Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I believe that most reasonable people, and certainly most noble Lords taking part today, support wholeheartedly the objective of conservation that the noble Baroness was just talking about. We always want to protect our shrinking wildlife on this planet, so it is always helpful to start on the areas on which we agree, and that is one of them. But the perception on which this Bill is based is that a number of the world’s most endangered and iconic species are threatened with extinction by excessive hunting, and that by prohibiting the importation of trophies taken from these animals we will set an example to other countries and, perhaps more importantly, prevent the decline in the numbers of those species.

The argument on the other side is that the income derived from hunting for these trophies—the trophies themselves do not matter, of course—improves conservation in a number of different ways. The most obvious way—and I think that my noble friend Lord Caithness mentioned it—is that, in hunting areas, the habitat is being protected. That is the most important thing, because it is loss of habitat that is the greatest threat to wildlife. On the other side of the coin, we have learned in the course of this Bill that trophy hunting is not actually a threat to any endangered species at all—it is other things that threaten them, but not trophy hunting. None of the animals that would be covered in the two annexes to which this Bill will apply when it becomes an Act are at all threatened in any way, shape or form by trophy hunting. They are threatened by other things, the most important of which is loss of habitat; that is, to some degree or another that is open to debate, protected by trophy hunting. If you have a concession, a piece of land on which you are conducting your hunting business, you are obviously going to protect it because otherwise it damages your business. That is widely demonstrated.

It is often said that this House has an expert on almost every subject. I have to confess that I am not an expert on the subject before us this evening, although I have some experience of conservation here in the United Kingdom, and I have a passion for the wilder parts of the world, some of which I visited, and the creatures that live there. I have never shot game in Africa or in other parts of the world—the Far East, or whatever—so I, too, have no direct interest to declare in this Bill.

It is clear that opinion is divided in the Committee, as it is everywhere, on which side of the argument one falls—and that is quite normal. What is interesting to me, as the noble Baroness touched on, is what has happened during the course of the passage of this Bill, in its passage to the other place and in the several months since it came here first in June—rather a long time ago. I have been involved in a lot of Private Members’ Bills over the past 35 years that I have been in this House, and I cannot remember any on which such an extraordinary deluge of information has been poured on our heads and through our letterboxes. Of course, some of it is very good and some of it is not so good—that is a fact of life.

We have had an extraordinary amount of high-quality information provided by academics. Two speakers have already referred to the letter from academics that appeared in a newspaper. I have tried to get letters into newspapers, and it is very unusual to do so. Getting 10 Peers to sign one brings herding cats to mind, so getting 150 academics from across the world—which must also be a bit like herding cats—to sign a letter is extraordinary. These were not just any old people. It is a pretty impressive list. I do not remember it happening before.

I also do not remember another piece of legislation that does not really affect this country at all but does affect others. The way some people speak, you would think that hunting is a minority activity. Actually, 99% of the countries in the world have hunting; those that do not are the minority. It is normal in most parts of the world and cultures. I have never come across a situation where more affected countries have been so vociferous in their opposition to a Bill that affects them. I do not remember the British Government—although I am sure there is a case of it—enacting a piece of legislation like this, which has an economic, social and cultural effect on other countries, without asking or meeting them and completely ignoring their views. It is quite extraordinary.

The countries most affected by this—the southern African countries that have hunting—have, like the academics, been unanimous in their opposition. Two groups took the trouble to get on an aeroplane and come over here. Can noble Lords imagine the Minister jumping on a plane because of something happening in the South African Parliament and dealing with a group there? We had a Minister, heads of wildlife departments and an MP come to this House because they were so horrified by what would happen. The evidence we were given was extraordinary, detailed and backed by hard, peer-reviewed research.

One thing that affected me most was that one of the people who came here, an MP from a constituency in Botswana that I could not begin to pronounce, on the edge of the Okavango, told us: “It seems to me that British parliamentarians care more about animals than they do about our people. I go to funerals of my constituents who are killed because they live alongside wildlife. Their cattle are killed and their crops are destroyed. Four or five constituents every year, usually children on their way to school, are killed by animals”. That is a fact of life when humans live alongside wildlife.

We have debates about rewilding in this country—sometimes very sensible and sometimes not quite so sensible—in which people say that we do not want wolves in England because they are too big and might kill our sheep and dogs. It is quite right that we have those impassioned arguments, but can you imagine saying to someone in Surrey, “We’re going to put a couple of prides of lions outside Esher and a herd of buffalo in the Surrey Hills”? They would not be very happy about it. These people live alongside these animals all the time. This MP was saying that it looked like we cared more about the animals that we do not have to live with than his constituents who do. We need to take that very seriously.

As my noble friend has said, trophy hunting is a major force for conservation. The 1.3 million square kilometres in Africa is one-fifth more land than all the national parks combined. We need to think carefully, because this is big stuff. Trophy hunters obviously want to continue hunting, so they preserve their quarry in those areas and actively protect the habitats and other related animals around. More importantly, the communities are therefore incentivised, economically and in other ways, to accept the animals, which are undoubtedly difficult to live with, and prevent poaching. If they have no value to those people, if they are a negative and not a positive, how on earth can we expect them to protect them? Surely, the object of this Bill is to protect them, so we need to incentivise those people. Trophy hunting is one of the main ways at the moment to do that.

Trophies can account for up to 50% of the revenue derived from hunting, as I think my noble friend mentioned. If you remove the ability to take away the trophy, you take 50% of the income away, for no real gain to anybody. After all, trophies in themselves are not important. What matters is how we manage the wildlife and the consequences to them, not the trophy. Although we have been told that you do not really need hunting and could replace it with photo tourism, we need to be clear that the overwhelming evidence we have received is this: of course you can increase photo tourism, but that will not work in the areas in which there is trophy hunting, because they are different. There is not the infrastructure and they are not the sort of places that are good for photographic tourism anyway. It simply will not work. We were told that not just once or twice but by all the evidence we received, which was detailed and explained why.

