Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [Lords]

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

While we will vote for the Bill, it feels like a missed opportunity. It is clear that, while the Government talk a lot about the great work they say they are doing on animal welfare, the reality is they need to be more comprehensive, and they need to go much further and much faster. This Bill may well be a start, but it cannot be the end.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I will speak to amendment 2, in my name and those of 30-odd colleagues.

The problem with the Bill is that it goes beyond the commitment made by Ministers to recognise animal sentience in British law in the same way that it is recognised in European Union law. My amendment is designed to ensure that the safeguards of the EU law are duplicated in British law. Currently, those safeguards are not in the Bill, as was the original ask of the animal welfare lobby.

It seems to me that we should have a bit of equivalence here. If this committee is set up by statute, its remit should also be defined by statute. I therefore ask the Government seriously to consider accepting my amendment as a sensible, fairly minor, but nevertheless important amendment to the remit of the committee, which recognises local customs,

“religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage”.

That seems to me a perfectly reasonable thing to do. With these few words, I strongly urge my hon. Friend the Minister to see whether she cannot, on behalf of the Government, accept my amendment.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I will speak in favour of new clause 5, which would ensure an annual report including,

“the number of sentient animals killed or injured”,

as a result of pollution, a description of water companies’ actions to protect animals and an assessment of the impact of Government policy on those two things. I will also speak briefly in favour of new clause 6, which we do not intend to push to a vote, which would establish an annual report into the ways the Government have taken into account animal sentience when establishing new trade deals.

Turning to new clause 5, Cumbria contains two national parks, the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District, the latter being a world heritage site. The richness of our biodiversity throughout Cumbria is of great importance, not least in our rivers and lakes, whose ecology is of global significance as home to countless species. Yet Government policy threatens that diversity and damages animal welfare. In 2020, across the United Kingdom, water companies were permitted to dump raw sewage into our waterways on 400,000 occasions for a total of 3.l million hours, at enormous cost to the lives of aquatic and semi-aquatic sentient animals. At the River Lune near Sedbergh, we saw the longest discharge in the country lasting for 8,490 hours. At Derwentwater, a discharge of 8,275 hours took place. Is it any wonder that only 14 % of Britain’s rivers are classed as being in a “good” state?

The Government’s Environment Act 2021 acknowledges the problem and sets an ambition to reduce the pollution in our rivers caused by the dumping of raw sewage. Of course, as we all know, the Government had to be dragged kicking and screaming by Opposition Members, their own Back Benchers and members of another place to even do that.

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[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate. It has been interesting to listen to hon. Members on both sides. I would argue that the Government have probably got the Bill about right, for the simple reason that Opposition Members are saying that it does not go far enough and Conservative Members are perhaps saying that it goes plenty far enough.

This legislation is better than the previous version because it will not be taken to judicial review. In about 2018, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee looked at the Bill as it was then and rightly decided, having taken legal advice and advice from others, that many of the actions that could take place could be judicial-reviewed and land up in the courts. There could have been a situation where much of our animal welfare was judged in the courts, rather than here in Parliament. Instead, it creates a committee that is put in place by the Secretary of State and then has to present a report to them. He or she will then make a decision about which route the Government will take on animal welfare. I believe that that is the right situation.

I support the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). We have argued many times in this Chamber, and I even argued in the European Parliament, that European legislation often had no flexibility about it. On this occasion, of course, it did have flexibility when bringing animal welfare legislation forward. As we brought legislation over as a result of Brexit, however, we did not include those clauses, which is why we are in this predicament. I have real sympathy for the Minister because she is dealing with an interesting situation: she is trying to balance the needs of animal welfare with the perceived needs of animal rights. That is the issue.

It is interesting that, in tonight’s debate, we have talked all about DEFRA. Much of it is about DEFRA, but we must remember that the Animal Sentience Committee will deal with the whole of Government. So when someone is building a bypass or building houses, the effect of all those issues on sentience will be considered. I admit that I am still interested to know how the committee will deal with all that. How will the Secretary of State for Transport or the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities deal with it? It will have a big job to do.

If the committee is set up in the right way with the right people on it, so that they can make a judgment about what is right in practical terms for animal welfare, it can work, but it is very much about how it is set up, who the chair is and who the members are. We must ensure that we have a balance of opinions so that, with the right methods of building, we can build our roads and our homes and we can carry on farming in our traditional ways.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

To the point that my hon. Friend has rightly made about the cross-cutting nature of the Bill across Government Departments, I quite like that. For example, the Department for Education might educate people on how to look after pets properly. There are many useful areas where the Bill could have a role.

