Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, I commented earlier in Committee on the potential problem which would be created if existing policy could be reviewed by the committee. The trouble that could be caused by reviewing existing policies is as nothing compared to the turmoil which could come from the ability to go backwards and review existing law. This would be an enormous power which very easily could, and almost probably would, get out of hand. It would require almost unlimited resources and place intolerable burdens on other departments of state.

In addition to that, unlike European countries, Britain has had animal welfare laws for 200 years. Allowing the committee to recommend repealing or amending already implemented law would be a recipe for unimaginable chaos and expense. I cannot believe that this is what this Bill intends. If the Bill is to have any sensible purpose, it must be limited to recommending on future policy and legislation which, by itself, would be a monumental task, without the potential of causing almost unlimited trouble by going back historically.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I support my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising’s amendment, to which I have put my name. It strikes me that the Government have not really thought this through very carefully, because if this is going to be retrospective and it will be possible for this committee to review all legislation that has already been passed, then this will provoke a need for massive new legislation stretching into the future. The Government have the option, I suppose, of ignoring recommendations from the animal sentience committee, but if they do not ignore its recommendations, then of course that means they will inevitably get involved in more legislation in the future. I am not sure that that was really the intention of the Bill in the beginning. Surely, the original point of the Bill—not that I am a great supporter of it—was that there should be some form of oversight of government legislation to ensure that the sentience of animals was being taken into account, but if it works retrospectively, then of course it has unlimited capacity for creating ever more work and expense, as has been mentioned by my noble friend. Therefore, I very much support his amendment.

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendments 18 and 23, which carry my name, and in support of Amendments 17 and 29. These all rule out scrutiny of policies established in the past and are consistent with my Amendment 3, which we discussed on the first day in Committee, which laid out the function of the committee and confined it to considering policies subsequent to the committee’s establishment. The arguments for not having any retrospective powers have been well made by others.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

I have also received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I want to follow up on the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, about ritual slaughter. We have been reading in the newspapers that, if this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament, it will become illegal to drop lobsters into boiling water to kill them. Is that one aspect of the thinking behind what the Government are doing? If that is the case, where does it leave pigs being slaughtered? They are highly intelligent animals and with a very high sense of smell. One might say that the slaughter of pigs does serious damage to them and to their feelings. I would just like to know where the Minister stands on this.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

If my noble friend is referring to the article that I read at the weekend, it was full of inaccuracies and hyperbole, which is not what this Bill is about. At a later stage in this afternoon’s proceedings, we shall move on to talk about decapods and cephalopods. In relation to the amendments concerned, if the government Minister in the future felt obliged to include some of those species within the terms of the Bill, they could be looked at by the committee, which could advise a future Minister what they could or should be doing in terms of how different animals are treated at end of life. However, my noble friend is absolutely right to point out that there are gradations in unpleasantness involved for the animal, whether it is a pig or a lobster. The point is that the Bill does not dictate how a lobster is killed at the time of cooking or how a pig is killed at the time of slaughter. This is about informing policy using experts who can guide a Minister to take the right position. But that Minister, when considering all the factors that my noble friend mentioned, can take into account other matters, such as the value of sustainably produced seafood in a diet or the importance of the rural economy or the Government’s balance of payments in terms of rearing pigs. This Bill does not affect that, and so my noble friend can be quite relaxed about his concerns.

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[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, Clause 2 sets out the manner in which the animal sentience committee reports. In particular, Clause 2(2) sets out

“whether, or to what extent, the government is having, or has had, all due regard to the ways in which the policy might have an adverse effect on the welfare of animals as sentient beings.”

Assuming that there is an adverse effect, subsection (4) imposes a duty on the Government to have “all due regard” to this adverse effect. Amendment 44 ensures that, in making their response to the committee’s report, the Government include what steps they are going to take to remedy this adverse effect. The primary purpose of the Bill is to advance animal welfare, and the Government are setting up this animal sentience committee to provide a critique of the Government’s policies as a way of achieving this. The committee will publish reports and the Government will respond.

