Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [Lords]

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), is quite right that we have made heavy work of getting here. We have probably at times shared the view that we would not get here, so I welcome the fact that we have done so. I am not sure why some Government Back Benchers are so upset about the Bill, because it is pretty weak, although the test will be who is on the animal sentience committee once it is up and running, and what decisions they make and are allowed to make, so we reserve judgment on that.

I will speak briefly in support of new clause 1. It was rejected by the Government in Committee, although I am not sure why. It would require the preparation of an animal sentience strategy and annual statements on progress towards that. That would lead to a more proactive approach to sentience from Ministers. One of the amendments I tabled in Committee would have removed the word “adverse.” The new animal sentience committee’s job is to look at the “adverse effects” of policy. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) said that it would be able to look at kids learning in school about how to be nice to pets, but that is not the purpose of this committee. Its purpose is to look at negative things, but I think it would help if it could also look at the positive side of things.

Having an animal sentience strategy in place would force the Government to set out how they would respond to relevant reports, assessments and research, and it would be more proactive. Improving animal welfare should not just be about protecting where we are; it ought to be a constant, iterative process, because where we are simply is not good enough, whether because the laws are not strong enough or because enforcement does not happen.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree with me that although the Bill is a step forward, it is unusual to have a committee of this type without its having a strategy? As Government Members have pointed out, the committee needs to be making sensible decisions and recommendations. How can it do that without a strategy? I am sure the public would expect it to have a strategy, because the public expect us to be focused on animal welfare.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, particularly as we have a Government who cannot be trusted to keep their promises, as we have seen recently on imports of hunting trophies, fur and foie gas, for example. We need a mechanism that keeps the Government on track and creates that forward momentum, and new clause 1 would provide that.

It is clear from the Government rowing back on their promises to legislate on those imports that the Government are scared of some of their more unreconstructed Back Benchers—actually, some of the current Cabinet are pretty unreconstructed too, if the press are to be believed. On Second Reading it was noticeable how many Conservative Back Benchers stood up to criticise the Bill. The lack of enthusiasm for it—even the fear of it—was palpable, and we have read about efforts behind the scenes to neuter it, and I think that is what amendment 7 is about.

The hon. Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) wrote a rather amusing article for ConservativeHome recently, saying that he had rumbled my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and me and sussed us out—I paraphrase. After close scrutiny of our comments in Committee, he had worked out that we had a hidden agenda: we were against fox hunting. That was remarkably clever of him; it was like when Scooby Doo suddenly unmasks the villains at the end. If there is anyone with a hidden agenda, it is he and the hon. Member for The Cotswolds, and I think he ought to be clear as to what amendments 6 and 7 are about.

Why would we want to exclude anyone with past or present commitment to animal welfare issues from serving on the animal sentience committee? Amendment 7 says that anyone who is an

“employee, former employee, or is a consultant or former consultant to, a charity”—

that could be the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, which are pretty benign organisations—

“or campaigning organisation concerned with animal welfare or animal rights, or is or has been in receipt of any payments or funding from such a charity or organisation, whether directly or indirectly”

should not be allowed to serve on the animal sentience committee. I do not understand why we would want to exclude people who have shown commitment, interest, knowledge or expertise in animal welfare from the animal sentience committee, unless the aim was to try to ensure that it was as weak on welfare and soft on sentience as possible.