The evidence we received on the other side of the coin, which said that you could do tourism there and do not need trophy hunting, gave no specific examples at all. I found it extraordinary that I got from the JNCC—many of your Lordships will have too—nine detailed pieces of peer-reviewed research demonstrating where trophy hunting occurs, how and why it is important and the numbers, while we did not receive a single piece of specific evidence going the other way that we could rely on.

Welfare has come up in this debate. This is not a welfare Bill, but a conservation one. It is important to note that the two are different subjects. I am not a naturalist or an expert in these things, but I can give noble Lords a fact which I know to be completely true: 100% of wild animals will die. Some 99% of them will die of injury, illness, starvation, lack of water, competition with others and being predated upon—not a very nice one—while probably less than 0.01%, a tiny number, will be killed by trophy hunting.

I can also assure noble Lords that, of all the deaths that wild animals undergo, probably the one with the least welfare concerns is to be shot by a bullet. No wild animals die in their beds or have palliative care. None is surrounded by its relatives when it leaves this planet. They all die nasty, painful and long-suffering deaths. That is what nature does. The only ones that have a short, quick death are those that are hunted. A welfarist wanting to improve the welfare of animals—which is not the point of this Bill—cannot object to this on those grounds. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, shaking her head, but this is a fact. If she thinks I have got something wrong, I invite her to come in on it, because this is pretty factual.

I said at the outset that we cannot all be experts on every subject that comes before this House, although some noble Lords seem to think they are from the frequency with which they bend our ears. We must therefore rely, to a certain extent, on the information we are given. We have to decide, sift it and look at the reliability of its sources. As I have said, I have been extremely impressed by the evidence that has come to us supporting the conservation points of this Bill and making it clear that, as drafted, it does not have the conservation benefits we would want.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

Before the noble Lord moves on, will he also reflect on one point? We have indeed, as he rightly pointed out, been inundated with extremely interesting and very knowledgeable briefings from both sides of the argument. The overwhelming conclusion of those people who are concerned about the Bill, do not want to stop it in its tracks but want to improve it, is that they feel very strongly indeed that, with the right amendments, the Bill could in fact be fit for purpose and could command widespread support, particularly among those countries in southern Africa that he referred to.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. He is absolutely right: all those countries that we have all had letters from said that they would support the Bill if it had a proper conservation amendment in it, as is on the Order Paper today. We have had fascinating information. To me, the most fascinating information—I think it has already been referred to—was the stuff from the JNCC, the Government’s official adviser on conservation. It was consulted over a period of time by a number of Ministers as the Bill was formed over a period of years, drafted and redrafted. I have seen, and I am sure that your Lordships have, too, lots of advice from different committees, groups and people to Ministers. I do not think I have ever seen a more categorically strong piece of advice from a government advisory body saying, “No, this Bill as you have drafted it at the moment will have severe conservation problems and deficits”.

If we want the Bill to be a good model of conservation and to help the wildlife we all want to help, it needs to have in it certain measures, and those measures are in an amendment of mine that we will look at later this evening: Amendment 34. In the meantime, Amendment 1 from my noble friend Lord Caithness is very interesting because it would give the Secretary of State the ability to look in advance at what the results are going to be. It would give him or her a duty to do that and to see whether the Bill is going to do the good that some claim it will or the harm that others claim. As such, I would be very happy to support my noble friend’s amendment.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, as we move through the early stages of this debate, I think it is important, first, that collectively, as a House, we recognise that there is a wide range of opinions not simply within this House but without it. I think it is right that we conduct this debate in a tone and a manner that does not denigrate anyone’s opinion. I think that what is held is held very passionately by a number of people and that both the movers and the opponents of the amendments are doing so in a very sincere manner.

I take exception particularly to one thing that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said: I think that every Member of this House has the complete right, irrespective of gender, to put forward whatever they feel to be in the best interests of legislation and to contribute to this debate. It will not come as a great surprise that I do not intend to undergo a course of gender reassignment or self-identification. As a DUP Peer, I think, to be fair, we have a reputation: we are not regarded as a particularly woke bunch, or indeed as people who would be naturally inclined to a left of centre approach to things. It therefore may come as a bit of a surprise that this may be the first time in my number of months in this House that I find myself, not necessarily in terms of tone but in terms of content, largely in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and commending the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, for her actions in bringing this forward.

There will be others who speak in this debate who come with a greater level of expertise, and we can all trade statistics and representations that have been made to us. I have to say that I think the case for this amendment and from some of the opponents of the Bill has been heavily oversold. Trophy hunting does not create, as the impression has been given, some great utopia for society that will cure all our ills. It seems from the supporters of this amendment to simultaneously both preserve the ancien régime of indigenous peoples while at the same time being the principal driver of social progress within these countries: it seems to be the close correlation, if not the main motivation, behind female emancipation and education. If people are making the case for this amendment, it is important that it is not oversold.

I believe that trophy hunting makes an economic contribution to these countries, but there are some statistics that suggest that this is fairly minimal. As for the idea that this is being done as some form of benevolent social welfare for some of the residents, we know that, at the end of the day, for those on the ground this is making a very small contribution. The trickle-down effect is very limited. The range of these amendments would make the Bill much more complex and open to legal challenge than would otherwise be the case and create a regime which would enhance the level of uncertainty within the Bill.

I appreciate that the job, particularly in Committee, is to see what improvements can be made within the Bill. I have to say that, generally speaking—and I do not want to prejudice any of the arguments that will be made—it would appear that most of these amendments come from people who are vehement opponents of the Bill. That is a perfectly legitimate position, but let us not pretend that the intention of the amendments is particularly to improve the Bill. I think their impact would be to create the death by a thousand cuts of the Bill and to create a range of loopholes across the Bill that that would fundamentally weaken its purpose.