Amendment 44 deals with another what and when. What happens when the committee finds that the Government have not had all due regard for the welfare of animals as sentient beings? In the case of past policy, will it be repealed or amended? In the case of present policy, will it be paused? In the case of future policy, will it be suspended? What happens when a policy is found to have been answered negatively but cannot be repealed or amended? Do the Government continue with the policy in conflict with their own committee’s report? Can the Government then be subject to a judicial review? These are important questions, and it is therefore necessary that the Government in their response go to some length in trying to satisfy them so that they can continue governing.

It is equally necessary for businesses to be made aware of any changes, so that they, too, can prepare and make appropriate changes to their actions. We know what happened when Natural England suspended general licences. We cannot experience such chaos and such tragedies again. We all agree that we must do our best to prevent unintended consequences, especially ones that harm the welfare of animals and people’s livelihoods.

In short, that is what Amendment 44 seeks to do: to ensure that any actions to be taken are properly communicated and delivered in such a way as to avoid harming the welfare of animals, and in doing so to protect the associated livelihoods of those whom the action will impact. Be under no illusion: as drafted, the powers of this committee are significant. The demands on government will be even more significant and the potential consequences may be enormous. We must therefore have answers to the why, the what and the whens before this legislation becomes law; otherwise, it will be far too late.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 38, in the name of my noble friend Lord Caithness, to which I have added my name. I was not here—because I was at a previous engagement—when the debate was held in this Room about merging the Animal Welfare Committee and the animal sentience committee. My noble friend the Minister made the point that the two committees did two different jobs and therefore there had be two different committees. That was really accepted rather too glibly. There is no reason why we should not keep one committee and give it two different jobs to do. It is a pity that we seem to be so dedicated to the spread of bureaucracy and quangos in this way, when the Government have made it clear that they do not really agree with that.

However, let us leave that and move on to the fact that there is obviously potential for conflict between the Animal Welfare Committee and the animal sentience committee, as outlined by my noble friend Lord Caithness. We have to do everything we can to avoid that and ensure that they work together—not in opposition to each other, which seems highly likely knowing the way that Whitehall works. I therefore sincerely hope that my noble friend the Minister will look hard at this amendment, because it has great value.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, although I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and my noble friend Lord Caithness that the committee should look at policy in the round, I regret that I cannot support Amendment 20 in her name and that of my noble friend Lady Fookes. I also strongly support the objective of my noble friends Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Hamilton of Epsom in their Amendment 2, previously debated, that the duties of the animal sentience committee could better be given to the existing Animal Welfare Committee.

As my noble friend Lord Forsyth said on 6 July:

“It feels as if this is just a bit of window dressing, a bit of virtue-signalling, which is actually going to create great problems for the Government.”


My noble friend the Minister told the Committee that the Government

“want the animal sentience committee and the Animal Welfare Committee to have a constructive relationship, but it is not quite as simple as saying that we could hand over the ASC’s responsibilities to the AWC with no legal powers to back them up.”

That would of course have been far better.

I have the highest regard for my noble friend Lord Benyon, but I found his explanation as to why we need two committees completely unconvincing. It is a disproportionate and unnecessary response to the Government’s manifesto commitment. Those animal rights activists who support the Bill claim that the public want it. If you tell the man or woman on the street that there is an Animal Welfare Committee already and ask if he or she thinks we should have a second committee, you will get a different answer. My noble friend said:

“It is important to remember that the two committees have distinct roles. The Animal Welfare Committee exists to provide advice to Defra and the devolved Administrations, whereas we are establishing the animal sentience committee to scrutinise policy decision-making across the whole of government. Any relationship between the two would need to support these two distinct functions.”—[Official Report, 6/7/21; cols. GC 337-8.]


