minister has, in effect, already replied by saying that he is not prepared to put in the Bill who should be on the committee. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, effectively sets out who should not be, and I assume that the same answer will come to me.

However, I would like to say, literally in a sentence, that one of the reasons for widespread disquiet about the Bill is concern about who may or may not find places on the committee. I come from an area where the animal rights movement has been particularly virulent, especially during the badger cull, with people with balaclavas damaging farm property, threatening people, letting livestock out and so on, and, more recently, damaging all the tents at the local country fair by painting Animal Liberation Front logos on everything. As a result of that, a lot of us are concerned that some well-known public figures who purport to be friends of animals and campaign on their behalf do not condemn this terrorism. We are concerned that, whoever comes on to this committee, they should be, as the Government have indicated is their intention, people with proper scientific experience and knowledge who can contribute—not from a neutral point of view, because that is impossible, but whose judgement can be relied on—rather than people who are merely from pressure groups. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Very briefly, I think the concerns on this amendment were answered in the response to the previous group. As it is not necessary to have in the Bill who should be on the committee, it is not necessary to have in it who should not be on the committee.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, for moving the amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Mancroft. We have already debated this, but I understand my noble friend’s concerns regarding conflicts of interest and what they may mean for the committee.

We want the committee to succeed, and I am confident that the Bill and the draft terms of reference will ensure that that is the case. As has been said today, the Secretary of State for Defra will be responsible for appointments to the committee and appointments will be decided in accordance with the Governance Code on Public Appointments. Applicants would, in line with best practice, be required to declare any potential conflicts of interest to the recruitment panel. The draft terms of reference set out that the Secretary of State may decline to consider an application from an individual whose conduct suggests that their membership could damage the reputation or credibility of the committee—for example, their membership of an extremist organisation. My noble friend’s amendment is simply not necessary. Defra has shown that this tried-and-tested approach works. There are a number of existing Defra-owned expert bodies which give balanced, reasonable advice on animal welfare issues. Few would ever accuse the Animal Welfare Committee, for example, of being made up of zealous activists.

I say again that noble Lords can be reassured that the process of recruitment of members of the committee will be rigorous and that members will be chosen on the merits of their expertise. This is what is needed in order for the committee to perform its role. I hope that this reassures noble Lords and that, together with the reassurance given by my noble friend the Minister on the previous group, it will enable the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

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[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to Amendments 9, 11, 33 and 37 in this group, which are in my name. Noble Lords will be glad to know that I have torn up three-quarters of my speech to speed things up. I declare my interest as a fortunate owner of farmland, woodland, moorland and river. I affect the welfare of sentient animals, both positively and negatively, from time to time.

Together, these amendments would cut some of the Gordian knots that we have wrestled with today, and would deliver an animal sentience committee that reported to Parliament but was independent of Defra. The role of the committee as proposed in this amendment must be understood together with the animal welfare strategy that it would be required to produce under Amendment 11. The committee would then be required to report to Parliament on the compliance of Ministers with this process, as in Amendment 33, to which Ministers must respond, as in Amendment 37.

If the sentience committee is to ensure that animal welfare is properly considered, and to act as an accountability mechanism to Parliament, to create it as a creature of Defra raises a number of problems. It may not be welcomed by other departments, which, as the draft terms of reference confirm, are under no obligation to co-operate with it. A committee within the Cabinet Office would have a clear, overarching remit, set a cross-departmental standard and be independent of other departments, whose Ministers would still be required to respond to the committee’s reports to Parliament. The other advantage of a statutory committee within the Cabinet Office is that it avoids the problems identified at earlier stages of the Bill around who should or should not sit on the committee, which we have just discussed.

A committee within the Cabinet Office that is not a Defra committee would be better placed, I would argue, to drive change across government, avoid inter-departmental resentments—as I said earlier—and ensure that all due regard to animal welfare was properly and consistently applied. Then, as with the current proposal, it would be for parliamentarians to hold Ministers to account.

Amendment 11 would ensure that there was a clear strategy setting out how, in the process of developing, deciding and implementing policies, the animal welfare implications of those policies must be considered.

Amendment 33 largely replicates the existing Bill but takes account of the animal welfare strategy, while still allowing the sentience committee to play a role where it feels that there has been a failure of process in compliance with the strategy before a policy decision has been made. This would seem a much more impactful approach to driving change across government than the current proposals.