While I mention loopholes, I have not put down an amendment, but it may be useful if the Minister, whenever he is summing up towards the end, could deal with one loophole in the Bill that I think needs to be closed. In another place, my colleagues raised the issue of why Northern Ireland was excluded from the Bill. The argument was made that it would be in some way incompatible with the single market, to which Northern Ireland is apparently still subject. Leaving aside constitutional issues that I have some concerns about, I have to say that as an argument there has been a level of misinformation there. Irrespective of whether you are in favour or against these amendments, the single market is not an excuse for Northern Ireland’s exclusion, as four countries within the EU have either enacted very similar legislation or are in the process of doing so. So I urge the Government to consider this again.

For me—this may be a simplistic approach—this is about the signal that we send out as a civilised nation. Trophy hunting and taking back those trophies to the United Kingdom is something that is no longer part, if it ever was, of a virtuous, civilised nation. Therefore, I urge the Committee not only to reject this amendment but to oppose the amendments throughout the Bill, which will not necessarily improve the Bill but will act as a device, bit by bit, to water it down.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, for tabling and moving this amendment, and the other Peers who have proposed amendments. However, I must say that the Government are disappointed that the House has not thus far been able to agree a way forward for this important legislation. My experience is that there is always a deal to be done, and I hope we may yet find some way forward. I was interested to hear the words of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, whose experience in these matters is hugely valued. I will take up any opportunity to find a way forward.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for giving way; I am most grateful. I too would like to have found a way forward, which is why I made clear what my proposal was on 16 June at Second Reading. I am very sad that my noble friend Lady Fookes has declined to discuss it with me. I asked on three occasions, but she felt she could not—that is her right, of course. I also rather regret that over two and a half months, the first squeak I heard out of the Government was last week, and no proposal or ability to find common ground was offered. The only direct approach I had was yesterday, 24 hours before Committee. That is no way to find agreement; nevertheless, my door is open and I look forward to agreement, because most of my noble friends here do not wish to kill this Bill. We would like to see a good Bill on the statute book.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend and understand the point he makes. Like other noble Lords, I commend my noble friend Lady Fookes for her commitment to this Bill and her hard work to support it.

I shall set out the Government’s position on the Bill and speak to the issues raised by a number of amendments. First, as noble Lords will know, the Bill before us would deliver our manifesto commitment to ban the import of hunting trophies from endangered animals. I recognise that this is a controversial proposal in this House, and I accept that there is a range of views and evidence on trophy hunting, including that it can be beneficial in conservation terms and for local livelihoods if well managed. The Government’s position, having listened to a number of different sides and gone through all the options, is that an import ban is the best way forward. An import ban would address the public’s concern about imports of hunting trophies, delivering a policy that is clear, comprehensive and practical to implement and enforce.

This is why we have a problem with the so-called “smart ban” amendments put forward, such as Amendment 14, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness; Amendment 19A, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness; Amendment 34, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft; Amendment 39, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas; Amendment 40, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan; and Amendment 41, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Bellingham and Lord Roborough. What is being proposed in those amendments is effectively a licensing system based on criteria about conservation impact or wildlife management practices and regulations. That is, broadly speaking, what we already have in place. The effect of these amendments would be to negate the purpose of the Bill.

There are a great number of amendments which deal with items in scope of the ban, concerning changes to the definition of a hunting trophy or the species, items or conditions under which a hunting trophy would be subject to the ban. This includes Amendments 3 to 7, 9, 10, 12, 15 to 18, 20 to 28, 31 to 33 and 35 to 38, in the names of the noble Earls, Lord Leicester and Lord Caithness, the noble Lords, Lord Lucas, Lord Hamilton, Lord Swire, Lord Robathan, Lord Reay, Lord Howard of Rising and Lord Roborough, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard.

The definition of a hunting trophy used in the Bill, in Clause 1, is consistent with the definition agreed by CITES and is already used by our authorities for CITES controls. Our current controls would continue for imports that are not hunting trophies. There is already provision in the Bill for consideration of imports for scientific or educational purposes, for example for the import of items for personal use that were not obtained through hunting. The scope of species is clear and comprehensive. Annexes A and B of our wildlife trade regulations implement appendices 1 and 2 of CITES in Great Britain. They cover species at risk from international trade, including elephants, giraffes, rhinos, big cats, bears, primates and hippos.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment, which makes a great deal of sense. I think it is also just worth pointing out that he touched on a pertinent point: everyone is concerned about endangered animals. A lot of people feel strongly about animals in the wild, but what we have heard this evening, and what is obviously apparent, is that not all of these animals are wild. There are canned lions and the shooting of animals in enclosures. When I researched this, I was surprised that animals can be shot on the internet: you go online, pay your subscription—whatever it is—and then line up the crosswires on your computer to shoot an animal in an enclosure. I think most of us find that pretty distasteful and unnecessary, which is why there is a distinction between animals kept in artificial conditions and those that are completely wild. So I absolutely agree with what my noble friend said.

This goes to the essence of one of the points that many of us have made: the Bill is well intentioned. I have to say that I really resent some of the comments made this evening about how people on this side of the House—I am not a hereditary Peer, by the way—somehow want to sabotage the Bill. We do not. Surely the essence of any Committee stage is to improve a Bill. So, although some complain about the number of amendments—at the last count, it was over 60—and say that they are somehow unhelpful to the Government, egregious and wrong, I argue that this is actually the Chamber at its very best, trying to improve a Bill. It went through the other place very quickly, without any amendments, and it came here. We had a substantial debate on it, and a huge amount of information came our way over the summer and the latter part of the spring, from experts around the world, to help us to improve it. Surely that is the House taking this matter seriously. My noble friend’s amendment is one of many small but technical amendments. I really do find it hard to accept the idea that this is an all-male group of refuseniks living in a colonial world that is somehow trying to turn the clock back. We are actually acting in the best spirit of this House. We need time to get Bills like this right, and it may require a lot of technical amendments to be looked at, discussed and voted on.