I do not think these functions are distinct in any way. Without exception, noble Lords who spoke on 6 July asked him to come back with at least some definition of the committee on Report.

I also support Amendment 16, in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and my noble friend Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, which stated that the new requirements to consider animals as sentient beings in the formulation of policy should be limited to those areas covered by Article 13 of Title II of the Lisbon treaty. UK Parliaments have recognised the sentience of animals since the Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822, and our animal welfare standards go far beyond what we were required to do under EU law. If the Government really think that they must establish a new quango of such dubious merit and opaque purpose, the four amendments in this group will at least restrict that quango’s activities to examining new policies under consideration rather than opening up the entire existing statute book to reconsideration at great expense.

Although I was unable to speak in the earlier debate, let me say that I also support Amendment 31, which would provide exceptions for religious rites and cultural traditions. Without that, a large part of Japanese cuisine —to which I am partial, having lived in that country for many years—would probably be deemed illegal.

I have added my name to Amendments 21 and 22 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton. Amendment 21 could have been grouped with amendments that we have debated previously, which also sought to prohibit the committee reporting on established government policy. Amendment 22 would require the committee to obtain the consent of the Secretary of State before committing taxpayers’ funds.

I cannot support Amendments 27 and 41, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, because they assume that the committee’s answer to the question is binary—that is, yes or no. The existing draft at least raises the question of the extent to which the Government are having due regard to animal welfare in the formulation of policy. Surely this is an instance where the proportionality principle should be applied.

I strongly support Amendment 38, in the name of my noble friend Lord Caithness, to which I have added my name. If we must have two overlapping committees, at least the animal sentience committee should consult the Animal Welfare Committee and publish a note explaining its opinion on any report.

In Amendment 44, my noble friend Lord Mancroft seeks to find out what the Government might do in cases where the committee finds that they have not had due regard to the animal welfare consequences of any policy. Earlier, we debated the incorrect assumption of the Bill that any effect would be adverse. Obviously, any policy designed to make it easier for gamekeepers to cull predators has positive effects for the prey of those predators. I support my noble friend and look forward to the answer from my noble friend the Minister on this question.

I cannot support Amendment 46, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, because subsection 2(b) of the proposed new clause makes it clear that she intends that the committee’s remit should extend across government, whereas I believe that it should be limited to those areas that were previously covered by Article 13 of Title II of the Lisbon treaty, as I mentioned. Furthermore, the amendment raises the question of the other activities that the committee may have undertaken during any financial year.

There seems to be no limit to the scope and remit of the Bill. Unless it is appropriately restricted, the committee will need huge resources.

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[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to my noble friend Lord Moylan’s amendment. It brings us back to the concern expressed on previous amendments about the committee’s composition—that people who feel very strongly about this will not necessarily share the broad spectrum of views on this whole issue. I have nothing against people being vegetarians or vegans but the reason why they are is because they cannot bear the thought of animals being killed to feed human beings. If we were to have a significant number of vegetarians and vegans on this committee, it might start producing rather strange judgments about animal sentience.

My noble friend Lord Moylan is absolutely right to express concern about this. This committee will have enormous power and its composition will be critical to the judgments it will come out with; that is why it is very important that it gets subjected to peer review and that others can comment about the judgments made by it. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will say that he is determined to set this committee up in a way in which it is sensibly and broadly based and reflects all people who might have an interest in this matter, but of course it will be set up by statute and I have no doubt that subsequent Governments might have different views about its composition. That is why I think that we need some form of academic peer review so that this can be subjected to expert opinion from outside and have a bit more balance in some of its judgments. I support this amendment.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 28 and 42 in the name of my noble friend Lord Moylan; I have added my name to Amendment 28. As my noble friend pointed out in his impressive speech at Second Reading, and again today, our animal welfare legislation to date has not been based on any animals rights deriving from our recognition of their sentience; it has been based on our moral obligations as rational human beings endowed with conscience. I agree with my noble friend that the scientific basis for the recognition of sentience needs to be examined. I do not believe that sentience is something that one species has and another does not. I am sure that all forms of life possess a degree of sentience—perhaps even trees and plants. It is not the reason why we should look after animals well.

