Wild Animals in Circuses (No. 2) Bill

George Eustice Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I support the Bill, not least because, as a Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I spoke in favour of such a Bill on many occasions. As a number of Members have pointed out, it has been on the agenda for some time—it was a manifesto commitment in both 2015 and 2017—and, as the Minister said, the existing licensing regulations will expire in 2020, so it is necessary to ensure that we have something with which to replace them.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, of which I was a member before I became a Minister, examined this issue in some detail. At that point, the committee proposed a slightly different approach to dealing with this challenge. It proposed an annexe to the Bill listing the animals that would not be allowed to be in travelling circuses: a negative list. We envisaged that the most controversial species—lions, tigers and elephants—would be banned immediately, and that other species, such as snakes and camels, could also be removed in due course. I understand that, in the event, DEFRA took the view that that was over-complicating the issue, given that 19 species were involved, and that a simple ban was what was needed.

As the Minister said, this has been on the agenda since 2011. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), who has just left the Chamber, initiated a number of debates at that time. The initial debate followed a public reaction to the terrible abuse of Anne the elephant in one of the circuses in this country. I am happy to say that a couple of years ago I visited Longleat safari park, where Anne now has a new home, is being properly cared for, and is ending her days in a suitable fashion.

Now that the Bill is before us, I think it important for us to perform our role as legislators: to scrutinise it, and to ensure that there are no inconsistencies in its application. As the Minister pointed out, it is a rather unusual Bill to deal with the regulation of animal welfare and the way in which we manage animals. It imposes a ban not on the grounds of animal welfare, but on ethical grounds.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I have great respect for the former Minister, as he knows. Does he share my lack of understanding of the fact that animal welfare was never a reason for us to ban wild animals in circuses, and that—as he has just mentioned—we had to find alternative ethical grounds? Surely the Animal Welfare Act 2006 was the appropriate vehicle for these measures.

[George Eustice]

It was, but, as the hon. Gentleman says, the legal advice was that these were not necessarily animal welfare issues per se.

I support the Bill. I have argued for it, and I want it to be passed. A number of Members have said that it is perhaps a little overdue; I was in the Department and it took time for this to be done, so I cannot criticise others on that front.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[George Eustice]

I am going to make some progress.

However, the Bill does raise some anomalies. For instance, two or three of the animals in the list of 19 are camels. They will be banned from circuses in future, but I understand that camel racing takes place in some venues in the country, and that that practice would continue. Only a few years ago, there was a dancing raccoon on “Britain’s Got Talent”, the ITV show. Do we think that that is ethical? If it is not ethical to have a dancing raccoon in a circus, why is it ethical to have one on “Britain’s Got Talent”?

What about falconry displays? They travel from agricultural show to agricultural show. Falcons are wild animals. What is the difference? We are starting to enter borderline territories.

Then there is the issue of snakes. There is a growing trend for the keeping of corn snakes and other exotic pets such as bearded dragons, a type of lizard. Are we convinced that every 10-year-old boy in the land who has a corn snake or a bearded dragon is looking after that pet adequately? A number of vets are increasingly concerned about the welfare of some of these pets, not least because many vets lack the expertise to deal with their specialist needs. Why is it OK to have pet snakes with, in many cases, no regulation at all unless they are deemed to be a species of dangerous wild animal, while having one in a circus is seen as wrong? And what about reindeer? There is nothing in the Bill to prevent a reindeer from being outside a Santa’s Grotto, yet reindeer in circuses will now be banned.

I have made all those comments not to suggest that I will oppose the Bill—as I have said, I fully support it—but simply to highlight a matter that I think we ought to consider. As we introduce a rather unusual Bill that is based on ethics rather than animal welfare, it will throw up issues that we, and those tasked with implementing the policy, will have to resolve, and we ought to be thinking about those issues now.