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[Jim Shannon]

It is a joy to follow the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson). He set out comprehensively what he hopes the Bill will achieve. He also outlined some things that need to be done, but on which we are perhaps not there yet. I put that on the record. I am pleased, as I always am, to see the Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food, the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) in her place. I know that both she and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) will respond to our concerns.

The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food has responded to a number of debates I have attended on puppy smuggling, an issue I feel incredibly strongly about. The steps the Government are taking tonight will be very helpful in tackling that issue. The intention is clearly to tighten the requirements of the pet travel scheme to tackle this very cruel trade. The hon. Gentleman and others referred to increasing the age at which a puppy can enter the country, as well as banning the importation of dogs with cropped ears and heavily pregnant dogs. Those measures are vital. However, I am aware that the Dogs Trust is calling on the Government and the Minister to introduce visual checks to ensure that that good work will not be in vain, and to put a stop to puppy smuggling once and for all. I seek reassurance from the Minister that the Bill will achieve that. I hope we can achieve that, but if we cannot, what will be done to ensure that it can be stopped and to ensure that the Bill contains the correct protocol for carrying out the law?

In conversations I have had with the Minister, through debates in Westminster Hall and in this Chamber, one of my concerns has been about working alongside the Republic of Ireland and its legislation. Northern Ireland, of course, has a border with the Republic of Ireland, so it is important to get that right in relation to puppy smuggling. In the past, the Minister has reassured me on that point. Perhaps she could confirm that on the record.

Northern Ireland has led the way on microchipping dogs and cats. Indeed, in Northern Ireland we are doing many things on animal sentience. Dogs are more than a cosmetic piece for show, whenever you go somewhere. Dogs have always been incredibly important to me—all my life, I have always had a dog. I see dogs mostly as hunting dogs. I am very pleased to be a fully involved member of the sporting community, as are many Conservative Members. In particular, I commend the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for the hard work he has done with the Minister to deal with some of tonight’s issues. It is good to see that in place.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I use this intervention to inform the House that my constituent has brought 55 different databases to produce one horse database, with all the biological markings of horses on it. He is working—and I am working with him—with senior civil servants in DEFRA to produce a similar database for dogs and cats. As a further refinement, there are some rogues out there who remove microchips from dogs and put in a substitute microchip. I am working with the police to put the DNA that forces like my own collect into the database so that we can see when microchips have been removed and replaced.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and he is right in what he says. A lot of dogs have been stolen during the covid period and having microchips in place was one method of trying to find out where they had ended up. He has referred to one methodology to make sure we can improve the system, which is what he is committed to. I hope that tonight we can see more of that improvement happening.

This legislation is mostly UK-based and England-based. Like the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), and indeed the Minister, I am keen to see steps in the right direction on water quality. I very much welcome the stance we have taken in this House on fur and foie gras. Like others, I seek the Minister’s assurance that we have a duty to prevent the importation of fur and foie gras. Will she confirm whether that is something that could rightly be achieved in this Bill? If it is not, what forthcoming legislation could address it? I, for one, agree with the comments on this of the hon. Members for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), among others. I am probably a plain eater, but the general public out there are probably very much opposed to those two things.

The hon. Member for Penrith and The Border referred to the issue of food quality, and it is important to have that in place.

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[Jo Churchill]

I would make two points. First, the hon. Member is presupposing that there will not be members of those devolved authorities on the committee. If people hold the most appropriate expertise, they may be there as a full member, or they may be co-opted in to look at a particular area of reference. There are other mechanisms that we always use in this place to hold the Minister to account. The Minister is bound to report to this place within three months of parliamentary sitting time. All the mechanisms will be in place, as well as those behind the scenes where we talk to devolved Ministers and so on, to make sure that things are raised in the appropriate way.

Amendment 2, which is in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), would require the committee’s recommendations to respect religious rights, cultural traditions and regional heritage. We have heard the strength of feeling on this matter both here and in the other place, and I assure him that we have listened and decided to support the amendment.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I thank my hon. Friend for her careful consideration of my amendment. I think it is a sensible, proportionate amendment that will allow a committee with limited resources to focus on those really egregious areas where animal sentience is being abused, and not run into some of the less important areas. I thank her for accepting the amendment, and I thank all my hon. Friends who supported and signed it.

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

rose—