This Bill could become a Trojan horse and be used by activist groups to attack proper wildlife management, farming and the economic well-being and way of life of our rural communities. Throughout my life, I have noticed that those who genuinely care for wildlife are often the same people who engage in country pursuits and field sports. They are often the people who understand animals, birds and fish better than most. They are prominent among people who perform acts of kindness towards animals and are most determined to spare animals suffering. I worry that the Bill will be used against them and that our rich and diverse wildlife will suffer.

These amendments will ensure that the committee’s work is underpinned by robust academic findings. I ask my noble friend the Minister to confirm that the Government will accept them.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

I have received two requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Lords, Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Moylan. I call the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend Lord Caithness mentioned the predation of badgers, which of course do not come under pest control; they are protected. He did not mention that badgers very much like eating hedgehogs. They are skilled at rolling them over and disembowelling them. When we worry about the decline in hedgehog numbers, very rarely does anybody mention that perhaps badgers are responsible for this.

Another protected species is the sparrowhawk. If you shoot a sparrowhawk you get fined £1,000 because all hawks are protected, but 34 songbirds every week account for their diet. We have to bear in mind that in nature, almost all species are predated on by others. We just want to get all this into perspective.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I would be going down a very dangerous path if I moved on to cats and how many songbirds they account for, and would probably find this getting out of hand, but my noble friend is absolutely right. What we seek to achieve through not just animal welfare provision but other legislation and regulation is a balanced countryside. We do not get it right; we are suffering a cataclysmic decline in species, which means that our children and grandchildren will not see the species that we have perhaps relied on seeing regularly. That is a tragedy that we are seeking to reverse through a variety of other policies. At the same time, when it comes to pest control, we can do it as humanely as possible, and we can have management techniques that protect both species and landscapes. It is not an exact science and it will be got wrong at certain times, but, by and large, I think there is a great unity of purpose in trying to reverse these tragic declines in species.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 3, after “must” insert “by regulations”

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am moving this amendment because my noble friend Lord Forsyth is putting the report on quantitative easing to bed at his Economic Affairs Committee, just across the Corridor, so he has asked me to move it for him. I apologise that I was not able to contribute to Second Reading, but I have read Members’ contributions to that debate, and very interesting they were, too.

This amendment would change the first line of Clause 1(1) to read:

“The Secretary of State must”,


by regulations—that is the amendment—

“establish and maintain a committee called the Animal Sentience Committee.”

That is because, in common with quite a lot of my fellow Members of the House of Lords, I have great worries about the creation of this committee at all. In the second group of amendments, we will look at the whole question of duplication. We already have an Animal Welfare Committee and it is not altogether obvious why we need another one doing much the same tasks as the old one. Surely it is the task of government, particularly a Conservative Government, to simplify legislation, not complicate it.

Therefore, by adding “by regulations”, it would be necessary for the Secretary of State to come back to Parliament and say precisely what committee he wanted. It would also be an opportunity for him to explain to Parliament how much this is all costing, which is something my noble friend Lord Robathan raised at Second Reading. Looking at this Bill, there is no evidence at all of what it will cost the taxpayer, and it is important that we know how much these things will cost. It is not ridiculous to argue that we should be told how much people will be paid for being on the committee.

Generally, there is a great worry that the committee will develop a complete mind of its own, go roaring off, interfere with many different areas of government, and become rather unaccountable. Anything that can be done to ensure that the Secretary of State comes back to Parliament should be welcomed by the Government, as we do not want this committee getting completely out of control.

A great worry about the whole of this Bill, as my noble friend Lord Hannan said, is:

“to what problem is this Bill a solution?”—[Official Report, 16/6/21; col. 1918.]

