Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Robathan Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 16th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I have heard a large number of quite excellent speeches—some funny, some learned—and I cannot possibly emulate them. I shall try not to repeat verbatim what has been said, although it can be quite difficult when you come in at a late stage on a Bill.

We are of course a nation of animal lovers, and I include myself in that. Quite rightly, people who are cruel to animals are prosecuted, be it for cats nailed to trees—we heard about that recently from the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley—or set on fire, which they have been, or hedgehogs used as footballs. I see

“tougher sentences for animal cruelty”

in our manifesto, and I applaud that if it gives magistrates the opportunity to sentence cruel yobs appropriately.

We have heard about farming standards. Our farming welfare standards are in the news today, because they are so high, because of the Australian free trade agreement. It is agreed that they are excellent, and we should be proud of that.

Are animals sentient beings? They probably are—I certainly think so—but they are not the same. For instance, my dog will run out into the middle of the road and stand looking at a car driving straight at it, much to my annoyance and fear. It does not have the same reactions as we have; we should realise that. Do they feel pain? Of course they feel pain. Is it different from ours? I think it probably is, but we owe it to all animals, wild and domestic, to treat them well—but that is a very subjective judgment. For instance, do animals at a slaughterhouse exhibit fear? I have been to slaughterhouses; they do. So should we ban the killing of animals for meat? Should we ban the shooting of wild birds or deer for eating? My answer is no. We should treat animals well in life and we owe them a clean and swift death if we are going to eat them.

I declare an interest as a farmer. My farming partner dislikes sending lambs and especially young cattle to market. I understand that. Indeed, he sells his calves only to other farmers, mostly for breeding. James Cromwell, who noble Peers will know as the actor who played the farmer in “Babe”, which I thought was an excellent film—I watched it probably 20 times with my children when they were younger—apparently became a vegan after the film because it was so anthropomorphic.

We already have high standards and laws on animal cruelty, so why do we need the Bill? It is very flimsy. There is nothing to it really, as one Minister told me, so why are we having it? We are told that it is very popular with people and that animal welfare was the second-most important issue in the minds of voters in the 2019 election after Brexit. Well, do they vote on these issues or on wider and more important issues facing the country? I was elected to the House of Commons five times and I think I still know how people think. Most people vote on rather more important issues.

Most people have feelings for animals, but there is a small lobby of activists who rarely vote Conservative—or, indeed, Labour—pushing an animal rights agenda. They are not mainstream. They represent only themselves. The Peta—People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—website says “End Speciesism” and has a picture of a rat with:

“We also feel pain, love, joy, and fear.”


Love? Rats will eat their own young, as noble Lords will know, and I do not think that shows love. Peta also wants us to go vegan, to not have milk in our coffee—a treat—and it says that eating meat, cheese et cetera is an addiction similar to drugs. The Animal Liberation Front, of course, is notorious for its violent action. I could go on. But are rats sentient? Yes. Are squirrels, which are destroying the woods that we are all trying to encourage, sentient? Yes. Are the magpies that kill fledglings sentient? Well, yes, of course, as are the foxes that kill hens—but what about the hens and the fledglings that get killed by magpies?

I will not dwell on the fact that if we did not have farm animals for our benefit, they would not exist and our countryside would look totally different. It would be mostly arable or wasteland. So this Bill seems to me to be driven by a minority agenda pushing animal rights. What amendments does my noble friend envisage under Clause 5(2) and (3) to regulations made by SI. What good will come of this animal sentience committee? What relationship will it have with the Animal Welfare Committee? Who will be on the committee? Will he pledge not to appoint members of Wild Justice or Peta? To coin a phrase, cui bono? The Explanatory Notes blithely say:

“The Bill will require some public expenditure.”


How much?

