Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 13th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Herbert for taking the trouble to move his amendment today and giving us an opportunity to say a few words in the dying moments of the Bill. I also apologise to your Lordships for my failure to move my amendments last week on Report. As my noble friend on the Front Bench said, I was knocked over by Covid, but whether I jumped up like Lazarus I am not entirely sure. I think the reason that I am back so rapidly is that my wife was sick of having me about the house, but I am awfully glad to be back in your Lordships’ House anyway.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, just said, this Bill introduces the concept of sentience into English law for the first time, despite the fact that it has been the basis for 150 years of very sound animal welfare legislation, so you might wonder why we need to put it on the statute book today. I suggest we probably do not. It also sets up a new animal welfare committee—the animal sentience committee—despite the fact that we have three very good committees looking at animal welfare at the moment, each of which could have fulfilled the tasks set for this committee, so you might wonder why we want this.

As the noble Baroness also said, this is a revising Chamber, except that the Government have chosen to ignore all the suggestions made by Members of this House on all sides, as she said: the noble Lord, Lord Trees, whose knowledge of veterinary science can hardly be equalled; the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, who I do not think is in her place today, but who put forward some very important points; and the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, herself, on the other side of the House, who made very reasoned amendments and suggestions to this House—as everybody did—none of which were politically based at all.

I have done as much research as I can, and I believe that this is the first statutory committee set up by statute which has no statutory terms of reference. The Government recognised this when it was raised in Committee, and so between Committee and Report they introduced 27 pages of terms of reference for the committee that they propose to set up. But they are not statutory; they can be altered by any official or Minister at the stroke of a pen. They have absolutely no basis in law; they are effectively legislatively worthless.

The Government have argued throughout that this is a minor measure of very little significance—in which case, why have your Lordships been bothered with it for four long, paralysingly boring days? I do not think it is a measure of little significance. Like my noble friend Lord Herbert, I think it is a potentially very dangerous measure that will come back to bite this Government—or, more particularly, future Governments—as the years go by. This House will regret the fact that we have passed it without any amendment and have allowed ourselves to be rolled over.

There is little support for this measure on the Government Benches. I have looked very carefully, but I have seen very little support for it on the Opposition Benches. In fact, I have seen very little support for it anywhere except on the Front Benches, where a rather unsavoury deal has been stitched up to allow this to go to the other place without a single amendment, despite the care and attention which your Lordships have given the Bill. It is the tradition in this House that we send Bills to the other place with good will; we wish them a fair wind. I do not wish this Bill a fair wind. I hope the other place does the duty that we should have done and changes it very considerably or, better still, destroys it completely. Failing that, I hope that a sensible Secretary of State in future fails to enact it.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, support what my noble friend Lord Herbert said. I underline a point made by my noble friend Lord Mancroft. This sets a parliamentary precedent in the appointment of statutory committees which could have huge ramifications for future Bills. The Government will be able to say that we do not need to set out the statutory terms of reference for the committee because we already have the precedent of this Bill.

I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Benyon has had to take this Bill through the House. It should have been another Minister. My noble friend was absolutely right when he said that he has had to drive it through the House. He has not looked right; he has not looked straight ahead. He has looked left. He rightly paid tribute to his co-driver, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock.

Finally, I am disappointed that I have not yet received a reply from my noble friend to the questions I posed on Report. I hope that he will expedite those.

[Lord Etherton (CB)]

My Lords, I, also, support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Herbert. Even at this late stage, it is worth emphasising that the absence of any restriction on the purview of the sentience committee will mean that no recreational activity, cultural tradition, regional heritage or religious rite—in its practice or observance—is safe from scrutiny by the committee.

In Committee, the Minister was good enough to give some reassurances about the long-standing practices of religious slaughter in this country going back hundreds of years. The trouble is that the only policy that has been disclosed means that it will be open to any future Secretary of State, Minister or future Government to take a different view. Unlike under the Lisbon treaty, there is absolutely nothing to restrain them from doing so.

As I said on Report, if the Government decided not to follow a recommendation from the sentience committee on contentious issues relating to animal welfare, it would inevitably give rise to the potential for judicial review and challenge. You cannot stop people bringing a judicial review. The Government may be confident that they would win, but these will not be straightforward matters. One will have to consider whether the sentience committee has acted within its statutory rights, whether or not the evidence sufficiently supports what the committee recommends and whether the Government have sufficient other factors which outweigh the recommendation of the committee. I agree that this Bill is going to come back to bite badly.