Amendment 37 ensures that Ministers must explain to Parliament any failure to comply with the animal welfare strategy identified by the sentience committee. It would also mean, for example, that if the matter was a policy relating to the Department of Health, it would be for the Health Secretary to respond. The Bill is not, at the moment, clear on this, although the draft terms of reference make it clear that that is what is intended. That intention should be made clear in the Bill.

I hope it is clear that these amendments are intended to be helpful and are in the spirit of trying to turn a bad Bill into a less bad Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a large number of amendments in this group, so in the interests of time and the number of groups yet to be debated I shall focus on Amendment 38 in my name, which would insert a new clause after Clause 3 requiring the ASC to submit an annual report on its work to both Houses of Parliament. I shall also speak to Amendment 21, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising.

The animal sentience committee is being set up as a non-departmental public body with an advisory function. The latest available figures suggest that 63% of such bodies present an annual report to Parliament. It is clearly in the interests of accountability and transparency for MPs and Peers to be able to regularly scrutinise the committee’s work. A yearly report would also allow parliamentarians to gain a wider view of animal sentience issues over the preceding 12 months and of any emerging policy trends that impact on it. Requiring an annual report through this new clause would ensure that this essential transparency and accountability measure is sustained throughout the lifetime of the committee. I urge the Minister to consider including it in the Bill.

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[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Moylan’s amendment. Why do we have delegated committees? Why do parliamentary bodies contract out part of their function? The only answer, it seems to me, is that you need very specific accumulated scientific expertise—in the field of economics, or whatever—that you would not reasonably have from a legislative Chamber.

When I made the point on an earlier amendment that there is no such thing as a disinterested expert—we all have our prejudices and opinions and scientists are still human beings—the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said that I was Luddite or, worse, “Goveian” in my attack on all experts. But this is surely having it both ways. We cannot say, “We must have this outside committee but there is absolutely no reason for them to base their recommendations on reputable science”. If we are not prepared to require the experts to rule on the basis of where the expertise is, on what possible basis are we creating this committee at all?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I bring your Lordships back to the amendments, which are on peer review and publication, but I say one thing to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, who entertained us wonderfully with his stories of crocodiles. Why does he think that the Government—his Government—would use “ropey advice”, as he put it, to make decisions? I find that a quite extraordinary claim, particularly given the recent report on cephalopods and decapod crustaceans, which is the basis of a debate we shall be coming to shortly, which was done by the London School of Economics. I certainly would not classify the LSE as “ropey”. So why does he think that there is evidence of “ropey” scientific evidence being used by the Government in this Bill?

There is a certain amount in this that is very similar to Amendment 18, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, on publication. As I said on his amendment, it concerns me that, once we start asking for everything to be published, particularly in an academic journal following peer review, we are adding a lot of time and delay to the committee’s work. Policy scrutiny reports differ in purpose, content and form from academic journal articles. The scientific evidence requirement for publication could limit the committee’s work to areas where a body of research already exists. Such research will not be in place for every policy that would impact the welfare of animals as sentient beings. In fact, I see part of the committee’s value as its ability to examine questions that have not been considered before.

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[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I echo the point of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, about biosecurity. The implications of not taking care of biosecurity, which is mentioned in his amendment—I do not necessarily agree with all of the amendment—are fundamental; it is an ongoing threat to biodiversity and the ecological strength of this nation. I re-echo that point on biosecurity in terms of this Bill. As we know, at the moment we have few protections for biosecurity in our current arrangements, but, hopefully, that will change in the new year when there are greater controls on imports to this country. I just wanted to re-emphasise that point in the noble Earl’s amendment.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for making that point, which is incredibly important, particularly to me, as someone who lives in Cumbria, where we have so many problems with tree diseases and are losing so many trees. It is pitiful watching some of the woods being taken down around places such as Ennerdale and Loweswater.

Coming back to Amendment 28 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, he is right that we do need to look out for any unintended consequences of legislation. There are concerns that there may be an adverse impact on the environment. It is important that the Minister is able to reassure noble Lords that there will not be these outcomes from the Bill being enacted. This brings me back to the points we made earlier about how critical it is that the animal sentience committee has the right members who are highly qualified to advise the Secretary of State on these matters when any proposals are put forward.

Looking at Amendment 29, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, I say that it is not necessarily unfortunate to be stuck in Scotland at the moment; I might like to be joining him there. There was a debate on the Environment Bill about lead shot, and I will be interested to look at government progress on this.

