Control of Horses Bill

George Eustice Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2015 Commons Chamber

These amendments appear well intentioned, but they are potentially cumbersome. The right hon. Gentleman who has moved them has elaborated on their intention, but I am afraid has not, to my satisfaction, made a case strong enough to warrant Opposition support. Of course the guidance that emerges from this Bill may well detail good practice, which involves notice being given wherever possible at a specific address and, where it is warranted, this being given by way of first-class post. On that note, I await the Minister’s response.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) for tabling these amendments and asking some important questions about the Bill.

Amendment 1 seeks to add ponies and jennets to the definition of a horse covered by the Bill and, in turn, to the provisions on horses in the Animals Act 1971. It may be helpful quickly to explain how the provisions in the Control of Horses Bill amend the Animals Act 1971. The Bill carves out special arrangements in the 1971 Act for stray and fly-grazing horses and other equidae. Its leaves the measures in the 1971 Act as they apply to other livestock unchanged. The provisions cover a range of equidae. As well as horses, the Bill’s provisions apply to asses, mules and hinnies. These equidae need special mention because, as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) pointed out, they are not horses. Each is a different species. Horses are of the equus ferus caballus, and ponies are of the same species, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out. It might also be worth clarifying that the legal definition of a donkey is an ass, so they are also covered.

A pony is just a small horse and does not need to be specified, so they are already covered. Similarly, a jennet is a small breed of horse. Thus neither ponies nor jennets need to included in the definition of horse.

For completeness, I should say that I asked a number of questions about the definitions when scrutinising this Bill with officials, and I therefore point out that a mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, and a hinny is the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey. That is made clear in the legislation.

I understand the reasoning behind amendments 2 and 3. My right hon. Friend just wants to make it clear that there is a proper process for contacting the owners of a horse, where this is known. Unfortunately, it is not always easy for a person or local authority detaining a horse to identify the owner and then serve them with a notice of detention. Many fly-grazed horses cannot be identified through microchipping, as required by law, and even when a horse can be properly identified, the person detaining it might not be able to access its identification data.

We considered these points and decided that the police should remain the central point of contact for reporting detained or missing horses, and that notice of detention should be registered with the police in any case, even when the person detaining the horse is able to notify the horse’s owner. Under the existing provisions in the Animals Act 1971, the police have systems in place for registering this kind of information, which is often shared with local authorities. Horse owners should therefore contact the police immediately if they are concerned that their horse might have been detained.

The Bill leaves it open to the person detaining a fly-grazing horse to contact the owner directly, if the owner is known to him, but I believe that it would be a backward step to prescribe what form such action should take, such as sending a letter by first-class post, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire suggests. The person might know which caravan the owner lived in, for example, and could go and knock on their door and talk to them. Alternatively, they might know the owner’s e-mail address. It would be wrong to be prescriptive in this regard.

I asked questions about this again when we were considering the Bill, and I want to reassure my right hon. Friend. Clause 3(2) of the Bill states:

“The right to detain the horse ceases at the end of the period of 24 hours”,

and goes on to say that the person detaining the horse must notify the police and the owner, if they know who that is. If the Bill had required notification of the police or the owner, but not both, he might have a stronger case for requiring more clarity. I believe that the requirement to notify both, and to contact the police in any event, will provide sufficient clarity. As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), pointed out, we are keen to get the Bill through and it would be wrong to introduce measures that were inconsistent with the 1971 Act. I therefore hope that, in the light of these clarifications, the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire will be able to withdraw his amendment.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak briefly to amendments 1, 2 and 3, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot). I must also put on record my thanks for his support for the Bill. On amendment 1, the Minister has already set out how a horse is defined for the purposes of the Bill. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), has set out his position on that as well, and I do not need to say more on that.

I should like to speak briefly to amendments 2 and 3. I completely understand the very sensible intentions behind the amendments, but I believe that the police must remain the central point of contact, as the Minister has said. It is also clear that there has to be flexibility in these circumstances. First-class post might be the most appropriate way of notifying an owner in certain circumstances, but it is essential to have flexibility on that decision, and not to specify in statute exactly what should be done. The Minister talked about the time involved, and using first-class post might delay the notification so that it did not arrive within the required four clear days.

I fear that the introduction of detailed specifications of how notifications should be served could unnecessarily delay what should be an immediate process relating to animal welfare. Such delay must be avoided in the interests of all parties involved, not least the fly-grazed horses, in the light of the welfare issues involved. I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend will not press his amendment to a vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

I rise again to speak briefly to this amendment. It is not unusual for Bills passing through this place to include Wales in their jurisdiction. My understanding is that Wales is included in the Bill for technical reasons. The Animals Act 1971, which the Bill amends, extends to both countries, and any Bill that amends that Act needs to apply its provisions to both countries. However, because the Welsh Assembly has legislated for fly-grazing separately in the Control of Horses (Wales) Act 2014, the provisions of this Bill will in effect apply only to England. The 1971 Act does not apply to either Scotland or Northern Ireland, so they do not need to be included in the Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister reassured the House that the provisions in the Bill will apply in effect only to England. If that is the case, we would not wish to support the amendment.

[George Eustice]

Amendment 4 seeks to limit the extent of the Bill to England only, and not to England and Wales as currently drafted. I realise that it might be confusing to have a Bill that extends to both England and Wales but has provisions that apply only to England, but I can reassure hon. Members that this is not a mistake. The Bill extends to England and Wales for legal reasons. As the shadow Minister pointed out, the Bill amends the Animals Act 1971, which extends to England and Wales. Because the 1971 Act extends to England and Wales, any Bill that amends it must also apply to England and Wales.