It is incredibly important that we listen to the experts, who have not only commented on the generality of the Bill but picked up on some of the points regarding animals that may be wild or tame—that obviously goes to the core of my noble friend’s specific amendment. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee, which was mentioned, gave us evidence, but there are many other bodies, which I will come to at a later stage of the Bill. It is also worth mentioning that, when there is so much consensus among international bodies, we have to stop and take note. The International Union for Conservation of Nature made a strong case for the conservation arguments and highlighted the point about wild animals, as opposed to those kept in captivity. The Government have referred to that organisation in a favourable light on other occasions, but now they appear to be ignoring it.

There are other bodies as well. There is the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the IUCN, which is a global conservation authority. What is interesting about the advice that it has given your Lordships’ House and the Minister and the Government is that it is obviously not particularly comfortable in supporting trophy hunting. In fact, I would say that it is probably instinctively against it. But it is pragmatic. What it said was that trophy hunting was a possible threat to nine of the 6,200 species covered by the Bill, whereas it offers a very clear benefit to 25% of the wild species to which the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, referred.

Then you have the specific Governments who have given evidence to Members of this House and put arguments and sent letters to them, including Botswana’s Minister for the Environment and Conservation, who made it very clear that the

“importation ban of legally harvested wildlife trophies will negatively impact wildlife authorities, including Professional Hunting Associations and Community-Based Support Organizations”

and conservation bodies. What is relevant to this is that, recently, representatives of the community-run conservation areas in the four African countries that make up the Kavango-Zambezi trans-frontier conservation area—the so-called KAZA—stated that the Bill would have a “highly detrimental effect” on the protection of wildlife and the way of life of these communities. The way of life of the communities is something that is highly relevant to this specific amendment, which is why I support the noble Earl in his amendment.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I want to make a comment about this and ask a question of my noble friend on the Front Bench. The noble Earl is quite right that we should differentiate. This is a conservation Bill and we do not conserve domestic animals—we conserve wild animals. So the argument that they should be wild is entirely correct.

There is a technical point that I should know the answer to and do not, so I shall ask my noble friend on the Front Bench. We in this country have different laws for wild and domestic animals; we do not treat our wildlife in the same way as we treat our domestic animals, for very good and sensible reasons. The law relating to them is different. But there is a reference to a wild animal that is “captive”—although I cannot remember the right word. I apologise to your Lordships, because I should remember it, but I have forgotten this legislation, which I used to know very well. There is a definition of a wild animal that is enclosed, or captive, or whatever it is—and when it becomes enclosed or captive, domestic welfare law applies. It is a different law. What I do not know, and I ask my noble friend, is whether that law applies abroad, under English law. If it did, canned lions in Africa would be subject to domestic law, because they would be captive wild animals, and the whole thing would apply completely differently. I do not think that they are really wild animals.

There is a difference between domestic and managed wild animals. We do not have any managed wild animals in this country, so it would not apply to us. I am not clear, but there are differences here and the law would apply differently if UK law were applied to, for example, canned lions in Africa. I am just not clear what the answer to that question is, and it would be helpful to know it.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

For the record, I do not like this amendment and am opposed to it, as it restricts the scope far too much.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

Does that mean that my noble friend thinks that we should have trophy laws for domestic animals?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, I do not wish to add to what I said earlier, but my noble friend has asked me something specifically. There are considerable concerns about the hunting of captive bred animals, including what is termed “canned hunting”. Such trophies should not be exempt from the import ban. The concept of what most of us imagine canned hunting to be is one that excites all our wrath and indignation about a practice that, in risk terms, is like shooting a cow in a field. I entirely understand, and I think that everybody is keen to find a way in which to differentiate it.

We could find ourselves dancing on the head of a legal pin here. What is an enclosure? There could be a small enclosure the size of this room, which would of course be ridiculous; there are also hunting concessions that are fenced in and, effectively, a managed population of animals. I do not want to get into that debate or make legislation that would create circumstances in which a court would be sought to adjudicate that legal definition. Therefore, I cannot recommend that this Committee supports this amendment, and respectfully urge the noble Earl to withdraw it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I shall just add to that, supporting the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, and the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, because it helps to answer an important point that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised earlier, which is that the convention in this House is that we try to implement, or not to impede, manifesto commitments. What is clear about the Bill as it is drafted, unamended, is that it is not really expressing the manifesto commitment; it is much more confused and goes much wider. What we are getting here, as we try to amend it, is something closer to the original intentions.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I think that is a very helpful intervention. There are some noble Lords who think this is the manifesto commitment; I do not think it is. This goes significantly wider than the manifesto commitment. More than that, I have sat and watched lots of manifesto commitments go round and round over the years and I have very rarely seen one that went through in pure form. One of the arts of politics is compromise: if you want to get your business, you make compromises. The Government do that every day in different areas, and so they should—that is how it works. This is an area in which we could make that compromise.

I am looking at the lists. There are, I think 6,200 species that we are banning from bringing in as trophies, and it is important to remind ourselves of the trophies, because we have probably not seen many of them on the walls. I have seen a few trophies, but I have never seen 2,076 corals on a wall. I have seen some fish, but I do not know that I have ever seen any cartilaginous fish, but there are 154 of them on the list—we are banning those, apparently. I think it is a sensible move to ban the trophy hunting of poison dart frogs—that is something we should have done years ago and I cannot imagine why we have not. Here we are, getting round to it, and there are quite a few other things on this list.