The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, introduced Amendment 31 on electric dog training collars. These are opposed by the RSPCA, the Kennel Club, the Animal Behaviour and Training Council and the British Veterinary Association. I am aware that the Government have previously announced plans to look at banning shock collars on dogs, and on this side of the House we would support the Government if they wanted to go down that route.

The final amendment, Amendment 45, was introduced by my noble friend Lady Mallalieu. I thank her for it and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s responses to her concerns.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for the opportunity to discuss and explain the interaction of the Bill, and the animal sentience committee, with important policy matters related to animal welfare.

Turning to Amendment 28, in the name of my noble friend Lord Caithness, I can only apologise to him that I do not have a response at present to his point on New Zealand. I want to make sure I get it right, because I do not want to be criticised on the Floor of the House for replying to him late or giving him the wrong answer to a question—but I will reply to him.

This amendment would require the animal sentience committee to ensure that its recommendations would not have a detrimental impact on certain other matters of public interest and great importance. I agree with my noble friend that these vital matters of public interest should be properly considered in all relevant government decisions. But the animal sentience committee is not a decision-making body, and the committee will not have the kind of expertise to evaluate these kinds of impacts. I do not think it would be fruitful to impose this requirement on the committee itself.

Ministers should consider the full range of relevant factors and arrive at a decision as to the appropriate balance between them, for which they are accountable to Parliament. I fear that this amendment would mean asking a committee, which is not accountable to Parliament in the same manner, to prejudge this balance.

We should also be careful to task the right experts with particular scrutiny and advisory functions. The right people to comment on a policy’s effect on human health, for example, are doctors and medical scientists, rather than animal welfare experts. I would not ask doctors to provide an expert opinion on animal welfare issues. Ultimately, we must allow specialist expert committees to focus on their own particular remit. For these reasons, I believe there are better means to ensure that the important matters my noble friend raises are given fair consideration in policy decision-making.

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[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, with this amendment we move on to Clause 5. It rather intrigues me, because it makes an exception of homo sapiens, and I wanted to ask the Minister whether that means that the Government see us as a non-sentient species. Perhaps he will answer that: if the answer is yes, I would probably agree, on track record. However, I will not detain the House. As my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville would do, I want to thank the Government for this amendment and Amendment 43, which we very much support. I understand and greatly respect what the noble Lord, Lord Trees, said, but I am also aware that the recent scientific evidence on the mental facilities of species such as the octopus—how it is intelligent in a very different way from that in which mammals are intelligent—should be taken very seriously and included in the Bill.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Noble Lords will not be surprised that I am absolutely delighted that the Government have tabled Amendment 39, which, as we have heard, has picked up the amendment I tabled in Committee and expands the definition of animals in the Bill to include decapod crustaceans and cephalopods.

It has also been good to hear support from some noble Lords, although I am sorry that it seems to have made the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, so sad. As the Minister said in his introduction, this amendment follows the London School of Economics and Political Science’s report, which concluded that there is strong scientific evidence that decapod crustaceans are sentient and can experience pain. I will not go into the detail of the report because the Minister has done that admirably, but I draw attention to the overarching central recommendation that all cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans should be regarded as sentient animals for the purposes of UK animal welfare law; they should be counted as animals for the purposes of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and should be included in the scope of any future legislation relating to animal sentience. To be honest, that could not be clearer. The LSE is a well-respected organisation.

The report also provides some helpful recommend-ations for improving best practice and welfare and for regulating existing commercial practices that are of reasonable and widespread animal welfare concern for decapod crustaceans. In addition, it is consistent with the approach other countries have taken, for example, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand, some Australian states and territories and some German and Italian cities. Importantly, the report also includes recommendations about how industry can be supported through any necessary changes. Will the Minister confirm that marine industries and the food sector will have advice and help to manage any impact that a change in legislation would bring?

I want to say once again a big thank you to the Minister and the Government for taking this forward and proposing its inclusion in the Bill. I am sure he is very aware that he has the strong support of these Benches.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for those remarks. I think it might be helpful to the House if I say how this came about, as it answers the points about how we got to the stage of including decapods and cephalopods in the Bill. It is a matter of serendipity. For many years people have been pushing for work to be done, and it was done by the LSE. It just so happened that that report came into the Government’s hands over the summer while we were in the process of going through the Committee stage, and it seemed an obvious moment to take this forward when the findings of that report were so clear.