I shall give the shadow Minister the reassurance that he seeks. Although the Bill extends to England and Wales, none of the provisions will apply in Wales. Furthermore, none of the amendments that are made to the Animals Act will apply to Wales. I should also point out that we took soundings from the Welsh Government when considering these matters, to ascertain whether they wanted Wales to come under the scope of this Bill, but the feedback that we received was that because they had introduced their own legislation in this area, they did not want to confuse matters further by extending these provisions to cover Wales. That is why the Bill explicitly excludes Wales. I hope that, in the light of that explanation, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) will not press his amendments to a vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) on getting his private Member’s Bill to this stage. I have been in the House for only five years, but I did have a private Member’s Bill in the first year of the Parliament. It was not successful, I am afraid; it did not even get its Second Reading, let alone progress to Committee, Report and Third Reading.

The Bill addresses a serious and growing problem. There is a charity called the Flicka Foundation in my constituency; it is a donkey sanctuary, which also looks after some ponies. Its representatives tell me that in recent years they have seen a huge increase in the number of abandoned donkeys and ponies that they are asked to re-home. Other equine charities say the same.

There are a number of key implications to the situation: the impact on the welfare of the ponies; the hazard on the roads—as my hon. Friend pointed out, accidents can be caused; and the huge burden on landowners unable to do anything about the abandoned ponies they have been left with. Sometimes, people game the system. People have abandoned their ponies on somebody’s land for up to 14 days and then, just before the order to seize the horse, they move it on to somebody else’s field and start the whole process again. As my hon. Friend said, there have even been instances of people abandoning their horses without a microchip and buying them back at auction after the landowner has been required by law to have them microchipped.

The problem is serious. My hon. Friend has championed the issue for many years; his first parliamentary debate on the matter was in 2012. A number of other hon. Members have also been consistent champions. The first time I debated the issue was in Westminster Hall in November 2013, a debate led by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot). I have received a great deal of correspondence from concerned colleagues on this issue.

Throughout the debate, there has been a suggestion that we should adopt an approach similar to that implemented in Wales in 2014. It is worth pointing out that there has always been a range of other legislative tools in the box. I will reflect on those, as I highlighted them in earlier debates. First, there is the Animals Act 1971, which this Bill seeks to amend. There is also the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and the Highways Act 1980, which deals with stray livestock. The new Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 could also be used in this area.

All that said, as the debate progressed, particularly after the 2013 Westminster Hall debate, we conceded that a number of important things had changed. First, the requirement to microchip horses had increased the costs and burdens on landowners who took remedial action when horses were abandoned on their land. Secondly, the original legislation restricted disposal methods to sale at auction. When the law was originally put in place in 1971, people could expect abandoned ponies to fetch reasonable prices at auction. That is not the case now. As the shadow Minister pointed out, there has been a period of irresponsible breeding of cob ponies, which have very little value so landowners are unable to recover their costs in auctions. We recognised that two important things had changed since the 1971 Act and that there was a gap that we should seek to address, borrowing elements from the approach adopted in Wales.

The Bill creates new options for disposal, including the ability to gift abandoned ponies and horses to charities; that is not possible under the existing legislation—first, they have to go through an auction process. For the worst cases, the Bill creates the possibility for euthanasia. Nobody wants that to happen, but welfare charities would point out that having a large number of ponies abandoned on verges and starving is not good from a welfare point of view. Sometimes in those cases, euthanasia can be the right approach.

The second and most important feature of the Bill is that it condenses the time scale of the detention period from 14 days to four working days. It also reduces the notice period from three days to 24 hours. When withdrawing his amendments, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire said that he hoped I would give further thought to his points, which he did not feel had been adequately covered. I owe it to him to have another go at persuading him that we do not need to change things as he suggested.

We think four working days a reasonable period for detention, and sufficient to enable people to report the situation to the police, because the animal welfare codes for looking after horses are clear: people should attend to their horses—checking that they are okay—at least once a day. If somebody has not reported a missing horse to the police within four days, that is a pretty good indicator that that horse is not being cared for correctly. In normal circumstances, we would expect somebody to realise within 24 hours that their pony had gone missing—escaped out of a field or jumped the hedge. They would then immediately report that to the police. Having a notice period of 24 hours and a detention period of four working days provides ample time for the situation to be picked up and for legitimate owners who have legitimately lost their horses to be protected.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I accept my hon. Friend’s point, but if he thinks it is sufficient to give notice to the police, the Government ought to consider dropping the point that if the person detaining the horse knows the person to whom the horse belongs, notice should be given to that person as well. If notifying the police is sufficient, that subsection should be dropped.

[George Eustice]

We put the subsection there as an additional mechanism. I do not see a reason not to have it. If the person detaining the horse feels they know the owner, they can tell them directly and quickly, but that does not remove the requirement for them to tell the police in any event. The starting point is that if they decide to detain a horse, in any event they must notify the police. If they happen to know the owner of the horse, it is reasonable to put on them a due diligence requirement to notify the owner at the same time.

In Committee we broadened the scope of the Bill so that it covered detention of horses not just on public land, but on private land. As the hon. Member for York Outer pointed out, that is important. If the scope had been limited to public land, as is the case in Wales, there is a danger that the problem would merely be displaced to private land. If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing properly. The Animals Act 1971 deals with both public and private land and we concluded that it was essential that the Bill should be consistent with that Act and cover private land as well.

In conclusion, I am very pleased that my hon. Friend’s Bill has reached this stage. The Government fully support it and hope that we can get it through in this Session, before the break-up of Parliament, reassured that we have full support from the Opposition Benches and cross-party support. I wish the Bill a fair wind as it goes through proceedings in the other place.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.