To tell the honest truth, the words “sledgehammer” and “nut” come to mind. Look at these creatures. There is an echidna here—I am not sure quite what it is, but it is on the list. We have banned that, and, my goodness, that is a good day’s work, is it not? Kangaroos, wallabies and possums are on the list. Frankly, this list of 6,200 is completely absurd and ridiculous; we should reduce it to the creatures that are genuinely likely to become trophies and make it more reasonable. After all, the poor customs people who are meant to be dealing with this have not got a hope. There are 975 reptiles on it and—goodness me, that is lucky—we have banned 96 molluscs. I have had sleepless nights over mollusc hunting.

I agree that this list is a bit absurd. We should try to reduce it. It is an area where we can compromise without causing any concerns, and I hope your Lordships will look at this very seriously.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, your Lordships will probably not be surprised that I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Mancroft on this. I prefer the fact that there is a wider scope with the wildlife trade regulations annexes A and B. If they do not cause a problem, nobody will worry about that. I was amused by my noble friend Lord Mancroft and his molluscs, but I really do not think it is of any significance whatever. However, what I do notice is that as we go through the various amendments, a little bit here and a little bit there is chipped away, and if they were all accepted, we would see something very different indeed. Therefore, I stand by the Bill as it stands.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

This is a Private Member’s Bill, not a government Bill, apparently, and on the Opposition Benches we have five to one—sorry, six to one; maths is not necessarily my strong point.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. The noble Lord opposite makes a very interesting point. What the Government are doing today is passing socialist legislation, which is an odd thing for a Conservative Government to be doing. It is supported entirely on the Labour and Liberal Democrat Benches and clearly has very little support on our Benches. It is an odd thing for the Government to do. I dare say that if there was ever a day when the parties on the other side got into government—I think it is very unlikely—I suppose they would pass right-wing legislation, but I do not know.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

Anyway, to go back to the matter in hand, I would say that, when I and several other noble Lords here met a delegation from countries from sub-Saharan Africa, as I recall, there were two female African Ministers who came to talk to us—so it is not purely men who take a view on this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Robathan’s Amendment 5. I declare an interest, as stated in the register, as a partner in a sporting estate in Scotland.

I note my noble friend the Minister’s earlier words. However, I echo other noble friends in the Chamber: this is a critical amendment that would return the Bill closer to the original Conservative Party manifesto commitment and ban imports from the trophy hunting of endangered animals. When Henry Smith proposed this Private Member’s Bill, he stated:

“The world’s wildlife faces an extinction emergency of extraordinary proportions. We have to do everything we can to support conservation”.


We now understand that we all support that, but I am familiar with the high importance of hunting, which can involve taking trophies in financing conservation efforts and in the protection and restoration of habitats and ecologies that support the species being hunted.

In this country, it is of limited national economic benefits, but it can make a material impact at a local level in relatively disadvantaged communities. When we look overseas—to countries in Asia and Africa, for example—the impact is much greater. Revenues from hunting can be the key financial support for conservation efforts. I understand that hunting may be distasteful to many, but conservation efforts funded by that hunting are universally welcomed. What right do we in this rich country have to cut off that funding and send a signal to the rest of the world that they should do likewise? Why should we make decisions that put out of work people around the world whose interests are also best served in ensuring a surplus of these species, potentially turning hunters into poachers?

The globally accepted definitive authority on threatened species is the IUCN red list. This classifies species into nine categories according to their level of endangerment, from “not evaluated” to “extinct”. The amendment identifies “threatened”, which incorporates “critically endangered” and “vulnerable”. That is one more than the manifesto commitment. Dr Challender of Oxford University, and colleagues, showed that less than a quarter of the 73 CITES-listed mammal species that have been imported as hunting trophies since 2000 fall into the “threatened” definition and 60% are of “least concern”. The same work showed that nearly 80% of imports were from countries where populations of the hunted species were stable, increasing or abundant.

The amendment brings in the concept of trophy hunting itself as a threat to the species being hunted. Analysis of the red list by Challender, Dickman, Roe and Hart showed that

“legal hunting for trophies is not a major threat”

to any of the species imported to the UK as trophies since 2000. In fact, the analysis concludes that trophy hunting is not listed as a threat to the survival of any species. The positive impact of hunting on threatened species is well illustrated by Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes and Dr Emslie in their article in the Conversation:

“South Africa and Namibia are the two countries with the most African rhinos. In 1970, before legal hunting was introduced, they jointly held about 1,950 white rhinos … That number had risen to about 16,600 by 2017 … the biological and socio-economic benefits generated by these hunts … can boost conservation performance through enhanced population growth and funding”.


Returning to the Challender analysis, only 10 endangered species have been imported to the UK as hunting trophies since 2000, including ranched animals, which would not have been bred without hunting as an objective. Therefore, I question why this Bill is identifying over 6,200 species. How will our Border Force cope with this burden of determining which species or subspecies an animal part may be from and whether it is a trophy, has been hunted, or where the importer lives? How much simpler and more targeted to rely on IUCN red list designations.

This is an important amendment, returning the Bill to its original intention and supporting conservation efforts globally. Further to comments on earlier groups, these amendments, and this one in particular, are carefully designed to turn a damaging, emotionally driven Bill into legislation which genuinely will support conservation.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. We have been told that the motivations behind this Bill are the manifesto commitment and public opinion. I am not particularly enthusiastic about either of those things, but there is no doubt that this amendment does return the Bill to the manifesto commitment that was given. If that is what the Government are hanging their hat on, as they appear increasingly to have done during the summer, then they should accept this amendment. If they say, “Well, we can’t do that because that will return the Bill to the House of Commons”, well, they have had the timetable for this Bill, as they have for any Bill, in their gift throughout, so it is their fault and not ours that we are debating it at this late hour.

