Wild Animals in Circuses (No. 2) Bill

Jim Fitzpatrick Excerpts

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

[David Rutley]

I understand that some residual concerns have been raised by welfare groups, but I assure the hon. Lady that the definition set out will be adequate. In fact, the Scottish Government arrived at a very similar definition.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

The Minister says that he believes that the definition is adequate, but surely he will concede that such matters can be explored and tested in Committee. If it can be demonstrated that the definition is not as clear as it ought to be, will the Government be open to amending the Bill before Third Reading?

[David Rutley]

Of course, in Committee, we will have the chance to review these things in more detail. There has been ongoing discussion with Opposition Front Benchers about the Committee process.

Clause 1(2) defines “use” as either performance or exhibition. It should cover circumstances in which wild animals are put on display at the circus, usually just adjacent to the big top, as well as performances in the ring. The penalty for a circus operator who is found guilty of using a wild animal in a travelling circus is an unlimited fine; the Animal Welfare Act 2006 also provides powers to seize animals where there are grounds to do so.

Subsection (4) provides for corporate liability where the circus operator is a corporate entity. Subsection (5) sets out definitions of terms used throughout clause 1, including “wild animal”—a term that is well understood and has already been defined in other legislation such as the Zoo Licensing Act 1981 and the Welfare of Wild Animals in Travelling Circuses (England) Regulations 2012. We have largely replicated that approach in the Bill:

“‘wild animal’ means an animal of a kind which is not commonly domesticated in Great Britain”.

To meet that definition, an animal does not have to have been born in the wild. Most of the wild animals currently in English circuses have been bred in captivity, usually from several generations of circus animals, but that does not make them domesticated. Domestication is a process that happens over many generations—hundreds of years, if not thousands.

To return to a question asked by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), clause 1 does not define “travelling circus”. The term is left to take its common meaning, which we believe the courts will have no trouble in interpreting. Indeed, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s July 2013 report on the draft Bill agreed that we did not need to include a definition of the term; nor was a circus itself defined by the Scottish Parliament in the Wild Animals in Travelling Circuses (Scotland) Act 2018. Defining a circus in a specific way might be unhelpful, because it could provide parameters for an operator to seek to evade the ban.

The common meaning of “circus” is

“a company of performers who put on shows with diverse entertainments, often of a daring or exciting nature, that may include, for example, acts such as…acrobats, trapeze acts…tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists”.

The role of wild animals in a circus, when they are used, is to provide an entertaining spectacle for our amusement, often as a way to demonstrate the skill or dominance of the trainer. That is outdated, and it is what we are legislating against.

Clause 2 relates to inspections, for which powers are set out in the schedule. Inspectors will be appointed by the Secretary of State, although we envisage that the numbers required will be small. We already have a small panel of inspectors to enforce the interim wild animals in circuses licensing regime, all of whom are drawn from the Department’s list of zoo licensing veterinary inspectors and are highly experienced in the handling and treatment of wild animals in captivity. Inspectors will be appointed on a case-by-case basis by the Animal and Plant Health Agency to investigate evidence of any offence.

Clause 3 will make a minor consequential amendment to the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976, which requires persons who wish to keep dangerous wild animals to be licensed. Those who keep dangerous wild animals in a circus are currently exempted from that requirement, but once the new ban comes into force, there should no longer be any vertebrate dangerous wild animals in travelling circuses. We have therefore taken a belt-and-braces approach to make it clear that using dangerous wild vertebrate animals in a travelling circus is not allowed.

The Scottish Government, who have already introduced a ban on the use of wild animals in travelling circuses in Scotland, have asked us to extend to Scotland our amendment to the 1976 Act, and we are pleased to enable that request. Once again, we are grateful for the Scottish Government’s work on this and many other aspects of animal welfare. The Welsh Government are considering their own ban; we have also discussed the matter with the Northern Ireland Government, who are not in a position to consider a ban at this point.

Clause 4 provides for the Bill to come into force on 20 January 2020, the day after the interim circus licensing regulations expire. I hope that I have already reassured hon. Members that it will come into effect in a timely way.

It is worth clarifying what the Bill will not do. First, I make it absolutely clear that we are not proposing to ban circuses, only their use of wild animals. Plenty of travelling circuses do not use wild animals, or indeed any animals, in their acts; the Bill will have no impact on them. Nor will it stop circus operators owning wild animals. If circuses wish to continue to own them after the ban is enacted, they will be subject to the appropriate licensing requirements, for example under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 or under the Department’s 2018 licensing regulations for animals hired out for TV or film productions. If a circus does not intend to continue using wild animals in other work, we expect to see retirement plans being deployed under the interim licensing regulations.

