Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Grand Committee

With these assurances in mind, I hope my noble friends will feel content not to press their amendments.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

I have received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I have a quick question to ask the Minister. The cost of the committee will be very substantial indeed, with its wide-ranging remit across all government. If these amendments are passed, can he tell us exactly what would be saved in the costs of running the committee?

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[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I understand the question and apologise for missing it first time. No, I cannot give my noble friend that assurance, because the work programme and what the committee would look at will change from year to year as developing evidence about animal welfare takes it down different priority routes. The amendments would obviously quite dramatically restrict the ability of the committee to influence government policy, but I cannot put a monetary value on that. It would be part of the economic impact assessment, which would have to take place at a different stage in this process.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

I have also received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I want to follow up on the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, about ritual slaughter. We have been reading in the newspapers that, if this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament, it will become illegal to drop lobsters into boiling water to kill them. Is that one aspect of the thinking behind what the Government are doing? If that is the case, where does it leave pigs being slaughtered? They are highly intelligent animals and with a very high sense of smell. One might say that the slaughter of pigs does serious damage to them and to their feelings. I would just like to know where the Minister stands on this.

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Amendments 18 and 19 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 20.

Amendment 20

Moved by

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In the light of those remarks, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

I am moved to intervene briefly because the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said that the people want it—I think I quote her exactly. I think the people want animals to be well treated; I think that everyone in this Room wants them to be well treated, and we have pretty good legislation that already protects animals, both domestic and wild, from unnecessary cruelty and ill treatment. However, in my 23 years in the House of Commons—I know that the noble Baroness represented people in the London Assembly—I can certainly say that nobody mentioned animal sentience. They mentioned lots of animal welfare issues, but nobody mentioned animal sentience. I think they were about as concerned about animal sentience as about the divine right of kings, which the noble Baroness also mentioned. Although the noble Baroness cannot intervene, perhaps my noble friend the Minister might say how many people came to him when he was an MP and said they wanted an animal sentience Bill.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I think that I may be interrupted by a vote at some point so I will try to be quick, although I might not be.

I thank the Minister for his comments; I will read them in Hansard to make sure that I have understood fully where our interests overlap and where there is any divergence. I also thank all noble Lords who took part in the debate. I listened carefully to everybody. I know that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and the noble Lords, Lord Hamilton and Lord Mancroft, care deeply about these issues. Their views are valuable, but I found them quite repetitive. We have heard all this before. We have been told that the two committees will not clash and will have particular remits that will be extremely clear. I think that we perhaps underestimate the interest of both committees in terms of being able to understand where they might work together and where they absolutely must not because it is not relevant, so I do not have the same fears about any sort of overlapping.

I am happy that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, agree with the concept of policy in the round. The minute they started agreeing with me, I started to wonder whether I did not know what I was talking about, but I will look into that.

The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, is trying to tie the hands of the animal sentience committee. I just do not think that that is appropriate.

The noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, mentioned animal rights activists. This term has been thrown at me since we did round one of this Bill; perhaps he can tell me what he thinks he means by it in reference to me. He can always send me a private email if he would prefer.

I offer a big thank you to the noble Lord, Lord Trees, for his comments and to the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Hayman, for their support, which is incredibly valuable. They both made an excellent summary —much better than I did. I thank them for that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, talked about the committee being a critical friend, which is incredibly valuable and something that the Government do not have enough of. I would argue that your Lordships’ House is a critical friend, but we do not always have the same opportunities to support the Government when they change their mind.

The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, talked about the tsunami of people who wanted us to put animal sentience back into legislation. Of course, most people probably had not used that term before, but they certainly had once the Government had taken it out of the EU legislation that they moved over—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

I apologise to the noble Baroness but I must adjourn the Committee for five minutes.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Committee is resumed and I call the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

Finally, I thank the Minister for his simple explanation of how the two committees will work. That is incredibly useful, and I hope that it calms the fears of the noble Lords who have worried about that during the course of the Bill. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendments 21 to 27 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 28.

Amendment 28

Moved by