Fly-Grazing of Horses

David Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing the debate and the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) on his contribution. This is a huge issue of not only welfare—bordering on criminality—but antisocial behaviour. We need to look at both aspects if we are to come up with a solution.

I first came to terms with the subject when a constituent came to me in despair, having found a number of horses in a field that she owned and been told by the local authority that there was nothing she could do to remove the horses; that there was no way of identifying whose they were; and, what was more, that she was now liable for the welfare of the animals, with third-party liability should anyone be injured crossing her land on which the horses now resided. She was quite rightly extremely upset that that should be the case. I looked into it further and found that it was not an isolated problem, even in my own area—I was told, anecdotally, that one gentleman owns 80 horses, but not one square foot of land on which to graze them, so was using everyone else’s land—and throughout the country.

As has been suggested, the situation has been exacerbated by what to some extent has been a crisis in horse ownership. The recent difficulties in the economy have meant that an awful lot of people who bought horses with the firm intention of looking after them properly now find that they are unable to do so, so a lot more horses and ponies are either abandoned or sold cheaply than would normally be the case. Had I any doubts about that, they would have been dispelled by visiting the Glenda Spooner farm in my constituency, in Kingsdon, near Somerton. It is run by World Horse Welfare, which has already been mentioned and does a superb job of looking after abandoned animals and getting them back into shape so that they can be rehomed. I applaud its work.

I was trying to address the issue when I was in the Minister’s position, and it is not without its complications—I will not pretend otherwise. It boils down to a number of clear areas in which the Government could perhaps have an effect. First, on intervention, the Government can help to prevent animals from entering the stream, as it were, by supporting horse charities and perhaps by considering what they can do directly to help people who get into difficulties to find a new home for their horses.

Secondly—a lot of the debate will be about this—there is the possibility of new powers. I discussed that at length with the Home Office, which assured me many times that the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill would be capable of remedying the nuisance. Potentially it will be, through the injunctions in the Bill and community protection orders, but we need guidance to be issued to local authorities and others as to how they can use the powers in the Bill to provide help in the area we are discussing. I hope the Minister will help me with that. Failing that, we need to look at the Welsh proposals. I spoke to Alun Davies, the Minister in Wales, some months ago about the subject, because I knew that he was working on his proposals. What is being suggested in Wales—providing a range of disposals to local authorities and others—seems to have an awful lot of merit.

Thirdly, I want us to consider liability, which I remember discussing many years ago during consideration of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, when it became clear that people had an absolute liability for animals on their land. That cannot be right. If it is not their animal, they did not ask for it to be there and they do not want it to be there, how on earth can they be liable for its actions? Yet that is the situation in law.

Lastly, we need to deal with identification. Microchipping needs to be enforced, of course, but that applies only to horses under four years old. There is a misconception about the national equine database, which was abolished by my predecessor, in that it did not provide traceability. We need a hugely better passporting system that ensures that we can trace a horse back to its owner. Serious discussion was going on with the Irish and French Governments on the issue, and I wonder whether the Minister can bring us up to date on where precisely we are.

I wish to raise a final, not uncontroversial, issue, which I remember discussing with the Irish Agriculture Minister, Simon Coveney. I am not betraying any confidence, because he has since discussed it with his Select Committee in the Dail, but he told me about the possibility of widening hugely the euthanising of horses in the Republic of Ireland, because of the overpopulation. We have to give serious consideration to that. No one wants to kill horses, any more than anything else, but if we have huge overpopulation, we will never get to grips with the welfare issues. We first have to reduce the population, bringing it back to the sort of level where we can find enough good, careful and sensible owners to look after the horses.