Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, this is a very important group of amendments, which seeks in some cases to dictate which organisations and people should be on the animal sentience committee and for how long they should serve. I have added my name to Amendments 5 and 14, both in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock.

Amendment 5 seeks to benefit from a diversity of expertise on the ASC, including veterinary science, agricultural science and ethical review and provides more flexibility to the Secretary of State. It is likely that some members of the committee will have more than one area of expertise and a membership of between eight and 11 is not unwieldy. It is important that the committee is not bogged down with too many members. The more members there are, the longer the meetings are likely to last and the less likely it is to reach a satisfactory conclusion in a reasonable timeframe. The amendment also ensures the appointment of a chair for the ASC by the Secretary of State. This dedicated chair role will allow the committee to speak with an established and independent voice, boosting its effectiveness.

I am not totally convinced that limiting the length of service of members to just one term of three years is satisfactory as this would lead to a loss of expertise. The members are likely to need a short time to acclimatise themselves to the working of the committee, and then to have to stand down at the end of three years and not be reappointed is, I believe, unwise. Some members may wish to leave at the end of three years; others will feel that they still have something to offer to the committee and want to do a second term. That should be an option for the Secretary of State. The Bill should not seek to fetter his discretion in the reappointment of the membership of the ASC.

Consultation on the appointment of the chair will be key to maintaining the confidence of organisations involved in animal welfare, especially if they are not likely to be members of the committee. The Wildlife and Countryside Link has a membership of some 51 organisations and NGOs. All will have a view on the membership of the ASC. Consultation with them and other interested parties will be key to the success of the animal sentience committee.

I will comment briefly on one other amendment in this group. I am afraid that I do not agree with noble Lords who wish the animal sentience committee to be subsumed into the Animal Welfare Committee. The public must have confidence in the work of the ASC. It is therefore essential for it to be a stand-alone committee with its own reporting regime and not merely a sub-committee of the Animal Welfare Committee, which already has a fine reputation and a heavy workload. A degree of separation is needed, and the Bill provides that.

I turn to Amendment 14 in this group. In order for the ASC to be successful, it will need an adequately funded secretariat and budget. This should be sufficient for it to carry out its work and to be able to call witnesses, should it feel that is desirable. I am sure the Government intend to provide funding for the running of this committee but, as others have said, there is nothing in the Bill that gives an indication that this is the case. I think I heard the Minister say, in his answer to the previous group of amendments, that there would be funding for a secretariat. I look forward to that assurance and to the Minister accepting this amendment.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s Amendment 2 addresses the likely conflict between the proposed animal sentience committee and the existing Animal Welfare Committee by subsuming one into the other. My later Amendment 43 addresses any conflicts that undoubtedly will occur between the two committees if they remain—if my noble friend’s amendment is rejected.

The other amendments in this group seek to add flesh to the bones of the Government’s committee, about which there is no information in the Bill—as I think every other noble Lord speaking to this group has mentioned. Whether or not one agrees with the detail of these amendments—I have concerns about some of them—they all seek to fill the gaps in the Bill that my noble friend Lord Forsyth talked about. They have been tabled from all sides of the Committee, because the Bill as drafted is completely inadequate and is in effect a Henry VIII Bill—one with no content creating a creature, the animal sentience committee, with a skeleton remit and limitless ability to range across government.

I cannot support my noble friend Lady McIntosh’s Amendment 13 because it sets up a new quango—there are already far too many of those—or Amendment 62 from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for the same reason. While I have some sympathy with the proposal from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, some of the detail does not stand up to scrutiny. She volunteers a pretty extensive list of expertise that members of the committee should have, including “animal welfare science”—but, of course, animal welfare is not a science. In practice, it is really a discipline. Why such a committee would benefit from expertise in “animal welfare advocacy” is unclear, but it seems to me an invitation to invite animal rights promoters on to the committee—something I strongly oppose, for reasons I shall explain when we reach my Amendment 12.

Much of what the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman, Lady McIntosh and Lady Jones, propose is more simply resolved by my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s Amendments 11 and 40. If Parliament has the power to set the

“composition … budget, and … terms of reference”

and the Secretary of State has the power to approve or veto the committee’s programme of work, the issues raised by the noble Baronesses will be adequately resolved. For that reason, I will support Amendments 11 and 40. I very much hope my noble friend the Minister accepts them.

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, my name is to Amendment 40 and I support Amendments 2 and 11 in this group. I was a little alarmed to hear the Secretary of State say that he will allow the committee to choose what policies it examines. He also said that the money would come from the Defra budget, but surely the Secretary of State must retain some control over the work programme, or the runaway horse would certainly start to gather speed approaching something of a precipice. It is well known that the Defra coffers are scarcely overflowing and are unlikely to be topped up greatly in the immediate future. An unlimited work programme, or one that targeted matters perhaps not seen as generally important, would lead to money running out pretty quickly and fail to satisfy anyone, so I would like the Minister to reassure us that the Secretary of State will exercise proper control over both the committee’s work programme and the funds necessary to meet it.