Finally, the Bill has been described by one of my noble friend’s fellow Ministers as a paving measure. What does that mean? We have heard today ominous calls for the Bill to be strengthened. Like my noble friend Lord Bellingham, I have always believed that we should legislate as little as possible and only when it is necessary. The gentleman in Whitehall does not know best, and individuals should be allowed to get on with their lives without interference, in so far as that does not adversely impact on other people or wider society—and that includes animal cruelty. We pass laws to ensure that that does not happen. I fear that the Bill is a superfluous measure and a very un-Conservative measure, and I look to the Minister to allay my fears that this is not some thin end of the wedge softening-up of our legislation to pursue a bogus animal rights agenda.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

I have received one request to speak after the Minister. I call the noble Lord, Lord Robathan.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I must declare an interest as a farmer, with a livestock farm in Leicestershire. I do not wish to detain the Committee long or to repeat all the arguments already made, nor do I wish to further irritate my noble friend the Minister, who is making a good fist of a fairly difficult job. I have two questions for him.

Ensuring the committee has people with real knowledge—to quote the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, “proper knowledge”—of animals, perhaps people who rely on those animals for their livelihood, is extraordinarily important. I am not talking about owning cats or dogs; I have several cats on the farm which helpfully keep down the rats—they do a rather good job—and I also own a dog, but that does not make me an expert on animal sentience. However, those who work with animals the whole time do have a lot of knowledge of animal sentience.

Slaughterhouses and abattoirs have been mentioned. Anyone who has been to an abattoir knows how awful they are; they are extremely unpleasant. But while we remain omnivores and eat meat, they will be necessary.

My noble friend said he will not construct a membership on areas of expertise, but I ask him a different question: will he ensure that nobody without knowledge is appointed to the committee? By that I mean somebody who thinks he has a lot of knowledge, such as Chris Packham, but does not actually have any knowledge of living off the work with animals. Secondly, does he consider that animal rights movement members have “appropriate expertise” or would be “dynamic” members of the committee?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend takes me down a rabbit hole. I do not think I can add to what I already said. The serious point is that we want people with real expertise and knowledge, and the committee must not be too big—so there is a challenge for me, if I am the Minister, or for the Secretary of State. We have to create something that delivers a real understanding of the wide range of issues it will look at, from fishing practices on the high seas through to—as he states—abattoirs and other areas.

I have received inspiration, which I will share with my noble friend. As I have said, appointments will be decided in accordance with the code on public appointments. Applicants would, in line with best practice, be required to declare any potential conflicts of interest to the recruitment panel. It would then be for the panel to determine whether an applicant would proceed. Members of the committee will declare any relevant interests, and the committee will make a list of these interests publicly available.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

I am moved to intervene briefly because the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said that the people want it—I think I quote her exactly. I think the people want animals to be well treated; I think that everyone in this Room wants them to be well treated, and we have pretty good legislation that already protects animals, both domestic and wild, from unnecessary cruelty and ill treatment. However, in my 23 years in the House of Commons—I know that the noble Baroness represented people in the London Assembly—I can certainly say that nobody mentioned animal sentience. They mentioned lots of animal welfare issues, but nobody mentioned animal sentience. I think they were about as concerned about animal sentience as about the divine right of kings, which the noble Baroness also mentioned. Although the noble Baroness cannot intervene, perhaps my noble friend the Minister might say how many people came to him when he was an MP and said they wanted an animal sentience Bill.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Quite a lot actually.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will explain why. My noble friend was—as the previous Speaker used to say—a great denizen of the House of Commons for many years, as he rightly reminds us. But, sadly, he was not there when the Government of the day decided, for reasons that have always been slightly obscure to me, not to include the provisions of Article 13 in the legislation that took us out of the European Union. Those of us who were there found a tsunami of emails and letters from people who may not have understood the most detailed aspects of animal sentience but were very concerned that the Government were not reflecting their views. This resulted in rather a lot of mid-air turbulence in trying to get to this point. Without baring the soul of the discussions over that time, I respectfully correct my noble friend to say that this was something people were very concerned about in the much wider sense of where animal sentience and animal welfare combine.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

Perhaps my noble friend might list the constituents who wrote to him.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his very full reply. He did comment on my amendment; I will have to read what he said in the Official Report, but towards the end, he said quite rightly that the remit of the animal sentience committee was across Whitehall. That includes the devolved Administrations. The Scottish Animal Welfare Commission was set up specifically to look at how the welfare needs of sentient animals are being met by devolved policy. I am now unclear—perhaps my noble friend could help me—about how much of sentience is devolved and what exactly the committee will be able to do in the devolved countries. Will it be able to go to the Scotland Office and thus up to Holyrood, look at its policy and tell Scotland that it has to change its ways? I am not quite certain how this will work in practice. As this is Committee, it is an ideal time for my noble friend to explain the Bill a bit more to us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall confine myself to speaking to my Amendment 50 for reasons of brevity. The more astute Members of the Committee will have realised that this refers to Section 2 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006, but this seems to me, to a certain extent, the nub of the Bill. It concentrates on what we, as people, are responsible for.

