RSPCA (Prosecutions)

Debate between Simon Hart and John Leech

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman and I disagree on many things, but what we can agree on, whether it suits my taste or not, is that the law is the law until such time as it is not. I am not here to defend anybody who breaches the law in this area or any other, frustrating though I may find the law. I reassure him—I refer back to my answer to an earlier intervention—that nothing I say today should offer any comfort to those who wish to break the law. This is about process, rather than policy.

[Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. Further to the last intervention, is the solution not further legislation —I am sure he will disagree—to make it easier for the CPS and the police to prosecute people who break the law? At the moment, they are not able to prosecute, and that is why the RSPCA feels it necessary to take out these private prosecutions.

[Simon Hart]

I regret that I disagree entirely with my hon. Friend’s comments. I will explain why in a minute. The debate is not about trying to pass yet more legislation to deal with what some people consider to be a problem. This is about how we can actually empower the CPS, and, indeed, for that matter, impose a degree of accountability on those who wish to prosecute privately. I am not here to try to stop people prosecuting privately; I am just trying to ensure that, if they prosecute, they do it in a way that does not conflict with their political or perhaps, commercial objectives.

I remind my hon. Friend that the police had the ability to prosecute in their own right removed in the 1980s, with the creation of the Crown Prosecution Service. The police must gather evidence, make arrests and submit a file to the CPS, which will then apply a stringent and objective test. That process is right, and exists to protect the public from police officers who might, through no fault of their own, be tempted to chase targets or satisfy neighbourhood or other pressures, which might distort their proper objectivity. I am attempting to argue that if any charity were to go about its private prosecutions—and, let us face it, the RSPCA is about the only one that does it—with that degree of objectivity and accountability, we should have achieved something, and my hon. Friend’s fears would not come to fruition.

Wild Animals (Circuses)

Debate between Simon Hart and John Leech

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) on securing the debate. I should apologise for referring to him earlier, I think, as my hon. Friend. Members may not know that we recently spent a week together in a tent in the Falkland Islands, where I became friendlier than I had perhaps intended—[Interruption.] That is reflected in his comments.

I am not here to make a speech in favour of wild animals in circuses. Such spectacles hold no great attraction for me—I would not go to one myself or take my children to see one. However, I have always been fundamentally opposed to the politically tempting prospect of abolishing things because it suits a particular political narrative. We have seen that total bans do not necessarily result in actual total bans and do not necessarily produce the welfare benefits that some passionate and articulate advocates suggest. Having listened to the debate so far, I am concerned that we are confusing two things which, to my mind, are absolutely different—the welfare of wild animals in circuses and the legality of abolition.

It is right and proper that we should debate the welfare of wild animals, and part of that debate should be about separating cruelty from suffering. Something that has beset animal welfare debates in this House for some time is the fact that we sometimes complicate the emotive description of the treatment of animals in the context of cruelty, which is not a scientific measurement, with that of suffering, which is or can be. We should perhaps put ourselves in a position to legislate on the back of reports and debates on the issue of wild animals in circuses, but that is entirely different from the debate on the legality of abolition.

It is absolutely proper that any Government take the legal advice that they are offered. We simply cannot go around ignoring legal advice on the basis that using expressions such as “total ban” plays to our popular instincts. People will sue us, and the taxpayer will pay if we get it wrong.

[Mr Leech]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it would be far better for the Government to publish the legal advice, so we can all have a look at it?