Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill (Third sitting)

Neil Hudson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner]

The amendments are about the level of expertise required of a veterinary surgeon. Our view is that more specialist expertise is required for primates. Looking to expertise in the room, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border may wish to comment.

All veterinary surgeons have skills and qualifications, but given that this will be a relatively unusual occurrence one wonders whether they will be in the right place to do what is needed. I understand that a range of organisations, including Born Free, the RSPCA, Wild Futures, the British Veterinary Association, the Ape Alliance and others have expressed concern that premises inspections for licences, renewals and check-ups should be conducted only by competent veterinary surgeons with suitable knowledge and experience of primates. We have discussed how infrequent those checks could be. We do not know what the geographical spread will be, so it is possible that people will be doing this very rarely. Therefore, the question is: do they fully appreciate what is required?

I hinted earlier that the Government have failed to spell out the ideal conditions. I understand that further work may be done in regulations and so on, but, as we have just been reflecting, these creatures have extremely complicated welfare needs. They are long-living, intelligent —highly intelligent, in some cases—social animals. It is hardly surprising that many animal welfare organisations believe that a high level of expertise should be a prerequisite of assessing whether a keeper will be able to provide the right environment for a primate.

Amendments 110 and 111 address the aspects of the Bill that cover premises inspections for licence applications and renewals, which under the Bill currently can be carried out by a veterinary surgeon. An average veterinary surgeon will have a broad and extensive knowledge of a wide variety of animals, but how rarely will this arise? I genuinely do not know how many primates the average vet sees, but I guess it is a few. I shall happily take an intervention from a vet. How many primates does the average vet see?

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a veterinary surgeon. I am not competent or experienced when it comes to treating or examining primates, and that is the nub of the point that the hon. Member for Cambridge is making. I am sympathetic to what he is saying.

When veterinary surgeons train, certainly in this country, they have the potential to practise on any species; they are described as being omnipotential. That is very different from being omnicompetent. The hon. Gentleman’s amendments are very sensible, but I respectfully disagree with the detailed wording. Committee members will recall the evidence we took from the president of the British Veterinary Association about the term “specialist”—unfortunately, the amendments contain the word “specialist”. In the veterinary world, that will conflate and confuse the issue. As the president of the BVA said, she is not a specialist as per the definitions, but she is experienced in zoo medicine, having worked in it for many years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

This has been a helpful discussion—hopefully, we will come to a sensible resolution. I hear what the Minister says about the advice and guidance. My reflection, having been some years ago a district councillor in a rural area that had some areas that needed to be licensed, is that we struggled with expertise.

Much of the discussion in the end is not so much about primates but about licensing, and how we go about it. Having spent a number of years trying to get the taxi licensing system improved, I am beginning to draw on my conversations with the National Association of Licensing and Enforcement Officers; I remember some of the complexities that can be brought up. None of this is simple or easy. We need expert advice, and the right people. If we do not have them, we will not get a very good outcome. We think that amendment 112 is sufficiently important to vote on, but I will withdraw the others.

[Dr Hudson]

I support the Government on this issue, but we heard evidence last week that the number of veterinarians with the relevant competence and expertise to look at primates is unclear, but in the order of 50. If we had the word “specialist” in the Bill, we could whittle that down to single figures—or it could be 10 or 20 —because that term means that a person has either their royal college boards or their European college, American college, Australasian college or many others, and that then the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has accredited them as a specialist.

The current wording would really complicate things. I strongly urge the Minister and the Government to take on board the Opposition’s comments about competence and experience so that the licensing protocol is not merely a box-ticking exercise by someone who will potentially be very much out of their comfort zone.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: 10, in clause 5, page 4, line 1, at end insert—

“(4A) For the purposes of subsections (2) and (3) a local authority may take into account—

(a) any previous failure by the applicant to meet the licensing standards, and

(b) any other conduct of the applicant that is relevant.”—(Victoria Prentis.)

This amendment allows a local authority to take previous breaches of the licensing standards, and other relevant conduct, into account when making determinations under clause 5(2) and (3).

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Hudson]

Again, I am sympathetic to the hon. Member for Cambridge and understand his intention. We have to be sensitive about the language when euthanasing animals. In different contexts, we use different terms. In small animal practice, “put down” and “put to sleep” are often used. In the equine profession, where I have spent many years, we will not use “put down”, but will often use “euthanased”. I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s comments that in some of the legislation “humanely destroyed” has been used, which is often used in clinical and scientific literature.

To the Government, I say that in considering changing the terminology, I disagree with the hon. Gentleman and would not prefer “euthanised”. If we look at the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons’ website and the section on euthanasia, we often use the term “euthanased”, in that a vet euthanases an animal. There is that matter of semantics. In America, they talk about “euthanatizing” and “euthanizing”. I cannot support “humanely euthanised” for some of the reasons I have just given and I suggest that “humanely euthanased” would be a suitable substitution. I wish the Government would have a look at this to get to more clinical and scientific language.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. His expertise is extremely helpful to the Committee and shows how complicated this is. Clause 16(2)(c) is just too aggressive in this context. While I accept the Minister’s explanation of the legal situation, I cannot see why that cannot be put in a different way, given the kind of creatures we are dealing with. I suspect the Minister agrees, but she has to do what she has to do. We are not going to push this to a vote to embarrass people—there is no point—but if there is an opportunity, perhaps it could be amended at some further point in the process. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.