To cheer up my noble friend Lord Hamilton a bit at this late hour, I cannot think of any other species that are likely to go through this process. If there are any, I suggest that it will probably be at least a decade before someone is standing here recommending that we take that forward. It may be less; this is a fast-moving area of science, but it has taken many years—I do not know how many precisely—for decapods and cephalopods to be recognised in this way. I hope that is reassuring.

The noble Baroness asked a question about the food industry and making sure that, if the committee were to make recommendations about how one treats these organisms as part of food processing or cooking and the law is then changed because Ministers accepted that advice, there would have to be a huge amount of work with the food industry to make sure that it was prepared for it. However, this amendment does not change anything. It does not change the law; it just allows it to be within the remit of the committee to give advice to Ministers who will then take other factors into account, regarding, for example, the marine environment, fish, the economic benefits of the fishing industry to coastal communities or the importance that the Government put on fish being part of the nation’s balanced diet. These are the sort of wider factors that Governments will take into consideration.

I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Moylan feels put upon. I thought that I was the victim here, but clearly that is not the case. I will try to be kind to him when I come to his amendment.

I turn to Amendment 41, and here my remarks relate to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Trees. The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill recognises that live animals with a backbone—vertebrates—are sentient. A government amendment has been tabled to also recognise decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs as sentient, as I have said. It is our intention and expectation that the committee will concern itself with consideration of the welfare of live animals. In practice, it would be difficult for the committee and government departments to identify the way in which a policy under consideration affects the welfare needs of a foetus or an embryo, as opposed to those of the mother animal. It is unlikely, therefore, that the committee would find itself considering a policy beyond its remit. The central recommendation in the report is that these cephalopods and decapods will be regarded as sentient animals, but we carefully considered the recommendations in the review. The evidence of sentient decapods and cephalopods is clear: we are committed to being led by science when it comes to sentience, and that is why we amended the Bill.

Turning to Amendment 42 in the name of my noble friend Lord Moylan, as I mentioned, the Government are led by the science when it comes to sentience. We have considered the review’s findings carefully before amending the Bill to recognise these invertebrates as sentient. I can confirm that, at the present time, there is no intention to treat any other invertebrates, beyond decapods and cephalopods, as sentient animals. The scientific evidence that led to the Government commissioning the LSE review has been many years in the making. I can assure the House that this will continue to be the case for future extension, using the delegated powers in Clause 5.

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[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I support my noble friend Lord Robathan. In anybody’s language, this is an extremely controversial Bill—that has come from a number of extremely distinguished Members of your Lordships’ House. The most appalling collateral damage could be caused by the Bill which no one has anticipated. That is the problem. When you have such Bills with a mind of their own and committees that can roar off doing all sorts of things and are completely independent, it is only later that you realise that it was a very great mistake in the beginning. In all modesty, I think the Minister should seriously consider this sunset clause so that we can reconsider whether the Act, as the Bill will no doubt become, has been a good idea, whether it has achieved what it set out to do, or whether it has caused so much damage that it needs to be radically revised. A sunset clause of five years gives us a wonderful opportunity to think again, and I sincerely hope that the Minister will give the amendment serious consideration.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, as we have heard, this amendment sets a sunset clause on the Bill. Sunset clauses are quite rare and are usually associated with emergency legislation to deal with a time-specific problem. Recently, we have seen sunset clauses around the Coronavirus Act and previously, in the 2000s, in anti-terror legislation. This Bill is not a piece of emergency legislation passed to deal with something that is time specific. It is establishing the animal sentience committee for the long term, so we on these Benches do not believe that a sunset clause is appropriate or necessary.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Robathan for introducing Amendment 46 in the name of my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising, which would insert a clause that would repeal the Bill after five years. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, for pointing out that sunset clauses are needed more for emergency legislation.

The Government have laid the Bill before Parliament because there is an ongoing benefit from a targeted mechanism that provides greater transparency for the consideration of animal welfare in central government policy decisions. However, we know that this must be done in a timely and proportionate way. Animal welfare considerations will not cease to be relevant in five years’ time, so it is hard to understand why the committee’s work should be brought to an abrupt halt at that point. It is the Government’s considered view that it would be plainly wrong for the Bill to expire after five years, as the animal sentience committee will have plenty to contribute beyond that time.

