Equine Slaughterhouses (CCTV)

Debate between Roger Gale and James Gray

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) on introducing this extremely important debate in such a professional and sensible way. It might seem odd, but I have not disagreed with a single word that she or any other speaker has said in this debate. Incidentally, before I forget, I declare that I, too, am an honorary member of the British Veterinary Association. I am also a member of the Countryside Alliance and I own a variety of horses, and have done so for many years. It is true to say that there is no correlation between richness and owning horses. Indeed, I have discovered over the years that owning horses is what makes one poor. I have had a rather large number of horses at one time or another.

I have also had the experience of taking horses to slaughter, and there can be no more terrible event in one’s life than to take to its death an animal with which one has had a day-to-day working relationship for many, many years—I am sure the same applies to dogs and cats, too. I strongly support the thrust of what has been said by all the speakers, especially the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) a moment ago. Their points are absolutely correct, and I strongly support World Horse Welfare’s campaign to introduce compulsory CCTV in abattoirs, of which there can be no doubt.

I hope that those who feel strongly about this subject will forgive me if I raise a couple of issues that I hope will not detract from the strength of the campaign, but that none the less need careful consideration. The first, which was touched on by the hon. Lady for Northern Ireland (Lady Hermon), is that there have been remarkably few prosecutions, even where there is compulsory CCTV. I am ashamed to say that one of the biggest prosecutions was of that dreadful man from west London called James Gray. I assure the House that he is absolutely no relation; none the less, it was an appalling case.

The question is whether introducing compulsory CCTV in the small number of abattoirs that kill horses would necessarily have a significant effect. My concern is that this might be one of those occasions where we make a huge effort to introduce regulation or new legislation that has little effect and might, on the contrary, assuage our concerns and make us feel that we have done something when what we have done is actually relatively inconsequential.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I seek not to be mischievous, but does my hon. Friend concede that it is just possible that there are so few prosecutions of places with CCTV cameras precisely because the cameras are having the deterrent effect that we seek?

[Mr Gray]

That is possible, of course, but it is hard to work out the cause and effect. In the case of horses, I suspect that it is probably because, depending on the statistics we use, only 4,000 or 5,000 are slaughtered each year in up to five abattoirs—there are none in Wales or Scotland. In other words, something in the order of 1,000 horses are slaughtered per equine abattoir spread over 50 weeks. A very small number of horses are being killed in licensed abattoirs today, and therefore there is no presumption that any of them is carrying out anything other than the highest possible standards of slaughter.

St John Ambulance

Debate between Roger Gale and James Gray

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate, although it is not one for which my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) or I wished to call. My name came out of the hat, but I take no pleasure in the necessity of the debate taking place. I am—at least for the next hour and a half or so—the vice-president of the Canterbury and Coastal branch of St John. Before the restructuring of the organisation, I was proud to be the vice-president of the Herne Bay branch in my constituency.

The St John Ambulance service is an organisation that has been revered, honoured and respected in Herne Bay for generations. Its presence at the Queen Vic memorial hospital summer fête, the Lark in the Park, football matches, rugby matches and other sporting events, and many concerts and performances held in Kings Hall has been part of the fabric of the town, and the branded ambulances have provided succour for those injured, sick or in need of transfer from one medical facility to another. In my parliamentary lifetime, volunteers such as the late and much loved John Morriss and, currently, George Tunnadine and his partner have been mainstays of our community. They and many others around the county of Kent have accumulated years of dedicated service to society and the public, and have provided countless hours of hard work behind the scenes, learning and then passing on to others their first-aiding and medical skills.

That wonderful inheritance has been placed at risk through mismanagement and a failure to communicate by those charged with protecting it, preserving it and passing it on to their successors, which is why we are here this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury—if he catches your eye, Mr Turner—will deal with specific issues illustrated by and arising from the situation at St John nursing home in Whitstable in his constituency. Others will also wish to have their say, and I am aware that the St John damage control machine has sought to brief individual Members and the Minister about the huge and unqualified success of what others regard as administrative vandalism.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend about the incredible service of local people to the St John Ambulance brigade over so many years. I pay particular tribute to my own friend and colleague, David Hempleman-Adams, who was the chairman of the Wiltshire organisation, until it was closed recently, and is now a trustee nationally. He would disagree about the structural points that my hon. Friend is about to make.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is sitting on my right, but as those remarks have not yet been made, it might be polite, if nothing else, if he were to wait until I have said what I am going to say. I can say to him that I am sure that the St John briefing notes, which I have seen, will have been well and truly read into the record by the time that we are through.

