Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Roger Gale

Report stage
Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Sir Roger Gale]

According to the hon. Lady’s analysis, would that also mean that any member of the Countryside Alliance would have to be excluded?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I was actually just coming to that point. I was going to say that if the hon. Member for Buckingham thinks that nobody who has aligned themselves to a particular cause can be impartial, then that also ought to cover his friends in the Countryside Alliance and the rest of the hunting and shooting lobby. When he refers to extremists, I would say, certainly having been on the receiving end of it, that there are extremists on that side too. For example, Chris Packham has been subjected to a huge amount of abuse just for speaking out about the persecution of hen harriers, so there are clearly unpalatable elements on that side as well.

Amendment 7 would mean that someone such as the eminent zoologist Michael Balls CBE—father of Ed—who served as an adviser to the Government on the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and was a founding member of the Animal Procedures Committee, which advised the Home Secretary on all matters related to animal experimentation, would not be allowed to serve on the animal sentience committee, despite that expertise, because he had been a trustee of FRAME—the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments. He also, alongside the Prime Minister’s own father, came to Parliament to campaign against a huge new puppy farm in Yorkshire, where beagles were being bred specifically for purposes of animal experimentation. He is now an emeritus professor and might no longer wish to serve on Government committees, but surely someone with that sort of background would be absolutely perfect for this committee. That is not to say that we cannot also have a balance, with people who have other views.

I think it is nonsense to suggest that such experts, who are drawn to campaign on animal welfare precisely because of their in-depth understanding of the science behind animal sentience—it is because of their expertise that they are concerned about animal sentience and animal welfare—should not be allowed to serve.

Finally, turning to amendment 2, I think the same thing is actually going on. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds was very brief in speaking to his amendment, but he happens to be chair of the all-party parliamentary group on shooting and conservation. It is somewhat ironic that some of those who were so vocally supportive of leaving the EU, apparently to take advantage of new freedoms, are now arguing that they want to carry over the Lisbon treaty wording, chapter and verse. I think one of the reasons why this provision was in the Lisbon treaty was to protect things such as bull fighting, which I would hope we all think should not be protected in the name of culture and tradition.

I do not have a huge problem with the amendment being made to the Bill, because I have argued from the start, going back to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill debates, that the Lisbon treaty provision should be carried over. However, having heard what the hon. Member said on Second Reading, I think what he is really trying to do, by the back door, is to turn back the clock on the hunting ban or to create legal uncertainty around its enforcement by saying—this was the old argument we had when the Labour Government banned hunting—that it is all part of our tradition and of rural culture. The fact is that, for most people, as polling shows, it is a tradition they want confined to the history books, along with bear baiting, cock fighting, sending children up chimneys and so on. The hon. Member has to accept that times have changed, and that there is no place for fox hunting in a civilised world.

Sentience and Welfare of Animals

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Roger Gale

Monday 16th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy]

For clarity, Sir Roger, may I ask whether I have a set amount of time, or until 6 o’clock? I do not intend to speak until 6 o’clock, but the position is not that I specifically have 90 seconds to sum up the debate, is it?

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

For clarity, the next debate cannot start before 6 o’clock.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Okay. I will not take up that much time.

The Minister’s response has left me thoroughly confused and more than a little concerned, and I think that the people from the campaign “A Better Deal for Animals”, some of whom are watching here today, will be equally alarmed by what she said. It might not have been my belief, but my understanding was that the Government were committed, in their manifesto, to introducing the law as soon as possible. First, there was the original promise. Let us not forget that there was going to be a Back-Bench revolt. New clause 30 had been introduced by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). The Government were going to lose on that. The Government made a promise that they would legislate, so that they did not lose. They bought off their own Back Benchers, as well as the Opposition, by promising to legislate.

Therefore, there was a promise to legislate before Brexit, which has turned into a promise to legislate before the end of the transition period. There was a manifesto commitment to do this as soon as possible, but the Minister has just said that it might well not be this year.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The manifesto was obviously for the election towards the end of last year, and we then had a Queen’s Speech. One would have thought that if there was a manifesto commitment to do something as soon as possible, the Bill would have been mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. I appreciate that there are pressures on DEFRA and I certainly appreciate that there are many more pressures on the Government now than there were back then, but I do not think that we can use the coronavirus as an excuse for not having put something in the Queen’s Speech when none of us knew about that at the time. My concern is that the Minister seems to be trying to have it both ways by saying, “We will legislate; we have promised to legislate,” while also saying, “We don’t really need to legislate.”

This might genuinely be the Government’s view: “We do not feel that we need to legislate; we already have protections in law, but we know that at some point we will have to bring in a law, because we promised to do that to get out of an awkward situation.” We saw that with the Bill that became the Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019. That was a far smaller matter, but again there was, I think, an Opposition day debate, and a huge number of people were supporting the change. Then it was dragged out; there was pre-legislative scrutiny and all sorts of things for a tiny little Bill that applied to, I think, 21 animals. It took forever.

My fear is that the Minister is trying to kick this issue into the long grass in the same way as the Wild Animals in Circuses Bill was in the long grass for an awfully long time. Many people outside the House will not be happy at all with this situation. Therefore, I will conclude by saying that there was a commitment to bring the concept of animal sentience into UK law. There was not a commitment to show people or illustrate by examples that it is already covered in UK law. We had that argument.

The commitment was to put this into UK law. There was then a manifesto commitment to put it into UK law as soon as possible. This is all very much Brexit related, and it was meant to be done by exit day—the end of January this year. Perhaps the transition period will be extended. Who knows? But the Government have made a clear commitment, and everyone expects them to live up to that commitment.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

I must now put the Question. Unfortunately, although most of the main players for the next debate are here, we must wait until 6 o’clock to start it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 242239 relating to the sentience and welfare of animals.