As a slight side-issue, I was asked to change the language because, of course, these days parliamentary language should be gender-neutral. However, surely everyone—however ill-educated—knows that the term “mankind”, or “man” in this context, has always included all human beings, all humanity, of whatever gender. I mention that because language is important, and this is legislation. To have been not specific about “mankind” might have been an example of lack of clarity, of which I fear this Bill is also an example.

On the substance, if I am responsible for an animal, I have responsibilities and duties to that creature, be it my dog, my rather foolish hens—which are not laying eggs at the moment—a cow or, indeed, a pheasant. However, I am surely not responsible for the rats we all live with, nor the squirrels destroying the trees I have planted, nor if my dog catches a rat—it is a terrier, and that is what terriers do. We then come on to fish in a river. Is the owner of a particular stretch of river responsible for a fish moving up and down it? Fish have backbones and are indeed sentient beings. Or is a fishing club responsible? Am I responsible if I run over a squirrel or hit a bird in the road, which I try pretty hard not to do?

I regard myself as a conservationist. The noble Lord, Lord Randall, referred to himself as such in a previous debate. However, unlike him, I see the way this Bill is phrased as paving the way for interference in anything and everything. It has been suggested that it is a Trojan horse and that there will be mission creep. I think it will be an activists’ charter. My noble friend Lord Herbert said in another debate that we need clarity.

The Minister, for whom I have a very high regard—we go back quite a long way and he called me, I think, a “denizen” of the last Chamber we served in—said earlier today that there is a very specific role for the committee. What is that role? It is not clear to me, and I am afraid that the debates so far have not clarified the situation. I hope this amendment may go some way towards clarifying the situation: that we are responsible for those animals for which we are responsible and not responsible for those which we cannot be responsible for.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, the next three speakers—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean—have all withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard - part one
Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, following Committee, in which I took part, this Bill has not really changed at all. As one who cares deeply about animal welfare and cruelty to animals, I would like to make a general comment before I turn to the specific amendments. The Secretary of State said recently, at a meeting that I attended, that he did not want to create a “hostage to fortune” in the future, but that is exactly what this Bill does. It is enabling legislation with no real detail; it has got such broad scope that it allows almost any interpretation. Frankly, it is the most terrible piece of legislation. It is a shocking piece of legislation and the Government should be embarrassed by it. I say to my noble friends on the Front Bench that this is yet another very un-Conservative measure for the right wing of the Conservative party, as the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, pointed out. It will be passed with the cheers of the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. As taxes get raised to their highest for 70 years, do Ministers think people will continue to vote for a party that is not recognisably Conservative, or will voters desert us as they did indeed in Chesham?

Turning to the group of amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Trees, made an extremely good speech, pointing out so many things, and I cannot better it. But I will turn to other amendments later. I say to the Minister—and we have known each for some time and are friends, I hope—that this is a terrible piece of legislation and he needs to go back to the Ministry and tell them that.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I echo my noble friend Lord Robathan’s remarks. I think this a perfectly terrible Bill, and I would like to speak to Amendment 1. The noble Lord, Lord Trees, made the point that this Bill was Article 13 of the EU with bells on. He knows a lot more about this sort of legislation than I do. I hope that the Minister, when he comes to speak to this amendment, will explain why this Bill has to have bells on. Why could it not be just Article 13 of the withdrawal agreement? Why did we have to add things on to it? Many of us are disturbed at the propensity of our government machine—Whitehall departments—to always add things on to Bills and make them even more elaborate than they were originally intended to be.