There is an awful lot of truth in that, and it was echoed by a number of other contributors at Second Reading. We ought to be careful about creating new layers of bureaucracy and a committee with enormous powers to interfere with other areas of government, and end up not being accountable to Parliament at all. I beg to move.

[Lord Trees (CB)]

Thank you, my Lords. I should like to speak to Amendment 3 in my name and Amendment 16 in the names of my noble friend Lord Kinnoull and the noble Lord, Lord Hannan.

Amendment 3 will sit in Clause 1, which introduces the animal sentience committee, and it seems right, proper and appropriate that the clause then goes on to describe the committee’s remit. That is to some extent covered in Clause 2(2), but my amendment goes further than that clause in two important respects. First, it stresses:

“The function of the Committee is to determine whether, in relation to the process of the formulation”—


and so on. It introduces the word “process”, which is critical to understanding the function of the committee. It is not influencing the policy or commenting on it. It can comment, and it has a remit to comment, on the process by which policy is formulated and implemented with regard to considering animal welfare implications. That is important. It may be a statement of the obvious, but it is perhaps sometimes worth stating the obvious.

Amendment 3, which would extend Clause 2(2), also refers to its remit to look at policy subsequent to the establishment of the committee, which would therefore have no right to retrospective review of policies previously formulated or implemented, even if they are in process at the time. This is an issue that a number of subsequent amendments on the list repeatedly allude to. It would therefore seem sensible to include that provision right at the beginning as a limitation on the committee’s remit.

Those are the main points: the amendment sets out the committee’s remit right at the beginning of the Bill, emphasising that its role is to comment on process, and would limit its remit to policy being formulated and implemented after the committee has been established.

Perhaps I may quickly speak to Amendment 16. It would restrict policy, which the Bill does not do; the Bill refers to “any government policy”, which is a huge remit. The amendment would restrict the policy to areas that were defined in Article 13 of the Lisbon treaty, which to some extent is the progenitor of the Bill. It seems sensible to make the scope of the committee more manageable, reasonable and pertinent by restricting that remit.

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[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that clarity and entirely endorse what he says.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for responding to my remarks on Amendment 1, which I am about to withdraw. He has honoured the pledge he made on Second Reading to tell us about the resources being made available for this new committee. I must confess, I think I am getting more naive the older I get; I was rather hoping we would have some serious figures on how much money was involved, but maybe we will have to wait a bit longer for that. In the meantime, I am very grateful to my noble friend and beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

I support what my noble friends Lady McIntosh and Lord Moylan have said, especially on the role of the committee. Having listened to the Minister speak confidently about the committee just reporting and having no other role, he underestimates the inherent growth of any form of Whitehall committee: it never reduces its power; it constantly expands it and its role, and interferes in things in which it does not necessarily have a place. The efforts that have been made to concentrate on reducing the role of the committee and placing its remit statutorily, so that it cannot expand outside of what it was set up to do, are of fundamental importance. I urge the Minister to consider the many very good points that have been made.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I join my noble friend Lady McIntosh in opposing this clause standing part, because any Conservative—and, I think, any sensible parliamentarian and the Minister—should be concerned about setting up committees, per se. We have a proliferation of committees everywhere and, here we are, creating yet another one. If this committee were doing something uniquely special that was not being done by anybody else, it might have more to say for itself, but we already have the Animal Welfare Committee. Does my noble friend not consider it possible to amalgamate the activities of both committees, so that we do not end up with two doing similar things, but with one?