A point was raised earlier about public opinion. We have had “public opinion” thrown at us—that 80% or 90% of people support this. The reality is that the people support it because they think it is a conservation measure. When it is explained to them—as it has been by the IUCN, with its rather more nuanced and in-depth research into public opinion—that actually, it does not help conservation, less than 50% support it. The number goes right down.

The polls that put it up at 80% or 90% are the usual incredibly biased animal rights polls, which we have seen for 20 or 30 years in this country. They say, “Do you want to rip a small animal to shreds and enjoy every minute of it, relishing in its blood?” You get 99% on that one; if you have these sorts of ridiculous questions, of course you do. The reality is that we should not and must not run our country by public opinion poll.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

I was in the House of Commons for 23 years. I do not know if I achieved anything useful; I did try. During those 23 years, I got an enormous amount of correspondence—letters and latterly emails. To my certain knowledge, I did not get one letter, email or even telephone call worrying about hunting trophies.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

You got one, but you were there for longer than I was.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

Well, it was lovely to have that domestic entertainment, but the point I was trying to make is that we should not be basing serious legislation on rather dubious public opinion polls. In-depth research is useful, but the ballot box is the real thing that we do. I do not think we should be doing this on public opinion polls, but we have an opportunity to take the Bill back to the original manifesto commitment, if that is what everybody is so obsessed about.

I notice, however, that most manifestos have God knows how many items in them which nobody takes any notice of at all. They discard them at will when they are not interested in them, then grab them and hang their hats on them when they think they are very important. I must admit that my noble friend Lord Robathan is absolutely right, in that I do not see queues of people going around Parliament Square waving placards because of this Bill or issues like it. There are more important things on their agenda.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

It is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, said no one asked him about this. My noble friend Lady Anderson and I were in the House of Commons more recently than he was, and we had a great number of letters on this issue. On the other hand, it could be that only socialist ladies get them.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

The noble Baroness may well be right, because I was in the House of Commons until 2019 and I got no letters on this subject. I was on the Hunting Bill committee when I first came into the House of Commons and I got a lot of letters about that, mainly because all the evidence was being ignored in favour of prejudice.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

If we are all making confessions, I was not in the House of Commons and I never had a letter, but I had a bomb delivered to me in this House from the very nice animal rights people. I also had some threatening letters describing precisely what they were going to do my six year-old daughter, when they followed her to school here in London. Luckily, special branch was very helpful about that. So I am delighted that I did not get any letters, but I know an awful lot about the people who send them.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I want to pick up a few points that have come out of this debate on the amendment so ably moved by my noble friend Lord Robathan, supported by my noble friend Lord Roborough.

I return to the point about manifesto commitments, without being completely repetitive. We said in our manifesto that we would ban the import of trophies hunted from endangered species. This is a Private Member’s Bill, but it has government support. The Government were originally going to bring it. Maybe the Minister could help me here when he winds up this debate: if the Government had brought in either a clause in the captive animals Bill or a free-standing government Bill on trophy hunting, would it have referred only to endangered species? At what point in this discussion was the definition of endangered species extended to the 6,200? Was that Henry Smith, the MP for Crawley, going a bit off-piste and substantially widening the Bill? Do the Government support that?

Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a privilege, and a very exciting one, to follow my noble friend Lord Hannan. I never know where his speeches are going to take us, but they never disappoint.

This is a very short Bill and it contains only one measure, which is to prohibit, as we know, the importation of hunting trophies. Trophy hunting is perceived by the Bill’s sponsors as a threat to a number of important species and they consider that prohibiting the import of their trophies will reduce the amount of hunting and thus assist in conserving those species—it is pretty simple. The restricted species, as we know, are set out in annexe A or B of the principal wildlife regulations, as described in Clause 2.

Annexes A and B includes over 6,000 species. As I am sure your Lordships will know, they include 2,000 corals, 585 lizards, 300 hummingbirds, 299 frogs and 96 molluscs—I could go on. None of these, by the way, are hunted. In fact, only 53 of the species have been imported in the last 20 years, amounting to about 100 trophies per annum. Just to put that in perspective, it is estimated that 96 elephants are poached every day.

The Bill, if enacted, will have so small an effect as to be of no practical benefit whatever. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is completely pointless and nothing more than symbolic. In addition, while some of the animals from which those 100 trophies come are endangered, none of them are endangered by trophy hunting. There is also the law of unintended consequences. Opponents of this Bill have argued that there is a significant negative consequence that far outweighs any miniscule benefit. They have produced substantial evidence that the revenue derived from trophy hunting safeguards habitat and pays for the prevention of poaching. The Bill’s supporters, on the other hand, argue that the revenue is insignificant, does not achieve these benefits and, when it reaches local communities, it is of no consequence.

Your Lordships always have to sift through the evidence and weigh up the arguments. No politician can know everything; one of the skills we have to develop is sifting through the information we receive. In the last few days, as my noble friend Lady Fookes said in opening this debate, we received a letter from the Humane Society International UK—an offshoot of the Humane Society International, which is a leading animal rights organisation. It raises a lot of money and is a lobbying organisation, but it is not engaged in conservation. I am sure all your Lordships looked carefully at the signatories. There were apparently government officials and conservationists, but I could not find many of those. I saw several human rights activists, some pastoralists—I am not sure what they are—a teacher and one chap who rather bravely described himself as a scholar. The most well-known signatory is Dr Ian Khama, the former president of Botswana, who was indeed responsible for banning trophy hunting in 2014, but that ban was lifted by Botswana’s present Government in 2019. The acting Botswana high commissioner, who was kind enough to come to this House to brief us the other day and meet colleagues, has made it clear that his Government do not support this Bill.

