Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment came to me when we were discussing the Environment Bill last week. I know that it is not drafted as well as it should be; I apologise to the Committee for that. I say to my noble friend the Minister, “Forget about the drafting. It is the principle of what I am trying to get at that is important here”.

Most of our conservation work to improve our biodiversity and wealth of species has been habitat-based. It has not been very successful because when we were in the European Union, and since our exit, the Government have not focused on the critical issue of management. Management requires human decision. There are some fairly easy examples to make about species and how people will react to them, but when you look at pests, people’s opinions start to vary and that perception could be translated into legislation. That is my concern here. Take deer, for instance. You can have lots of photographs and everybody will look at Bambi and ooh and ah, but deer are a pest that need to be controlled. We discussed this in the Environment Bill and there seemed to be unanimity there. It would be an easy species for a committee to make an emotional, rather than scientific, decision on.

One can get into more questionable species. What about rats and wasps? If you analyse what people think about them, they have less feeling for them and are much more prepared to allow proper pest control of those species than they are of some others. That is why local authorities have pest divisions that deal with wasps—I have had to use them—mice and rats. What about bedbugs? Until recently, they were fairly common in this country, and in lots of places they are sadly still common. People’s perception of a bedbug is not the same as their perception of deer or seals. We need to have a scientific basis on which to approach this matter.

We could turn to brown hares. Brown hares are on our biodiversity action plan and are rated an important species but, at certain times of the year, in certain parts of the UK, the hare is a pest, and there needs to be the ability to control it. The ability to control pests in the most humane manner possible was a great omission from the badger Act, and we are paying the price for that with the increasing amount of predation of ground-nesting birds by badgers. We have seen it with lapwings and curlews. I have given examples in the environment committee of the destruction of lapwing at the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust farm up in Aberdeenshire, where the badgers have actually been photographed destroying the nests and reducing species as a result.

During debates on the Environment Bill, we came across the conservation covenants. These will be an important part of the Government’s policy on improving our biodiversity and species number, but, again, action needs to be taken with management in view, not just the habitat.

So, what I am getting at with this amendment is whether the Minister, when he gives the brief to this Committee, will include management and pest control as an important aspect for the animal sentience committee to take into account so that the policies it comments on and the position it urges the Government to take do not contradict with the Government’s well-intentioned position on conservation, biodiversity, crop production and human health.

I have talked mostly about conservation and biodiversity, but I would like to give an example that was raised during the debate on the Environment Bill by my noble friend Lord Lucas, again on deer. It was about a wood that the RSPB looked after in Dorset. The RSPB got round the problem of the deer by fencing that bit of wood so that the deer were no longer a problem. However, that forced the deer on to the neighbour’s land —this is pretty bad management—and the devastation of the crops growing on the adjacent farmland was much more intense because the deer were not allowed into that bit of woodland.

As usual, there is a balance to be struck in all this. I hope that my noble friend will be able to make some comments on this. I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity given by my noble friend Lord Caithness in moving his Amendment 35A to probe my noble friend the Minister and the Government a little bit more on the cross-departmental responsibilities of the animal sentience committee. I also want to explore what the relationship will be within Defra and the relationship between existing legislation and soon-to-be legislation in the form of the Agriculture Act and the Environment Bill, the latter of which my noble friend Lord Caithness referred to. We spent some time in the first day of Committee on the amendments looking at pests—particularly deer, badgers, bats, grey squirrels and insects—and sentience. It begs the question: are insects to be treated as sentient beings within the remit of this Bill?