The noble Lord, Lord Trees, also made the point that his amendment was about process. Process, as I see it, and certainly in the days when I was in government, was all to do with legislation. When a department produced legislation, if that legislation affected other departments, it was circulated through those departments for their comments on it before it was ever submitted to Parliament. I do not quite understand what this new committee is going to do in looking at legislation before it is actually submitted to Parliament, compared with what happened before. Presumably, if the question of animal welfare came up, it went to the Department of Agriculture and it went to the Animal Welfare Committee who looked at it and said whether it was within its remit and whether it approved of it. So what is this committee doing that the Animal Welfare Committee did not do before? Perhaps my noble friend could elucidate that when he comes to speak.

Generally, what we are doing is expanding the whole mass of quangos and we have to think about the Climate Change Committee. It always advertises itself as a committee that advises the Government but seems to have a complete mind of its own when it comes to climate change. It seems to be obsessed with CO₂ emissions. It never seems to champion or recognise what has actually been done in this country to reduce CO₂ emissions, and it does not seem to take any account of the collateral damage. I hope this committee is not going to be another one like that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend. I thank my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb for boosting my right-wing credentials. I think one thing the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and I have in common is that we find ourselves a little out of kilter with our respective parties in relation to the Bill before us this evening.

I have amendments in the third group, so I would just like to put two general queries to my noble friend the Minister. I would hazard a guess that, had we had this Bill in front of us when we were both serving as shadow Ministers in the Defra team some years ago, we would have been minded not to accept what is in the Bill before us today.

I would like to associate myself with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Trees, in moving his Amendment 1. I am proud to be an associate fellow of the British Veterinary Association, and I commend him for his work in flying the flag for vets—I think he is the sole flyer of that flag in this House. He adequately addressed not just the process but the retrospectivity aspect of this amendment. Could my noble friend the Minister give us a reassurance this evening that it is not intended that the work of the committee will have any retrospective effect—that is, going back over old laws in its work—should the Bill be carried in its present form?

I would also like to associate myself with the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and ask for what particular reason—for some reason the manifesto did not reach me this time, possibly because we are not allowed to be candidates—

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

You have never read it anyway.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I did—my noble friend teases me, but I did. I did not always agree with every single item in every single manifesto, but my understanding was that we made a manifesto pledge to roll into national law what was effectively, as has been rehearsed here this evening, set out in Article 13 of the EU treaty—which I do not think I have read either. My understanding is that that was our commitment. So I would like my noble friend the Minister, in summing up this debate, to set out for what reason it was not acceptable simple to rehearse in UK law what we had already committed to in EU law, because I believe that that would have been acceptable.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard - part two
Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Robathan]

3: Clause 1, page 1, line 5, leave out subsection (2)

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Mancroft, I have been asked to introduce this amendment. I think he is either on his sick bed or on a horse; I am not quite sure which.

Before I start, I will pay tribute to the Minister. He is making a pretty good fist of what is almost indefensible. I congratulate him but gently remind him that, although this may not be the result of social media, if memory serves me right he told us in Committee that, while still a Member of the House of Commons, he had had something like 200 messages—probably mostly from Liberal Democrat opponents—saying that the Government had to introduce an animal sentience Bill. He will correct me if I am wrong, but I think he told me that.

Amendment 3 and other amendments wish to introduce some clarity regarding the Government’s intentions about appointments to the committee and the committee’s own role in those appointments. For instance, should the Secretary of State appoint people; if so, what qualifications should they have and for how long should they be appointed; and, to quote from subsection (3), what “terms” will determine the appointments? I know my noble friend Lady McIntosh, a fellow “extremist right-winger”, will speak on later amendments on this subject.

One of the concerns expressed repeatedly as the Bill has made progress is the lack of clarity about the role of the committee, how members will be appointed and how the committee will operate. In response, the Minister agreed to publish the draft terms of reference, which has now been done, but the draft terms provide little additional clarity, and there is little if anything binding current or future Ministers. Indeed, the shortcomings of the terms of reference seem to confirm the concerns expressed by noble Lords at earlier stages. The terms indicate the establishment of this animal welfare centre of expertise, bringing together the various animal welfare advisory committees already in existence, as well as the new committee. This seems to be a recognition of the potential overlap and conflict between the various committees yet, unlike other committees, the sentience committee will enjoy statutory status and a reporting function to Parliament.

