Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 16th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I am content with the Bill, the gist of its purpose and the role that the proposed committee will play in the debate about animal welfare, a topic about which everyone has an opinion. I begin by declaring an interest, for I am a livestock farmer in Cumbria. I personally do little shooting and in the old days used occasionally to go out with the fell packs. I am also a patron of the Livestock Auctioneers’ Association and president of the National Sheep Association.

While I fear that there always are abuses, real farmers care about their stock and take pride in it and the way it is looked after. I also do not believe that animals have rights. Rather, we as humans have obligations towards them that should and must be legally enforced. This is a widely recognised legal phenomenon and an entirely sensible approach to these matters.

I was a Member of the European Parliament when embedding the concept of animal sentience in EU law was discussed. At that time I was very unsure whether this was the right direction of travel, but I have become satisfied that it is.

Contrary to what some seem to say, animal sentience has been understood for quite a long time. After all, Homer understood it. You have only to read the 17th- book of the Odyssey: returning in disguise after a 20-year absence, Odysseus is recognised only by his faithful old dog Argos.

In this instance as in so many others, and as is so often the case, for our national policies to be sensible they have to sail between Scylla and Charybdis—the Scylla of treating animals as mere chattels, and the Charybdis of anthropomorphism. Walt Disney has done this issue no favour; “Bambi” is a confidence trick. Equally, in this context, Beatrix Potter has quite a lot to answer for. Although it will come as no surprise to your Lordships, and although I never knew her, those of my Cumbrian friends and neighbours who did, tell me that she was a very practical, down-to-earth hill farmer whose attitude towards her own animals bore little relation to her fictional creatures.

I welcome the committee, but it is not a substitute for either government or Parliament. I assume its purpose is to help public debate on this topic, as part of a wider political process. Both Parliament and the Government have never been backward about ignoring committees, and I do not anticipate that that is going to change. The impact of this committee will depend on its tone and modus operandi. It has to base its thinking on expertise, not partisanship, its approach and composition on independence of thought and action, and its conclusions on intelligence and wisdom. These aspects must be central to its activities and will determine its seriousness, or lack of it, and hence its influence and ability to be a force for good. Whether that happens depends on what it does and the conclusions it reaches which, I hasten to add in conclusion, is not necessarily the same as agreeing with me.