That is not to say, of course, that there will not be a review of processes to ensure that the Bill and the committee continue to fulfil their objectives well. As indicated in the committee’s draft terms of reference, we plan to ensure that it is subject to annual performance reviews. Defra will ultimately be accountable for the committee’s ongoing effectiveness and good governance. In addition, the Bill will be subject to the standard post-legislative scrutiny process, including a review of its effectiveness. That will take place within five years of Royal Assent. I hope that that reassures noble Lords and that my noble friend will be content to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, this seems quite novel as an amendment—to try, once a Bill has gone through Parliament and become an Act, to judge it afterwards. It is a novelty that I find perhaps rather difficult. I share the noble Earl’s thoughts about some of the issues around the Bill, but this is probably overly bureaucratic and, if we believe in Parliament, probably not the best way to move forward on this occasion—despite the great respect I have for him.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree; I too hold the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, in the greatest respect and the highest regard. Of course, he is absolutely right to say that any Government should consider seriously unintended consequences when considering any new legislation but, along with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, I agree that this proposal is overly bureaucratic. Do we really need another committee? We seem to have an awful lot of them already. Expert advice will be readily available to the ASC, as we have heard, as well as to the Secretary of State.

I am very pleased that we have reached the end of Report and I congratulate the Minister on his resilience.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 13th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Herbert of South Downs. I fear I do not agree that this Bill was a waste of parliamentary time. A large number of Bills are coming forward during the pandemic that are not health related, but it is important that legislation moves forward and does not get bogged down in Covid. Similarly, I listened to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, who, unfortunately, was not able to be here at the beginning of the debate. I live in a rural community and support the rural way of life, and I do not feel the Bill threatens either the ethos or the practical way of life in rural communities. This is overstated.

I congratulate the Minister on his remarks and on eventually getting this very short but important Bill to the point of being able to pass it on to the other place. I did not envisage at the start of the process that it would be so controversial in some quarters of the Government Benches, who, in their own words, have attempted to paralyse the House with boredom.

I thank the Minister for his time and that of his officials in providing briefings along the way, and for his patience in dealing with the many amendments and queries that came forward. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, for her time and assistance in helping to steer the Bill forward. It is always better when Front Benches are united in moving a Bill forward.

The amendments that have been accepted have improved the Bill. It will be interesting to see how the Bill is received in the other place and whether it will make any further amendments. No doubt it will be heavily lobbied by the spokespeople this afternoon. I support the thrust of the Bill and look forward to working with the Minister on future legislation.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, on these Benches we have listened to the speeches from the noble Lord, Lord Herbert of South Downs, and other noble Lords, but we cannot support the amendment. I am sure noble Lords are not surprised to hear that. I will not go into any details. At Second Reading, in Committee and on Report, we discussed in depth and at length exactly the same issues as we have today, and I am fairly confident that any noble Lord present at any of those debates understands fully my feelings on these issues.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Thursday 7th April 2022 Lords Chamber

I thank the Minister and his officers for their time and briefings during the passage of the Bill, which was at times somewhat choppy. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, for her work on the Bill; it has been a pleasure to work with her to ensure its passage. We have now reached the stage where the Bill can move to Royal Assent, and those of us who care about the plight of animals can be assured that the end of the current Session is not the end of this vital Bill—and I apologise for the interruption from my phone.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I thank the Minister for his clear introduction to the amendments that have come forward from the Commons and for his explanation of the Government’s acceptance and the changes to the Bill.

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, will not be at all surprised when I say that I completely disagreed with absolutely everything he said. I think the debates we had in Committee and at Third Reading will have shown him exactly where I stand on the Bill and my support for animal welfare.

On these Benches, we very much welcome the Bill, which we believe will be important. It may not be perfect, but we will be very pleased to see it on the statute book. We are also very pleased that the Government earlier accepted the amendment to include decapod crustaceans and cephalopods; we believe that is an important addition to animal welfare sentience. I thank the Minister in particular for all his hard work on that particular area of the Bill.

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for her support on the Bill. We have done important cross-Bench work to get to this stage. I am fully aware that not all noble Lords agreed with us, particularly on the Benches opposite, but we have got the Bill to the place where we think it needs to be and it is good to see that it will move forward and provide more protection for animals in the future.