The reason why so many African countries and the leading conservationists from Oxford University, the University of Gloucestershire and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which is the world’s leading organisation in the monitoring of species and advises Governments, including our own, are so concerned about the Bill is simple. Their opinion, which is supported by research, hard evidence and examples, is that the income from trophy hunting does have a significant effect in protecting habitat, deterring poaching and incentivising local communities to accept wild animals as a beneficial resource. Without trophy hunting, habitat where hunting currently takes place will be lost. In its place, there will be increased development, particularly of agriculture, along with an increase in human/wildlife conflict and a rapid rise in poaching. It is those, rather than hunting, which threaten the survival of species.

It is clear the Government accept that there is likely to be a drop in income if this Bill proceeds because, in her letter to the Namibian high commissioner on 25 April, the Defra Minister, Trudy Harrison, wrote:

“As you will know, DEFRA has a suite of programmes aimed at protecting and restoring nature, contributing to poverty reduction in developing countries, and supporting local communities … This funding far exceeds any financial benefits for conservation that may currently be derived from the small number of hunting trophies imported into the UK”.


When he comes to wind up the debate, will my noble friend the Minister confirm that it is now the Government’s policy to enact measures to create poverty in developing countries and then simply substitute grant aid for the lost income? I find that very difficult to believe.

There have been some pretty unpleasant accusations about post-imperial policies, about patronising attitudes towards former colonies and even a racist tone in some of the comments made. I find those deeply uncomfortable, but I also find it difficult to ignore or deny them. What I can do is to quote a letter from the official representatives of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe to my right honourable friend Andrew Mitchell on 25 May. They said:

“While respecting the Minister’s opinion, we regret to inform that we take exception to this position that it is tantamount to subjecting those likely to be adversely affected by the Bill, to a beggar-like dependency on external support for their livelihood. We do not find it appropriate to relegate these proud, hard-working communities who have successfully forged a coexistence with nature to a position of surviving through aid”.


Nevertheless, against my better judgment, I am persuaded by the conservationists I have spoken to and the representatives of the various African Governments that the Bill probably should proceed to the statute book, with only a small but hugely important tweak. In Committee, I will seek to move an amendment which has been described as the “conservation amendment”. It would allow that, if there was a demonstrable conservation benefit—I stress, a demonstrable conservation benefit—from the hunting, a trophy could be imported. It would require a permit from the JNCC, which is the Government’s scientific adviser and currently issues all the CITES permits. It has already confirmed that it has the capability and resources to do this. This would allow the Government to surpass their manifesto commitment.

This simple amendment will address the concerns of those scientific conservationists who have been critical of the Bill. I believe it will also satisfy the African, eastern European and Asian Governments who have been unanimous in voicing their concerns. It will turn the Bill from one that will do much more harm than good into one that will genuinely advance the conservation of vulnerable species. I look forward to meeting my noble friend Lady Fookes and the Minister to work with them to get this Bill on the statute book in a way that we can all support.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Mancroft and I am very pleased to hear that he would like the Bill to reach the statute book, for I rise to speak in support of it and of my noble friend Lady Fookes.

I am not going to go over the arguments as to whether trophy hunting is important for conservation. As we have heard already, plenty have used the science to say that it is and others have used it to say that it is not. Frankly, I very much doubt that either side will change its mind by listening to the evidence put forward by the other. Instead, there is another and more fundamental question to consider. It is whether we really believe that, in this day and age, trophy hunting can be seen as a reasonable endeavour, even in the name of conservation, as its supporters claim.

Many in this Chamber have talked about how distasteful this is as a practice. We have not actually spelled out the reality, so I will take a minute and go through what it means. A group of men, sometimes women, will pay to go on what seems, on the face of it, to be a standard safari. There is a nice lodge, a glass of wine and plenty of time to relax in between game drives, but there the similarities end. You do not have a guide on these drives; you have a PH—a private hunter—and there is a difference. A safari guide has to learn how to interpret and be respectful of the wilderness and its wildlife. They are the link between nature and guest. A private hunter just has to know how to hunt. What they really need to do is make sure that, if their clients miss, they can tell them where to shoot next. In truth, that is the only tricky bit. It is called hunting but very often there is no chase, and it does not take great skill.

I asked the South African wildlife journalist and academic Dr Adam Cruise, who is here today, to tell me a bit about it, as he has been on many of these hunts. He explained:

“The animals are used to the vehicles and the elephants and the lions don’t run anyway. It’s as simple as going out, seeing the zebra, say, getting out of the jeep, taking a few steps and shooting the zebra—if they get it wrong the first time, which they often do, the PH is there to guide them ... bit lower, bit higher … while the animal writhes on the floor. It can often take them 10 or 15 minutes to die but when the job’s finally done, the staff clean off the blood, the client has his picture taken, jumps back in the jeep and the team will either put the animal in the back if it’s small enough or chop off the head if it’s a lion or an elephant and leave the carcass behind.”


He went on to talk about one hunt he was on:

“A lot of the animals are bred for the purpose so even something like a rhino can be quite tame—”

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder if my noble friend would be so awfully kind as to give way? What she is saying is very interesting, of course, but she is talking about canned hunting in South Africa. That is not the subject of this Bill.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

I am not talking about canned hunting. I am talking about the experience of an academic and journalist who has been on many different types of hunts, including canned hunting. I am not talking only about that, so if my noble friend would let me finish, I would be grateful.

It is reasonable that, if we are going to talk about this, we talk about the reality of it. Dr Curtis went on one hunt where the rhinos were grazing around the chalets. He asked the client, “Which one is next on your list?” Pointing at Dr Curtis’s hand, which was stroking the rhino’s head because it was so tame, the client said, “That one”. I take the time to speak about this because, when I hear such things, I just think that there has to be a better way.

