Animals (Low Welfare Activities Abroad) Bill

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 17th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

Many Members want to contribute, so I will not speak at length.

I thoroughly welcome this Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson), and I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for the personal passion with which she deals with this issue. As has already been said, the British people are animal lovers: this is a country that has a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals but only a National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which tells us everything we need to know.

An important point arose during our earlier debate on the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith). There are still advertisements out there showing what is effectively a price list for animal cruelty, which I find staggering in this day and age. Sadly the days when we could legislate for other countries are long gone, but, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), we can make a stand. I think it important for us to send a signal that our British values where animals are concerned are core to our identity, and that we will not stand for this kind of cruelty.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

What recent progress he has made on establishing the Office for Environmental Protection.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

What recent progress he has made on establishing the Office for Environmental Protection.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

Now that we have left the European Union, we have the opportunity to do things better. We will innovate and improve our environmental and agricultural standards, enabling us to identify where we can deliver better environmental outcomes more effectively and in ways that better align with our regulatory systems.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The interim OEP will be able to produce an independent assessment of the Government’s progress towards their 25-year environment plan and receive complaints about failures of public authorities to comply with environmental law. It will take decisions on operational matters such as recruitment, accommodation and facilities; develop the OEP strategy, including its enforcement policy; and determine approaches to how the OEP will form and operate.

[Chris Clarkson]

May I associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson)? I am a fellow Greater Manchester MP, and my constituents in Heywood and Middleton also put a very high premium on our natural environment, especially as we are in a city region. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to implement the measures in the Environment Bill ahead of Royal Assent?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Although the timetable for the Environment Bill has slipped by a few months, we are working at pace to implement the policies and measures behind it. We have announced Dame Glenys Stacey as the chair of the OEP and Worcester as its HQ, and it will launch on an interim basis in July. We are also progressing work on developing targets. We have already published a policy paper and set up working groups, and we are developing proposals for a consultation. We will launch further consultations on a raft of measures to be brought forward under the Environment Bill, including relating to packaging and waste collection reforms.

National Tree Strategy

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone? I will not use the full nine minutes.

I thank the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for securing this debate and for an extremely thoughtful speech. I am glad he touched on the Northern forest, as that is what I intend to talk about. As a proud Lancastrian, that is the highest praise I can give to a Yorkshire MP.

As some Members know, I like trees. In fact, my first ten-minute rule Bill called for all future housing developments to have tree-lined streets. I was particularly pleased when the Government adopted that proposal as part of the new planning regulations, and so, with a 100% success rate, I have not introduced any since. That particular endeavour led Quentin Letts to compare me to Basil Fotherington-Tomas, which caused some amusement in the Tea Room, but, given the other nickname I recently acquired courtesy of the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), I will take it.

My dendrological exuberance does not just extend to planning. The UK’s horticulture sector is worth £24 billion and supports more than 560,000 jobs. Not only will it play a vital role in aiding our ambition to reach net zero by 2050; it will play an important part in our national recovery from covid-19. The Government’s ambition to recognise the importance of trees through a national tree strategy is a part of this.

I recently contributed to an article in the Conservative Environment Network’s net zero northern powerhouse series, setting out the importance of the Northern forest. It has never been more necessary to secure a future for generations to come and it is essential that policies and practices are put in place to protect trees and woods, to safeguard and buffer ancient woodlands and to stimulate new planting.

In November 2018, the first tree of the Northern forest was planted down the road from my Heywood and Middleton constituency in Radcliffe, where the planting of 200 saplings began as part of the Government’s £5.7 million investment. The Woodland Trust and the partnership behind the Northern forest estimate that it will cost about £500 million to develop it by planting 50 million trees over 25 years, trebling the current planting rate across the area. As an area, we have less than 8% tree coverage—one of the lowest in the country—so it is ideal territory for a new forest. As a major infrastructure project, it is predicted to generate about £2.5 billion of social, economic and environmental benefits.

The presence of trees and other greenery in our environment has a discernible effect on the physical and mental wellbeing of us all, as well as being responsible for cleaner air and playing a role in addressing climate change. As someone who lives in a flat, I say to the hon. Member for Barnsley Central that he is absolutely right that those parks were essential during lockdown.

Local authorities in Greater Manchester, Northumberland and Cumbria were selected by the Government in August to help kickstart nature’s recovery on a countrywide scale. As part of this, our combined authority in Greater Manchester will receive about £1 million of funding to set up a pilot study for a local nature recovery strategy, in conjunction with Natural England. This will kickstart the green recovery with practical and locally-led solutions, bringing a broad range of groups together to identify the green priorities for restoring nature. Our City of Trees will become a beacon for this important work. We should also encourage companies to align their own strategy for zero carbon with the opportunity that planting trees offers to offset emissions. If, as is predicted, the Northern forest offsets around 7 million tonnes of carbon once planted, it could really help make a dent in a corporation’s carbon footprint.