Perhaps most concerning is the ongoing lack of clarity as to whether the committee will be looking at and advising on the process of making and implementing policy, or indeed of policy itself. The terms of reference state that once established, it will be for the committee to formally ratify its objectives and responsibilities. As a committee established by statute, its objectives and responsibilities should be found in the establishing Act of Parliament, which we are discussing now. It should not be for the committee to ratify its “objectives and responsibilities”. These amendments, together with proposed new Schedule 1, seek to give some clarity and certainty where this is currently lacking.

I do not wish to repeat things that have already been said or detain the House unnecessarily, but I believe that the terms of reference leave unresolved a great many issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Let us deal with the second question first, then I will see if I can remember the first. A future Government can bring in legislation, if they have a big enough majority to get it through, to do anything they like within the law. We are a sovereign nation and they could take those decisions—indeed, they could populate arm’s-length bodies and expert committees with who they like.

On the first question, no we could not, because the Animal Welfare Committee has a different remit. For starters, it is a UK-wide committee and it is not a creature of statute; it gives expert advice as and when required. We wanted to have a body that is a creature of statute, so that there is parliamentary accountability in the process of policy-making.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, for one glorious moment I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, was going to support the amendment that I moved—she disappointed me, but then what do you expect?

I do not wish to detain my noble friend the Minister any longer. I will let him off the agony and let him go and have some dinner. Notwithstanding the fact that I remain convinced that there is very little clarity either in the Bill or the terms of reference, I wish to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 3 withdrawn.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard - part three
Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, for moving the amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Mancroft. We have already debated this, but I understand my noble friend’s concerns regarding conflicts of interest and what they may mean for the committee.

We want the committee to succeed, and I am confident that the Bill and the draft terms of reference will ensure that that is the case. As has been said today, the Secretary of State for Defra will be responsible for appointments to the committee and appointments will be decided in accordance with the Governance Code on Public Appointments. Applicants would, in line with best practice, be required to declare any potential conflicts of interest to the recruitment panel. The draft terms of reference set out that the Secretary of State may decline to consider an application from an individual whose conduct suggests that their membership could damage the reputation or credibility of the committee—for example, their membership of an extremist organisation. My noble friend’s amendment is simply not necessary. Defra has shown that this tried-and-tested approach works. There are a number of existing Defra-owned expert bodies which give balanced, reasonable advice on animal welfare issues. Few would ever accuse the Animal Welfare Committee, for example, of being made up of zealous activists.

I say again that noble Lords can be reassured that the process of recruitment of members of the committee will be rigorous and that members will be chosen on the merits of their expertise. This is what is needed in order for the committee to perform its role. I hope that this reassures noble Lords and that, together with the reassurance given by my noble friend the Minister on the previous group, it will enable the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

Before my noble friend sits down, could she reassure the House that, for instance, Chris Packham and Mark Avery of Wild Justice would not be eligible to be on the committee?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am afraid I am not able to give that reassurance. All I can say is that they might not be considered to be experts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

That is good to know. I am very grateful. However, I differ from him entirely if he thinks—which I do not think he really does—that the Government, of whom I am proud to be part, would engage with any form of ropey bunch of scientists. In fact we will come on to talk about, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, the degree of scientific breadth that went into the 300 different pieces of work studied by the London School of Economics in its reports on decapods and cephalopods. It is an indication of the expertise that exists out there.

I think my noble friend Lord Hannan has the advantage on me in that he believes that legislators do not need experts. I may have misunderstood him, but as I gaze around this Chamber I see precious few scientists, with one notable exception. There may be more—of course, there is the noble Lord, Lord Trees.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

Excuse me!

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

No, I do not include the noble Lord, Lord Robathan. Both Houses lack the kind of expert rigour that we need in decision-making. I thank my noble friend Lord Moylan for his Amendments 23 and 35 concerning the academic rigour of the committee. We will ensure that the animal sentience committee is comprised of members with the right expertise. They will be best placed to decide what the committee’s priorities should be and, in doing so, they can consult others. I reassure my noble friend that the annual work plan of the committee will be made publicly available. This will ensure that its priorities and approach are fully transparent. As the draft terms of reference for the committee show, we fully intend to appoint members through a rigorous procedure of fair and open competition.

