Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Bill

Christopher Chope Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

This is a potentially useful Bill, but my concern is that it does not specify exactly what is going to be done. In introducing the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson) referred repeatedly to the plight of Asian elephants. When the Government introduced their action plan for animal welfare in May 2021, they said:

“We will legislate to ban the advertising and offering for sale here of specific, unacceptable practices abroad.”

With the exception of the reference to Asian elephants, we do not know what those “specific, unacceptable practices abroad” are, the advertising of which will be banned under the Bill. There should be a lot more specificity on the face of the Bill.

At the moment, the Bill could cover any matter that is already illegal under UK legislation or legislation in the devolved Administrations. For example, on the basis of its current wording, it could outlaw the advertising or promotion of hunting wild animals abroad, essentially trying to give extraterritorial application to our hunting legislation. If that is the intention of the Bill, then that should be spelled out openly, instead of being hidden away in the Bill’s regulation-making powers.

My main point concerns an omission. The Bill is based on the Government’s commitment to improving animal welfare—who could be against that? However, there remains a gap in that programme: the prevalence of the use of non-stun slaughter for animals in this country. I declare an interest as my daughter is a vet. The British Veterinary Association and the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, of which I think you are a patron, Mr Deputy Speaker, are at the forefront of trying to ensure that the non-stun method of slaughtering livestock is removed, or certainly mitigated, so that it is done only when there is strict evidence that it is necessary for religious purposes.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. Whatever private sympathies I may have with what the hon. Gentleman says, he has been in the House almost as long as I have, which is long enough to know that he has to talk about what is in the Bill and not what is not in it. He is stretching a point, if I may say so.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Mr Deputy Speaker, we are both looking forward to celebrating, in June, the 40th anniversary of our first being elected to this House. Unlike me, you have been here continuously since then. Obviously, those missing years have impacted on my failure to follow the procedures today.

On Second Reading, one is entitled to look at things that are not included in the Bill. What I seek to find out from my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford is how this Bill will apply to what we know is already going on within our own country, where the non-stunned slaughter of animals can take place. It does not take place in Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland, but it does take place in England. Could this Bill create a situation where we would be able to outlaw the advertising of hunting trips abroad but we would not be able to take action if in Northern Ireland or Wales an attempt was made to ensure that the same rules for the slaughter of animals through not being stunned in advance were applied?

There is a potentially a big gap in this Bill and I hope that for that reason when it gets into Committee we will have a chance to look at these issues in more detail. I hope we will be able to find out a bit more about why the Government have said that they were going to act in relation to the non-stunned animals being slaughtered, and the fact that a large proportion of all halal meat is actually already pre-stunned but a lot of the non-stunned meat is going to places that are not part of the religious community. I look forward to being able to discuss those issues in Committee or on Report if this Bill gets its Second Reading, as I hope it does.

--- Later in debate ---

[Trudy Harrison]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I will take the Bill through its legislative stages. I reassure him that I understand that that would be beneficial and that I will meet him and look into that with my officials before we go to Committee.

It is clear that the British public do not accept low animal welfare standards. The recent poll conducted by World Animal Protection revealed that 81% of UK respondents agreed that countries should stop the commercial exploitation of wild animals. In the same poll, 85% of respondents believed that wild animals had the right to a wild life.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Does the Minister think that the provisions in the Bill could cover, for example, people who go whale watching in South Africa?

[Trudy Harrison]

To give a very brief answer to a very brief question, my first instinct is, absolutely not because people watch whales in their natural environment behaving in a natural way. The problem comes when we force wild animals to behave unnaturally in captive environments for our benefit up close and personal. As far as I understand it, that is not what my hon. Friend was referring to.

There is no specific reference to Asian elephants in the Bill, but we anticipate they will be covered under the Bill. Alongside the general support for the measures in the Bill, there is particularly strong support for Government intervention in relation to low-welfare activities involving Asian elephants. Asian elephants often undergo brutal training to break them in and make it safe for them to be in the vicinity of tourists. Methods include being chained up for long periods without access to food or water and being beaten with bullhooks to gain compliance. Elephants are often forced into unnatural activities, such as playing football, painting and tourist rides. As Members will have heard last Tuesday in the Adjournment debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), Asian elephant rides, performances and experiences are often a popular choice with tourists abroad.

In closing, I thank everyone on all sides of the House for their contributions, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford. She has not just led on the Bill but has had a very busy morning contributing to every single debate, representing her constituents extremely well indeed.