On the further government promises on animal welfare that we have yet to see, does the Minister have any kind of update on the situation is with the animals abroad Bill, which seems to have hit the buffers? Obviously, we are very pleased that the kept animals Bill has a carry-over Motion but it would be useful if he had any further information on that.

Finally, I give the Minister my very warm congratulations on becoming a grandfather, if that is true—will he confirm it?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Not yet.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

When it is true, it is absolutely delightful to be a grandparent—I highly recommend it to all noble Lords.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am very grateful to noble Lords for their somewhat premature congratulations. I am waiting for a call on that particular matter—which is not a matter of state.

I thank noble Lords for their contributions to today’s debate, which are very much in keeping with the very interesting and at times enthralling conversations we have had during the progress of the Bill. I had not expected to be standing here talking about it again but the Commons have made the right call, and I am glad that most noble Lords think that we have made the right call in accepting their amendments.

I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Trees, whose wisdom and understanding on this and other issues are of enormous value to me and to the department. I hope to continue to have discussions on this and other issues. He raised some important points. As he knows, the Bill is about the government policy-making process. It does not change existing law or impose any new restrictions on individuals or businesses. The Government would prefer all animals to be stunned before slaughter, but we respect the rights of Muslims and Jews to eat meat prepared in accordance with their religious beliefs. Strict rules are already in place which govern these slaughter methods. Official vets from the Food Standards Agency are present in approved slaughterhouses to monitor and enforce animal welfare requirements.

The noble Lord raised an important additional point about medical research. The use of animals in scientific research remains a vital tool in improving our understanding of how biological systems work in both health and disease. Such use is crucial for the development of new medicines and cutting-edge medical technologies. Central to any decision to use animals in research is the need for robust scientific evidence to justify the use of animals. As the noble Lord is well aware, the use of animals in science is regulated by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, which is implemented by the Home Office. His concerns are noted and have been passed on to my colleagues in the Home Office.

I am also extremely grateful to other noble Lords who spoke in this debate. My noble friend Lady McIntosh is right to make sure that what we are talking about is shared with our devolved colleagues. As was apparent during the progress of the Bill, Scotland already has a similar committee and others are either being formed or talked about. We regularly discuss this with our devolved colleagues to make sure that we are learning from the best from them, and they, I hope, are learning from us.

My noble friend is right to raise the issue of farmers. It is important for us to say that the vast majority of farmers are invested in the care of their animals. It makes economic sense for them, but they feel this personally, and the vast majority of farmers, who look after their animals to the highest standards of animal welfare, are wounded by those who do not. They want everyone to know that they are doing their best to care for their animals and for them to have the highest welfare standards of anywhere on this planet.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, contributed at many stages of the Bill and I thank her for it. I too share her wish that this will be an effective piece of legislation. Ministers will have at their call the best evidence they need to make the right decisions across government, not just in Defra. I hope that she will continue to take an interest in thism and I am sure that she will inform me if she thinks that we are in any way not being effective.

I very much enjoyed the discussions I had with my noble friend Lord Moylan. We delved into realms of philosophy at times, which is always fun, if testing on the Hansard scribes. My noble friend had a different opinion to me about the importance of the Bill, and I understand his concerns and those of my noble friends Lord Herbert, Lord Bellingham and others on our Benches. However, after the processes we went through, the Bill is better for their challenge. As a relative newcomer to the House, I recognise the value of being challenged and trying to make sure that we are doing the best we can.

My great thanks go to the two Front-Bench spokesmen from the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party, the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Lady Hayman of Ullock. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, raised a point about the other amendment, and she is absolutely right. Amendment 2 and the text it removes are both procedural formalities, but we must recognise that money-raising powers should remain in the other place.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, asked me about the animals abroad Bill. She would seem to have the better of me with knowledge that there is some possibility that it should not happen. That quite possibly means she is better informed than me because, as far as I am concerned, we can expect to see it—in the words that irritate most people on all Benches of this House—in the relatively near future.

I also thank my noble friend Lady Bloomfield, who has been an enormous support to me in taking this Bill through, and the Bill team, Katherine Yeşilirmak, Kalyani Franklin, Jack Darrant, Tess Hanneman, Hannah Edwins, Phoebe Harris and, from my private office, Lucy Skelton and Adam Diep.

This Bill provides recognition of animal sentience in UK law and will see Ministers held to account on considering the animal welfare implications of their decisions. These are both outcomes for which there is overwhelming public support. I look forward to seeing this Bill become law. I beg to move.