Draft Humane Trapping Standards Regulations 2019

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 General Committees

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I am delighted that the Minister is in her place. Happy Christmas to everybody—it may not be so happy when I finish, but let us start as we mean to go on.

This is an interesting piece of secondary legislation. It is the sort of thing that could pass through on the nod without people taking much notice, because in a sense it is just doing what was agreed some time ago with the EU. Why has it taken quite so long to get here? It was laid down in 2016, and the original agreement dates back to 1997. I am a little intrigued about why, within three months of our potentially leaving the EU, we have this piece of secondary legislation now. I have always thought that the idea of humane trapping is an oxymoron, but I will pass over that quickly.

I want to raise a number of issues. Clause 108(1) in the Government’s excellent draft legislation to replace the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 is about the prohibition of leg-hold traps:

“It is an offence to use a leghold trap for or in connection with the purpose of killing, injuring or capturing a wild bird or other wild animal.”

The Government are clear that they want to outlaw these things. It is disappointing that the primary legislation has not been introduced, which would mean at least that we had clarity. The Minister will have to answer this: should we reject this legislation, would it make any difference? We have an indication that the Government want to outlaw leg-hold traps when they introduce the primary legislation.

Are we putting ourselves in jeopardy as regards the international agreement? Clearly, this is one agreement that we will, supposedly, have to renegotiate: it is between the EU, Russia and Canada, not the UK. The Minister will have to persuade me that we have some clarity on how we will go about doing that—otherwise, why are we all here today? We could have left it until after March and done our own thing in due course.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich might have some other things to say about the consultation, because he pointed it out to me. The consultation was a bit one-sided: respondents included every estate that can be imagined and only a very small number of animal welfare organisations. In the main, they shrugged and said, “Well, if it’s coming, it’s coming,” but they were not overjoyed at some of the proposals.

I draw the Minister’s attention to the accompanying impact assessment, which I thought was the most interesting document of the lot. On page 11, on currently approved spring traps that are rarely used and not compliant, it says:

“We should be restricting the continued use of non-compliant traps to the minimum necessary to enable the continued trapping of stoats”—

as the Minister rightly said, the regulations are mainly about stoats—

“prior to implementation. The remaining traps approved for stoat have been out of production for some time and are not used in meaningful numbers to trap any permitted target species.”

Out-of-date traps are therefore still being used—presumably, to trap stoats—yet we currently have no real intention of outlawing them, even if we pass the SI. If we are not outlawing, to some extent, these traps, what are we doing today?

Page 16 of the impact assessment says:

“There is significant evidence that the public value animal welfare”—

there’s a surprise. It goes on:

“Research by the University of Reading…conducted a small survey on animal welfare.”

That research found that 96% of respondents thought that animal welfare was a very good thing—I do not know about the other 4%; there always people who are contrary to the public will—and were prepared to pay extra for animal welfare to be put in place. I am not sure how that relates to the trapping of wild animals, but in my view we need animal welfare to be in line with not just the letter of the law, but the practicalities of how animals are treated.

Obviously, any trap in which an animal is kept for only five minutes can do limited damage. Nothing that I have read, however, says that the traps are time limited: an animal can be trapped for days, during which time it dies, yet that trap is apparently treated in exactly the same way.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

I am confused by that statement, because it is illegal for a gamekeeper not to check traps every 24 hours, so an animal could not legally be left in any trap for any length of time. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

[Dr Drew]

That is what happens in theory, but of course other people put traps down for slightly nefarious reasons. Yes, I know that gamekeepers have a strict way of doing things, and I accept that the regulations relate largely to gamekeepers. Within current law, however, others can trap and catch wild animals. On the one hand, we are trying to reintroduce stoats into certain parts of the country—sadly, their numbers are very small, despite being one of our native species—and on the other, we are trapping stoats in other parts of the country. That is just an observation.

Before I sit down, I will make a couple of other points. There is a real lack of clarity about why the regulations are being introduced now and what their impact will be. I mentioned the time limits for keeping an eye on caught animals, but there is no mention of animals caught by accident. Clearly, with any trap, any animal—dare I say, even a human being—can put its foot on a trap. Some ask whether that is an appropriate way to manage our wildlife.

The League Against Cruel Sports has been critical of the continuation of trapping generally, and, in particular, of the way that the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards operates. It wants greater clarification on how we intend to move forward—we are talking about a new traps regime. I am not totally sure who pays the £1.7 million cost of providing the new traps. Is it the industry, or are the Government prepared to put some money where their mouth is?

Perhaps alternative ideas could have been explored and brought forward. There are a number of questions. Where are the Government going with their animal welfare legislation? No doubt this issue would have been wrapped up with the animal welfare Bill if we had got it to the stage of being debated, in which case we would not have had to have this debate at all. Since we are having it, if the Opposition were to vote against it, would that put us in any international jeopardy or can we do our own thing, when appropriate, after March—if that is when we have some freedom—and adopt even higher standards of animal welfare? That could include looking at alternatives to trapping. Trapping is a very difficult exercise and we will always check to see that it is done in the most humane way possible. That is the whole point about this legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Drew]

That is why there are two of us!

[Dr Coffey]

There is only one of me here.

The House is passionate about improving welfare standards. One of the slight risks of our leaving the European Union is that we have been at the forefront of promoting high animal welfare standards across the EU, and we will continue to do so. I am on my way to the Environment Council tonight, and I will continue to encourage my friends from other nations to keep up the good practice that we wish to set in place.

As I said earlier, the regulations do not have anything to do with the policy of trapping; they are about raising welfare standards for the policies currently in existence. I hope that the Opposition will support the regulations; I would be somewhat surprised if they were happy for animal welfare standards not to be so high in future. I am sure they recognise that.

Question put and agreed to.