With an environmentally sensitive approach, planting the right trees in the right areas and ensuring that these are maintained as part of an ambitious long-term arboricultural strategy that is fixed on our 2050 goal, we should return around 30% of our country to nature in our lifetimes. In that way we can become, in the words of the Latin playwright Caecilius Statius,

“Serit arbores quae alteri saeclo prosint”—

those who plant trees for future generations.

Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 23rd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend, I support a strong legislative framework and good laws, having attended the same university as him, the University of Dundee—Queen’s College as was. Does he agree that the Bill still represents a step-change in the way that we treat animal welfare in this country and that any improvement in the sentencing framework has to be a positive thing?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Obviously, I accept that raising the maximum penalty from six months to five years is quite a dramatic change, although it is significant, as is clear from the notes, that the Government could have doubled it from six months to one year if they had implemented section 281(5) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. That could have been done years ago. It still has not been done and perhaps the Minister will address that issue in her remarks.

I am not suggesting that the Bill is not better than nothing, but I am suggesting that it is being used to suggest that there will be a lot more people sent to prison as a result, and the reality of the policy is that there will not be any more people sent to prison, but that those who are sent to prison will be sent for longer periods. That is what it says here. That will be very welcome and the increase in the maximum penalties will be part of the deterrent process, but how many more people will be sent to prison? We know that they say the cost will be £500,000 per annum. As it costs about £45,000 a year to keep somebody in prison, we are talking about between 10 and 12 persons in prison per annum as a result of the Bill.

[Chris Clarkson]

I thank my hon. Friend for indulging me a second time. To use the technical legal term, I believe the best way to see whether that would actually happen is to “suck it and see”. I have some sympathy for what he says about a legislative impact assessment. If he wants to bring forward a private Member’s Bill on that, I would be inclined to speak to it.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Well, that is another one on the agenda for the next Session of Parliament, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I will just conclude by saying that there is another element to this: the Sentencing Council guidelines for dealing with animal welfare offences. They say that a period of imprisonment should be merited only in the most serious offences. My concern about the Sentencing Council guidelines—perhaps the Minister could address this, too—is that they constrain the ability of magistrates in particular to impose the penalty that they think is appropriate, having regard to all the circumstances. If this House decides, as it wants to do today, to impose a maximum sentence of five years, is it reasonable for the unaccounted people who deal with the sentencing guidelines to bring in guidelines that suggest that there should not be many penalties of five years imposed by the Crown courts? So we have a real problem: the legislature has ceded control, or a significant part of control, over sentencing to the Sentencing Council.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on introducing this important Bill. As a fourth-generation farmer’s son and a lifelong advocate for animal welfare, I do not believe that the Bill could have found itself a better champion, and neither could Poppy.

I strongly agree with colleagues who have articulated the view that more stringent sentencing will act as a greater deterrent against animal cruelty. The maximum five-year sentence will become one of the toughest punishments in the world, bringing us in line with countries such as Canada, New Zealand, Ireland and India, and will further enhance the United Kingdom’s reputation as a world leader in animal welfare—a badge that we should wear with pride. My hon. Friends the Members for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson) have articulated the link between animal abuse and domestic abuse and violence. It is important to bear it in mind that in supporting this Bill we could also be stopping that behaviour in the future.

We are a nation that is proud of being known for our affection for animals. I assure my hon. Friends that the Bill has my full support and, judging from my inbox, that of my constituents in Heywood and Middleton. They are clear that there is no place in our society for cruelty to animals, and those who choose to inflict terror on animals should be met with the full force of the law. It was a great shock to me—this has been referred to by many other hon. Members, but I believe it worth repeating—that in 2019 the RSPCA investigated more than 130,000 complaints of cruelty to animals and secured only 1,678 convictions.

This Bill sends a clear message that the inhumane treatment of animals has no place in a civilised society. It builds on the excellent measures introduced in the Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Act 2019, which made it an offence to cause unnecessary suffering to service animals, and addresses the concerns raised by the Finn’s law campaign. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) pointed out that this is an urgent matter for his constituents; it is an urgent matter for mine in Heywood and Middleton, as evidenced by the amount of biro on what was a very long speech.

One of the earliest proponents of animal rights, Jeremy Bentham, said that

“the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”

Ending the cruel and inhumane suffering of animals must surely be one of the yardsticks by which we judge the civility of our nation. I believe that the Bill goes some considerable way to achieving that goal.