Nor will the ban lead to the banning of other animal exhibits such as falconry displays, zoos, farm parks or the sort of displays that we might see at summer fêtes in our constituencies. Even though such activities may move animal displays from one place to another, they do not fall within the ordinary interpretation of a circus and will therefore not meet the definition of a travelling circus. We do not wish to ban them, because we acknowledge that they have a role to play in education. The important distinction is that circuses move from A to B to C, whereas other displays may go to one place, come back to a home base and go to another place some time later—they are a very different activity.

Lastly, the Bill will apply only to wild animals. I know from parliamentary debates and from my Department’s postbag that the overriding concern is about the use of wild animals in travelling circuses, which is precisely what the Bill will address. Other domestic animals such as horses and dogs will continue to be subject to inspections under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018 to ensure that the highest welfare standards are met.

Continuing to allow wild animals to perform often absurd and unnecessary behaviours for our amusement in travelling circuses goes against the Government’s efforts towards—and the House’s interests in—raising awareness and respect for animals. People can continue to enjoy the experience of going to a circus, but we must move on from the age when wild animals were paraded around as a spectacle. We want people to see animals in a more dignified and natural setting. We cannot make that message clearer than by introducing this Bill to ban that practice. I commend it to the House.

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[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.

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[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I am grateful to be called to participate briefly in this uncontroversial and consensual debate, and it is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish); although we sit on opposite sides of the House, we are on very good terms and share a lot of common ground, especially on animal welfare issues. Like him, and everyone else who has spoken and is likely to speak, I support the Bill, and I congratulate the Government and the Minister on bringing it forward. I am grateful to the RSPCA, the British Veterinary Association, Animal Defenders International, the Born Free Foundation and the Commons Library for their briefings and assistance.

This Bill has been quite a long time getting here. Its provisions were omitted from the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and picked up again by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in 2009, following continued lobbying by animal welfare groups. I was Minister of State then, and the consultation in 2009 that we held on this issue, as mentioned by the Minister, led me and the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), to say approaching the 2010 general election that if re-elected we were minded to ban wild animals in circuses, but of course we never got the chance. The coalition then ran into a number of the same obstacles Labour had encountered when in office, and immediately the Bill was back in the slow lane.

Various explanations followed, such as that it was a European matter, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), and that it could not be determined by nation states. The suspicion arose that there was a departmental disagreement between the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and DEFRA and the Government could not agree on a unified position, or it was said that a licensing regime could do the job better. However, as has been said, neither side of the House was persuaded by any of the explanations and there were various debates, oral questions, written parliamentary questions, ten-minute rule Bills, lobbies and public pressure, all the way to the next general election in 2015. At that time, every main political party went into the general election committed to a ban. Public support has always been high, at more than 70%, and the consultation we held in 2009 showed that more than 94% were in support of a ban.

It is not difficult to conclude that transporting wild animals around the country in heavy goods vehicles and keeping them in temporary confined spaces for the duration of visits to various locations is not in the best interest of the animals, physically or psychologically, and that it is contrary to their welfare. I am sure that the public got that before the Government did. There is confusion as to whether this is an animal welfare issue or an ethical one. I understand that there are some separations, but locking wild animals up in HGVs and transporting them around the country, then putting them in small temporary enclosures for the duration of visits, is primarily an animal welfare issue. If taking the ethics route gets the job done, I am happy to do that, but I believe that there is a fundamental animal welfare question here as well.

The British Veterinary Association concludes:

“The welfare needs of non-domesticated, wild animals cannot be met within a travelling circus—in terms of housing or being able to express normal behaviour.”

That is what I think is called a no-brainer. The RSPCA has raised four issues that it wants to see addressed in Committee. Several of them have already been mentioned, so I will not repeat the arguments, but the headings are: the definition of a travelling circus; the power of the courts to disqualify individuals from keeping wild animals; the limits of appointed inspectors; and the powers to seize animals. The Minister has generously indicated that both Ministers will be prepared to discuss all those matters in Committee.

Given that we have all waited so long, we want the best conclusion and the best Bill. We want to ensure that it is as fit for purpose as we can make it. Given the assurances that we have received from the Minister, I am looking forward to the Committee stage of the Bill. I am confident that we will continue to adopt the consensual tone that has characterised this Second Reading debate and that we will get the Bill on the statute book in less time than it has taken to get to this point.