Of course, peer-reviewed evidence from academic journals has a role in informing the committee’s work. However, I do not believe it is necessary for the committee’s reports themselves to be published in academic journals. It is critical that the committee should be able to advise in a timely way—this is the key point—on policies that are being developed. To require the committee’s recommendations to undergo the full academic peer-review process would cause considerable delays in enabling Parliament to hold government to account. This amendment would severely compromise its role. I hope with those few words I have reassured my noble friend, and he will be content to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, I have been up, and indeed in, many African rivers, but not the Zambezi, like the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. So, I will try to be as brief as he has been, but I want to make two comments: one about Amendment 39 and one about Amendment 42.

The inclusion of decapod crustaceans and cephalopods within the remit of this Bill is warranted, evidence based and consistent with current legislation with regard to cephalopods, in that they are protected under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, so I support this amendment. However, currently in the Bill, it appears that larval forms of decapod crustacea would also be included. These can be microscopic; they are the fauna of plankton, and then they grow up into shrimps and prawns and so on. I ask the Minister: at what point does a larval decapod crustacean become sentient? A briefing from the Marine Biological Association and the National Oceanography Centre expresses concerns particularly that, if larval forms of crustacea are included, it might compromise their environmental monitoring and research functions. I ask the Minister if consideration has been given to an amendment along the lines of Amendment 41, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Mancroft and Lord Marland, that excludes embryonic forms.

Amendment 42, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, myself, and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, removes the possibility, currently in the Bill, for the Secretary of State by regulation to extend the list of animals covered in the Bill. This would still be possible but would be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny through primary legislation. This would recognise that, as scientific research continues, evidence may accrue from which it might be argued that other invertebrates may have some degree of sentience. Crustacea are but one group within a vast taxon of arthropods that includes many thousands of species including the insects.

In the excellent LSE report that reported on the sentience in decapod crustaceans and cephalopods, there is a matrix of criteria—eight in that report—in which evidence of varying strengths may be aggregated in varying levels of confidence to arrive at an overall judgment whether a particular group may be considered sentient. There is not a clear demarcation between sentient and non-sentient.

The inclusion of further groups of invertebrates as sentient merits very thorough and balanced political, economic and societal—as well as scientific—consideration, and should ultimately be a parliamentary decision in primary legislation.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend may not like it but I will support him—I hope he appreciates that—because he said something very sensible about Larsen traps. On a small Midlands farm I catch between 40 and 82 magpies—that is the most I have ever caught—a year. Visitors congratulate me on the huge clouds of linnets, yellowhammers and whatever that we have on the farm, so I was delighted to hear what he said about Larsen traps.

In relation to government Amendment 39, I have always thought that putting a lobster into boiling water must be cruel. People say, “Oh no, they don’t feel, they’ve got no brain”. I have no idea whether they have a brain or not, but it must be cruel, and the Government are making a very good move in seeking to protect such things. While I support the amendment, however, I am not sure that it should be in the Bill—in primary legislation. I would have thought that it could have done by SI; I am not sure that this is necessarily the right way to go about it. I will, however, on this occasion support the Government without any compromise.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am a bit perplexed by all this. The Government have decided to include lobsters and octopi—I prefer those terms because I understand them—but to exclude fish and, if they do not accept the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Trees, the minute creatures that they produce. It seems to me that we are on a slippery slope here: the sentience committee could come to the conclusion one day that fish have sentience and feel harm, and then we would ban them. Once you start down this road, there is no limit to where you can go in describing creatures as sentient. That troubles me enormously, and is why I am less than enthusiastic about my noble friend’s amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Robathan]

46: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Expiry
This Act expires at the end of the period of 5 years beginning with the day on which it is passed.”

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising, who is unavoidably detained somewhere in the country—I am not quite sure where—I beg to move this amendment. I am sorry that the Minister feels put upon, because I think he is doing a very good job defending what some people have described as indefensible, and well done him.