I will not detain hon. Members for too long, but I need to illustrate with broad brush strokes what has gone wrong and then, as the subject of the debate is the regulation of St John Ambulance by the Charity Commission, set out why the commission has been unwilling, or unable, to intervene in a manner that might have been expected in the interests of those supportive members of the public who have so generously given many millions of pounds over the years to the St John Ambulance service. It is not my style to say under privilege anything that I would not be prepared to say outside Parliament on the record or in public. Nor do I propose—this might come as a relief to some—to name names or to besmirch individual reputations. There is, however, a collective responsibility at the very top of St John that has to be held to account. My understanding is that, in recent years, the St John accumulated reserves have suffered from a near catastrophic 30% loss. I am sure that that figure will be disputed and that “reasons beyond our control” will be offered for the failure to protect the charity’s funds properly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Roger Gale]

I accept that. I know the lady to whom my hon. Friend refers and she is extremely hard-working. I concede that there may well be regional variations, and I will come to that precise issue almost immediately, but I cannot help feeling that the fundamental malaise comes from the very top, and that while some organisers have chosen to interpret instructions in a particular way and successfully, others have been perhaps less successful or felt that they were put under pressure. I am not suggesting that the people doing the job are bad people, except perhaps at the very top, and even then I do not mean that they are bad people in that sense.

We now move into uncharted territory, and I will offer the House some observations that have been made to me, not only from Kent but from East Sussex, the midlands and Yorkshire, as examples of precisely this effect of top-down diktats. When events such as this debate reach the public airwaves, testimony also emerges. During the past week, I have taken phone calls and received written communications from people whose details I have but whom I propose to anonymise for the record.

From East Sussex, a volunteer with 35 years’ service under their belt speaks of a branch that in 2008 had a membership of nearly 86, but which has now declined to just three or four. They also tell me of some 13 units whose headquarters buildings are to be sold, and that is in just one district. Another volunteer tells me of training that has gone downhill, with sessions booked from a centralised HQ in Aylesbury that is out of touch with the rest of the new region. In the former area, there were 146 trained emergency ambulance crews; in the corresponding new administrative area, there are only 86. I was told of headquarters premises sold by St John for £80,000 to a developer, who cleared the site and sold it on for £220,000. St John’s justification for that seems to have been, “We’re not property developers.”

It has been suggested to me—of course, the accurate figures must be available within St John—that the result of reorganisation has been a loss in Kent alone of perhaps as much as 75% of the membership. That is all anecdotal, of course, but it is a matter of record that on Thursday 24 January 2013, a special resolution was tabled calling for a vote of no confidence in the priory and the priory council of St John. That resolution was defeated, but in circumstances that the record suggests were, at the very least, bizarre.

Instead of citing telephone calls, I will quote directly. From Kent:

“We learned of the reorganisation in 2011 and that the new structure would be in place by October 2012.

Kent became part of the South East Region on 1st October 2012 being administered from the Regional Office in Aylesbury.

Our County HQ at West Malling was closed and almost all of the loyal staff made redundant.

All funds that were held in County accounts were amalgamated into the Regional Pot.

The feeling among the membership is that the new Regional Directors are trying to run St John as a commercial company and that making a profit is their main aim.

A small number of local events that we covered for a small donation are now not able to run because St John wants to charge them a commercial price and they cannot afford it.

Each Division would raise funds to buy a new Ambulance; they took pride in their vehicle, kept it clean and well stocked and were proud to display their Divisional name on the side of the Ambulance. Those Ambulances have had the names removed and no longer belong to the Division but are moved around the Region with no-one taking ownership for their cleanliness and equipment.

Kent was one of the best-run Counties in the Country with a very strong membership providing thousands of hours of voluntary service to the public of Kent. Sadly, the membership is declining fast and it appears that what has taken over 1000 years to establish the new management have destroyed in just over a year.

I would be interested to know where the funds that we held in Kent have disappeared to.”

From the east Midlands, a long-standing and very faithful divisional superintendent gave the following reasons for his recent and unexpected resignation from St John. I am quoting from a minute:

“That the commercial side of St John was taking over and using the voluntary arm, for financial gain, neither of which is within the spirit of St. John.