As my noble friend Lord Mancroft said, there could easily be conflict between the two committees anyway. Which advice would the Government take if the advice between the two varied? This is a recipe for chaos. To constantly set up committees is not the right way to run government. As my noble friend said, they develop a life of their own, get bigger and bigger, and more officious and difficult. This is not the way to deal with problems of cruelty to animals. We all want to see people punished for being cruel to animals, and I do not think an animal sentience committee is the way forward at all. I would like to see this clause voted down and the whole idea of an animal sentience committee dismissed. We already have a committee dealing with this and should not have two, because that is a recipe for chaos.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I would like to follow those last comments from the noble Lord. Earlier, we discussed the difference between the animal sentience committee, the Animal Welfare Committee and other committees. The sentience committee is not being set up as just an advisory committee, as the Animal Welfare Committee is. It is designed to have a different role and remit, and will need different expertise to the Animal Welfare Committee. It has its own important role to play in something that is strongly supported by the general public.

It is important for the Minister to hear that noble Lords are concerned by the lack of detail in Clause 1. People feel that the Bill needs improvement, and there have been many issues raised during the debate. From my perspective, more clarity and focus are needed, if it is to achieve what the Bill intends and answer many noble Lords’ concerns. We do not support voting to remove Clause 1 from the Bill, but there is work to do in the time between now and Report. I urge the Minister to work across parties to look at how we can improve the Bill and address many of the concerns that have been raised.

Japanese Knotweed

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

The noble Baroness has hit upon something concerning nature and many of the plants around the world. This is why we need to look after our planet—because many of these plants will provide the solutions to many diseases. As for Japanese knotweed, I am aware of what she says: it is successful in Japan because it has these biocontrols. The problem in this country—this is the distinction—is that it is so invasive that it is causing significant issues. Therefore, its source, where there are biocontrols, would be a better place for such things than encouraging it here. In fact, under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, we should not be doing that anyway.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, are not the professionals dealing with this in this country using Roundup? Is that not the most effective thing available at the moment? Does the EU not have plans to ban this and, if so, will we follow suit?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the UK experts participated in the European Food Safety Authority’s recent assessment of glyphosate and supported its conclusions. The Government therefore agree with the continuing approval of glyphosate. Of course, we always base our considerations on the best available advice and that is what we will continue to do.

Badgers

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I simply cannot agree. I repeat what I said in answer to a similar question earlier this year. The report following the visit to the United Kingdom by the European Commission’s bovine tuberculosis subgroup in March 2012 stated:

“It is however of utmost importance that there is a political consensus and commitment to long-term strategies to combat TB in badgers as well as in cattle ... There is no scientific evidence to demonstrate that badger vaccination will reduce the incidence of TB in cattle. However there is considerable evidence to support the removal of badgers in order to improve the TB status of both badgers and cattle”.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, is it not very early days to be saying that this experiment is not working? The trial has only just begun. Surely we have to wait until some time after the cull has ended to see whether the incidence of TB in cattle has dropped. At that stage, will the Government also look at other forms of wildlife and see whether there is a recovery in the numbers of hedgehogs and ground-nesting birds which have been ravaged by badgers in the past?

[Lord De Mauley]

My noble friend makes an important point. As I said in answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, these judgments will be made by an independent panel. However, as I also said, our initial view is that so far the humaneness, safety and effectiveness tests have been met. I am grateful to my noble friend for his suggestions.

Drought

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, it is not for me to anticipate the contents of the Queen’s Speech, and certainly not to use the opportunity of this Question to do so. Noble Lords will know that next week we will consider a water Bill that deals with time-sensitive matters and which I hope will have the concurrence of the House. The noble Lord will have to wait to see whether the water White Paper is translated into legislation in the Queen’s Speech when it occurs.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, will my noble friend comment on reports in the press recently about the proposal for a main line to be run alongside the high-speed link connecting to Birmingham and beyond, which would bring water down from the north-west to the drought-stricken regions of the south-east?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My noble friend anticipates a Question on the Order Paper about a national grid for water. Of course, all those matters have been considered by this and other Governments. It has been found that the interconnectivity of water systems is far more cost-effective than building a mainline grid. Water is extremely energy-expensive to pump around. Unfortunately, it does not naturally flow from the north of England to the south-east.