This is a very simple sunset clause. It is fair to say beyond peradventure that some of the arguments raised in the past six or seven hours show that there is dispute over whether the Bill is a sensible idea. Therefore, surely, we should have a sunset clause so that, after five years, we can look back and say, “Actually, it’s not working very well, let’s scrap it”—or improve it, or whatever it might be. That is all a sunset clause does, and that is why I move it.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I support my noble friend Lord Robathan. In anybody’s language, this is an extremely controversial Bill—that has come from a number of extremely distinguished Members of your Lordships’ House. The most appalling collateral damage could be caused by the Bill which no one has anticipated. That is the problem. When you have such Bills with a mind of their own and committees that can roar off doing all sorts of things and are completely independent, it is only later that you realise that it was a very great mistake in the beginning. In all modesty, I think the Minister should seriously consider this sunset clause so that we can reconsider whether the Act, as the Bill will no doubt become, has been a good idea, whether it has achieved what it set out to do, or whether it has caused so much damage that it needs to be radically revised. A sunset clause of five years gives us a wonderful opportunity to think again, and I sincerely hope that the Minister will give the amendment serious consideration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I do not agree with my noble friend, because the committee’s work will be ongoing, and it will also respond to changes in scientific research that may come out in the course of its many years of work. To introduce a hard stop—a hard deadline—to its work would be both unnecessary and impractical.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, if I might say, I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord Hamilton, because it is not a question of ending the work of the committee, but of saying, “Is the committee doing well after five years, and do we just continue it?”, which is very easily done. I have some experience of this in the past. However, I shall not force this to a Division, my noble friend will be pleased to know. Both my noble friends on the Front Bench will be particularly pleased to know that there is only one more clause to go. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 46 withdrawn.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Robathan Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 13th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Herbert of South Downs (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my positions in the Countryside Alliance, including chairman, which I have declared in the register of Members’ interests. I regret detaining the House. I appreciate that there is important business next on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. However, as the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill leaves the House, I feel that there are important issues that need to be addressed. I would like to make two points at the outset.

First, none of what I am going to say is an attack on my noble friend the Minister. He is a good friend and a good man who has been given the impossible job of defending a Bill about which many of us have considerable reservations, and has done so with unfailing grace and humour. I am genuinely sorry to differ from him on this measure. Secondly, every one of us in this House wants to promote animal welfare. I certainly do. I feel strongly that animals must be treated properly but, whatever the good intentions of those promoting the Bill, I fear that it is not a wise measure as drafted. In fact, if we take a step back, it is actually an incredible measure. It seriously proposes that the effect of any government policy on the welfare of animals may be considered by an unfettered statutory committee and that Ministers must respond to that committee’s reports.

When the Bill started, that measure applied only to vertebrates; now it applies to cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans. That was one of the few amendments made to the Bill, and that was by the Government. At the height of a pandemic which has killed thousands of people and cost our economy billions, we have decided to devote time to passing a law to ensure that no government policy can hurt the feelings of a prawn.

The Government rejected every other amendment put to them. We pointed out that sentience is not actually defined in the legislation; apparently that does not matter. What matters is that Ministers must have regard to sentience, even if we do not know what it actually is. We asked for safeguards to ensure the expertise of the committee’s members. We were told that such protections were not necessary. We asked for constraints to the committee’s scope. We were told that limits to the committee’s unfettered remit were not necessary either. Crucially, we asked why the balancing provisions in the Lisbon treaty, which specifically exempt religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage, were not included and why the Bill goes so much further than the EU measure it claims to replace. We were told that this balancing provision was not necessary either. In fact, apparently no change was necessary.

The Government have been able to ignore every concern expressed, largely on this side, by relying on the kindness of strangers—uncritical support for the measures that would have guaranteed the defeat of any amendment. I wonder whether the Government will come to regret that.