To achieve this end there is no regard or concern for the volunteers. We have not been consulted about anything, decisions are made over our heads even when affecting our Units personally, even including the decision to close down a particular unit.

The Leaders of East Midlands Region say whatever is suitable for the occasion, even if it’s not the truth and even if they’d said the total opposite before.”

That is followed by something that is even more disparaging and I will not read it out. It continues:

“The need for change in St. John is understood but the harsh, inconsiderate manner, with few explanations and little consideration of the volunteers, is not an appropriate way to introduce these changes. A more humane, considerate approach could have produced a better outcome.”

Another volunteer from Kent said that

“having been a member for almost 38yrs I am totally confused with this ‘restructuring’. All I see is an excuse to take all Divisional funds away from the Divisions into one large pot… Divisions virtually have to beg for funds and they are a long time coming if they come at all.

We now have a District Manager in Kent telling us he wants us to work with local authorities and KCC and his vision is to cut out event cover completely! Our whole ethos…for the past 1000 years has been to give help to the sick and since we were reformed in 1877 in England we have always covered public events assisting the injured. Our Division has some events we have been covering over fifty years.

I am very sad that everything St. John stands for is being undermined.”

[Mr Gray]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend. I understand that local people are disturbed by these kinds of reorganisations; that is always the case. Will he explain why this is a matter for Her Majesty’s Government, or even why it is a matter worth raising in this Chamber? These might be worrying developments, but are they really a matter for Parliament?

[Sir Roger Gale]

I have already indicated the subject of the debate to my hon. Friend. The debate is about the Charity Commission’s involvement in the matter, which is a matter for Her Majesty’s Government. I will come on to that in a few moments, if he can possess his soul with a little patience.

A community first responder unit said:

“We would like to inform St John that after a unanimous vote by all CFR members we are going to close the Community First Responder Scheme… This will also mean that our St. John Membership will also cease. Some of the reasons that have caused us to take this decision are listed below…poor communication on behalf of St. John…poor record keeping on behalf of St John…lack of information on behalf of St John…forced to purchase through St John’s Services—not the best option…bad press coverage of St. John Ambulance”.

That final catalogue perhaps exemplifies the high-handed, arrogant and remote manner in which the Priory of England and the Islands of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem and the St John Ambulance leadership seem to have severally and collectively treated their volunteers and erstwhile supporters—that and the selling of the family silver.

Local headquarters are, of course, ultimately the property of St John, but with the funds to purchase and maintain those properties raised locally, it is not surprising that a sense of local pride and ownership has prevailed. To see their premises flogged off to meet the costs of the failings and excesses of what they regard as a bureaucratic and elitist London headquarters has proved to be more than many formerly loyal supporters can bear. A cleric from Yorkshire writes that

“when Selby was sold, the property which had been bought by the county had its proceeds taken from them for HQ funds. When a new property was found, the county leased it on a rent and had to pay so much a month for its use out of their own funds. They were not able to use the monies from the old property in any way! The same also was true for the Scarborough Division when it changed properties. I always think that it is unfair when London swallows up what has been raised by hard work in the counties—don’t you agree?”

I have to say that I do agree.

Against that unhappy backdrop, the Chamber will, I hope, shortly hear of the concerns surrounding the future of funds donated for the support of the St John residential home in Whitstable. Members may also hear of the shift—denied by St John—away from its core and Christian services and values, morphing a fine institution into little more than a commercial health and safety training organisation.

To directly answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), I have a question for the Minister. When my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury and I referred the conduct of St John to the Charity Commission, we were told that:

“It is important to emphasise that although the Commission’s functions include encouraging and facilitating the better administration of charities, and taking remedial action to tackle misconduct or mismanagement, the law prohibits the Commission from acting directly in the administration of the charity. Trustees are the managers of their charities and it is their job to make the administrative and strategic decisions necessary for their charities’ proper and effective management… The Commission cannot direct the trustees to take one particular course of action or another. Neither does the Commission have discretion to overrule the trustees’ validly taken decision on the grounds that others take a different view, however strongly held.”

Either my hon. Friend the Minister will tell me that the commission is wrong and does have the powers to instigate independent inquiries into the conduct and management of St John, or he will have to tell me that the commission is correct and has no powers to intervene. If the latter is the case, the House will need to address that by giving the Charity Commission the additional powers necessary to properly discharge its duties in the public interest.