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Moved by

[Lord Mancroft]

12: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert—
“(4) No person may be appointed a member of the Committee if they—(a) are affiliated to an organisation promoting animal rights;(b) are a member of an organisation promoting animal rights;(c) have been employed by an organisation promoting animal rights; or(d) are employed by an organisation promoting animal rights.”Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that any person who is a member of, is affiliated to, was employed by, or is employed by an organisation promoting animal rights cannot be appointed a member of the Animal Sentience Committee.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, the purpose of this Bill is to promote and advance animal welfare, which is something that we all want to do, and no one opposes. Animal welfare is based on science and evidence; it is well understood but, in casual conversation, it can be confused with animal rights, which are a very different thing and often in conflict. It is a political ideology not concerning the care and welfare of animals but rather their legal status. I am one of those who are absolutely clear that animals do not enjoy the same rights as human beings and should not be granted them. I share with others the view that you cannot have rights without responsibilities and that to impose on animals responsibilities that they cannot possibly fulfil is wrong and is in itself a form of cruelty.

The late Lord Jakobovits was strongly of the view that the enhanced status of animals in Nazi Germany allowed that regime to reduce and ultimately ignore the rights of human beings, and thus contributed to the Holocaust. It is something that my noble friend Lord Moylan touched on earlier in our debates. Those who support animal rights often deliberately seek to muddle up the rights of animals with their welfare, knowing that most people are in favour of promoting the welfare of animals. But animal rights is an extreme doctrine; those who believe in animal rights are opposed to all use of animals for food, science, medicine and sport and the ownership of pets.

Only last month, activists targeted a game farm to release some young pheasants into the wild. They presumably believed fundamentally and ideologically that pheasants should be free and that it is the pheasants’ right to roam—but what happened last month when a lock was deliberately broken to release 400 pheasant chicks was that all 400 chicks were killed by a fox. In their pen they were fed, watered and looked after. The animal rights activists thought they knew better, and their actions caused the suffering, stress and death of 400 pheasant chicks.

How could anyone who held such beliefs be in a position to report to Ministers on the welfare of animals in consequence of any government policy that condoned continued use of animals in the fields of farming, science or sport? Their beliefs would inevitably lead them to condemn all such policies, regardless of the welfare aspects. It is important to remember that animal rights is not a mainstream doctrine. It is by its very nature the territory of extremists. These are not people with whom one engages in rational debate. Violent discourse and physical violence are never far beneath the surface in the world of animal rights, as my family and I have been on the receiving end of that on more than one occasion.

The reason why so many amendments have been tabled to define the parameters of the proposed sentience committee is that many noble Lords are concerned about where the committee might venture in the future, way beyond the remit set out by this Government. Your Lordships need only to venture a short way on to social media and the platforms of the animal rights movements today to see that they are already rubbing their hands with glee at the prospects held out by this committee. These are, as the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, said, people who excel at entryism, as we saw in the case of the RSPCA—a much-loved institution almost brought to its knees by extremists with an animal rights agenda, all of whom got themselves voted on to the ruling council as reasonable people. Those same people are aiming their sights at this new sentience committee.

We have spent a lot of time this afternoon talking about who might go on to this committee. My amendment talks about people who should not be allowed on it and allows my noble friend the Minister to explain how the Government are going to ensure that political extremists who do not share his higher purpose are not in the future able to wheedle their way on to the committee for their own purposes. I beg to move.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, I do not think that I could improve on what my noble friend Lord Mancroft has said, but people in the animal rights movement are extremists and do not have respect for the animal kingdom. They have an agenda, but the respect for animals themselves is not included. It would be detrimental to allow people like that on to the committee, which would then devalue its work to which the Government attach importance.

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[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I apologise if I did not answer that point; I am conscious that I did not. My noble friend Lady McIntosh asked: if a committee is created by statute, how do you uncreate it? The answer is by primary legislation. Once this is established in statute, the only way is to unmake it by legislation. I do not think a sunset clause would give much confidence to the people we would want to serve on the committee if they felt that it was in any way a temporary feature.

My noble friend made another, wider point about whether advisory and expert committees have any place in government. I yield to his undoubted abilities as a parliamentarian, but as a layman on most of what I deal with—despite coming from a background which has put me in touch with many areas in my ministerial responsibilities—I rely on experts to inform me about how I take forward the day-to-day warp and weft of government, including legislation. Experts have a distinct place in our legislative process and in how we form policy, and therefore I respectfully disagree with my noble friend.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend the Minister for answering my Amendment 12. I am not sure that there really is an answer to it. We spent an earlier part of Committee talking about who should be on the committee and I just wanted to raise the dangers of those who should not be on it. I am ably supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, who made the point much better than I could have, as she always does. I am grateful that my noble friend the Minister has taken that point on board.

I did not speak to my Amendment 43 because your Lordships may have been slightly amazed by its appearance in this group. It got there in the same way Pontius Pilate got into the Creed—by mistake. It really should have been in an earlier group, I think group 2, where we had those sorts of debates. This does not require an answer now, but there was within it one point about the two committees which I thought needed to be aired—maybe we should do that later in these debates. What happens if the two committees—the Animal Welfare Committee and the sentience committee—give the Government conflicting advice on the same policy? Whose advice do the Minister and the Government take? Will not the Government inevitably be challenged in the courts or elsewhere for taking the wrong piece of advice? The conflict between the two committees worries me, and it has not been touched on yet. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister may think about that overnight and come back with a wonderful answer the next time we have a chance to discuss this in Committee. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 12 withdrawn.