I am sure that Ministers do not intend that this new committee will get out of hand. I am sure they intend to appoint sensible people to it. I am sure they believe their own rhetoric when they say that Ministers decide so they will resist the committee’s recommendations if necessary. This is of little reassurance when the Government have already capitulated in the face of a social media campaign to introduce the committee in the first place. It is like saying, “Don’t worry, we are going to make sure the burglar won’t take anything from your house, but we are going to let him in to make helpful suggestions about your security”. This committee will set its own priorities. It will decide its own agenda. It will rove across government at will and demand answers to its recommendations. The Government may believe that they are answering public concern by setting up the committee in this way, but I fear they are making a massive rod for their own back.

This measure departs from the usual practice of taking careful and specific steps to ensure animal welfare by injecting a broad and ill-defined principle into our public administration. The danger is that, in doing so, it will effectively if unwittingly hand an institutional footing to the animal rights agenda. We are giving leverage and power to that single-issue ideology, which can be uncompromising and extreme, without thinking through the consequences.

We are trying to beat a mutating virus. We are trying to level up, to build back better. We need Government to take better decisions, and more quickly. We need to get things done faster, yet we are putting in place a barely constrained mechanism which is simply bound to glue up government. I am afraid that I differ from my noble friend on that. At best, even with sensible people in place, the committee will put spanners in the works because frankly that will be its job. It will make it harder for Ministers to deliver, to take difficult balancing decisions, which they sometimes must, or to ignore populist sentiment. At worst, without the necessary safeguards in place, the committee risks becoming a Trojan horse, used especially to attack wildlife management farming or the well-being and way of life of our rural communities. We know that this is a real risk because the animal rights agenda is in plain sight, and because its proponents are already incessantly abusing judicial review to force government to do its will.

It is usually this House which provides a robust check on measures propelled by populist wins, yet we have passed the Bill with no amendment, except to extend its scope to beasts such as cuttlefish. Some noble Lords may remember that, 30 years ago, it was only the sober intervention of this House which prevented the then Dangerous Dogs Bill from inadvertently making it a strict liability imprisonable offence for a dog to cause injury by accidentally knocking someone off their bicycle. That Bill had foolishly been driven through all its Commons stages in a single day, but today we are showing ourselves to be more inclined to bend without sufficient thought to populism, and now it will fall to Members of the House of Commons to address the deficiencies in this proposal.

We all want to advance animal welfare, but the sentience provisions in the Lisbon treaty had little or nothing to do with the succession of admirable legislation which for over a century has been passed by this Parliament. In fact, with Brexit, we have the freedom to pass laws to protect animals which would not have been possible before—to address puppy smuggling, for instance. Even before this sentience Bill has been passed, other government Bills to protect animals have been introduced or announced, which only goes to prove that this Bill, creating this committee in this way, is not necessarily to protect animals.

I have offered these remarks in the hope that even as the Bill leaves this House, there is still a chance that its serious deficiencies will be addressed and that we will return to focusing on specific workable measures to improve the welfare of animals in ways which we all want and can all support. I beg to move.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister who, with good humour throughout, has defended what is frankly almost indefensible. He has done extremely well, and I hope that he is congratulated by the higher ranks of the Government. I associate myself entirely with the excellent points made by my noble friend Lord Herbert. I will not repeat them, but I will repeat that this is a shockingly bad piece of legislation which should be an embarrassment to the Government.

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as a member of the RSPCA and president of the Countryside Alliance and the Horse Trust. I too thank the Minister for his patience and courtesy during the passage of this Bill. Given the opposition from parts of the House, this cannot have been an unalloyed pleasure for him.

It gives me no pleasure to support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, but I must. I cannot understand how a Government who were elected in no small part promising to reduce bureaucracy, especially that which came from Europe, can have taken the wholly uncontroversial subject of putting animal sentience on the statute book, something which nobody would disagree with, and now seem bent on turning it into a textbook bureaucratic nightmare.

When the former Master of the Rolls, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, told us during the passage of the Bill that it creates a magnet for judicial review; when the foremost vet in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Trees, who supports the Bill, tells us that its scope needs definition and its focus sharpened on to future policy decisions; when the former Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, the former leader of the party opposite, the noble Lord, Lord Howard, and many others, tell the Government that they need to think again, yet they resist and reject all amendments, save for a small number of government ones, it makes me wonder whether this House has actual value as a scrutinising House when they have the comfort of a large majority in another place and know that they are able to push defective Bills through almost unamended there.