I would say to my noble friend that I am not some woke warrior. I do not think that this can be compared to a grouse shoot. I am not even a vegetarian, and maybe there is hypocrisy in that. However, I think that the killing of these magnificent animals for no purpose whatever is sickening. We have some children here today. My godchildren will not go to a zoo because they do not like to see wild animals caged up; they would rather watch Attenborough on television. The world is moving on.

As has been said by many in this Chamber, nobody here wants to go on these hunts; they want to support conservation, and I appreciate that. However, I point out that only 11 of the 54 countries in Africa allow trophy hunting. It is true that some of them do not have the game to support it, but Kenya does—admittedly in reduced numbers, as my noble friend Lord Reay has pointed out—as do Malawi and Ghana. They face the same problems with habitat and want to protect their communities. They want to support them but they do not want trophy hunting on their land. Does this not rather disprove the point that trophy hunting is a necessary evil? It is not; it is a choice.

In this country, we are doing something smaller in scope. Some noble Lords have argued that it is so small that it is nothing more than virtue signalling. Others have said that it is not small at all and that its impact is quite damaging, and that it is not up to us to tell other countries what to do. On the latter point, I agree that it is not up to us to tell other countries what to do, but we can, as a country, take a stance. I think we can take a stance on this pathetic sport. That is not virtue signalling; it is the right thing to do.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 13th December 2021 Lords Chamber

The Bill stirs up trouble for the future, not just for this Government but for future Governments. I hope that those who come to consider it in another place will have more flexibility to knock it into shape, because it surely needs it.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Herbert for taking the trouble to move his amendment today and giving us an opportunity to say a few words in the dying moments of the Bill. I also apologise to your Lordships for my failure to move my amendments last week on Report. As my noble friend on the Front Bench said, I was knocked over by Covid, but whether I jumped up like Lazarus I am not entirely sure. I think the reason that I am back so rapidly is that my wife was sick of having me about the house, but I am awfully glad to be back in your Lordships’ House anyway.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, just said, this Bill introduces the concept of sentience into English law for the first time, despite the fact that it has been the basis for 150 years of very sound animal welfare legislation, so you might wonder why we need to put it on the statute book today. I suggest we probably do not. It also sets up a new animal welfare committee—the animal sentience committee—despite the fact that we have three very good committees looking at animal welfare at the moment, each of which could have fulfilled the tasks set for this committee, so you might wonder why we want this.

As the noble Baroness also said, this is a revising Chamber, except that the Government have chosen to ignore all the suggestions made by Members of this House on all sides, as she said: the noble Lord, Lord Trees, whose knowledge of veterinary science can hardly be equalled; the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, who I do not think is in her place today, but who put forward some very important points; and the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, herself, on the other side of the House, who made very reasoned amendments and suggestions to this House—as everybody did—none of which were politically based at all.

I have done as much research as I can, and I believe that this is the first statutory committee set up by statute which has no statutory terms of reference. The Government recognised this when it was raised in Committee, and so between Committee and Report they introduced 27 pages of terms of reference for the committee that they propose to set up. But they are not statutory; they can be altered by any official or Minister at the stroke of a pen. They have absolutely no basis in law; they are effectively legislatively worthless.

The Government have argued throughout that this is a minor measure of very little significance—in which case, why have your Lordships been bothered with it for four long, paralysingly boring days? I do not think it is a measure of little significance. Like my noble friend Lord Herbert, I think it is a potentially very dangerous measure that will come back to bite this Government—or, more particularly, future Governments—as the years go by. This House will regret the fact that we have passed it without any amendment and have allowed ourselves to be rolled over.

There is little support for this measure on the Government Benches. I have looked very carefully, but I have seen very little support for it on the Opposition Benches. In fact, I have seen very little support for it anywhere except on the Front Benches, where a rather unsavoury deal has been stitched up to allow this to go to the other place without a single amendment, despite the care and attention which your Lordships have given the Bill. It is the tradition in this House that we send Bills to the other place with good will; we wish them a fair wind. I do not wish this Bill a fair wind. I hope the other place does the duty that we should have done and changes it very considerably or, better still, destroys it completely. Failing that, I hope that a sensible Secretary of State in future fails to enact it.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, support what my noble friend Lord Herbert said. I underline a point made by my noble friend Lord Mancroft. This sets a parliamentary precedent in the appointment of statutory committees which could have huge ramifications for future Bills. The Government will be able to say that we do not need to set out the statutory terms of reference for the committee because we already have the precedent of this Bill.

I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Benyon has had to take this Bill through the House. It should have been another Minister. My noble friend was absolutely right when he said that he has had to drive it through the House. He has not looked right; he has not looked straight ahead. He has looked left. He rightly paid tribute to his co-driver, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock.

Finally, I am disappointed that I have not yet received a reply from my noble friend to the questions I posed on Report. I hope that he will expedite those.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Grand Committee

I hope that my noble friend will be able to accept this amendment. I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Trenchard and Lord Hamilton of Epsom for supporting me on this.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, the next three speakers—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean—have all withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 59 in this group. Clause 5(2) gives the Secretary of State the power to bring any invertebrate of any description within the meaning of “animal” and thus within the scope of the Bill—thus declaring them sentient in law. My noble friend Lord Moylan has already drawn attention to the extraordinary breadth of this new power. At Second Reading, he said:

“The clause that strikes me as most extravagant, however, is the one that gives the Secretary of State the unfettered power to declare, should he wish, that an earthworm is a sentient being. This is a power greater than that given by God to Adam in the Garden of Eden, which, as I recall, was restricted to the power to naming animals. Here, we are giving the Secretary of State the power to reclassify them almost without check.”—[Official Report, 16/6/21; col. 1921.]


I do not feel qualified to comment on the powers that God gave to Adam, so I will, if noble Lords forgive me, confine myself to this Bill.

Many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Randall, the noble Lord, Lord Trees, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, called for decapod crustaceans, including lobsters, crabs and crayfish, and cephalopods, including octopus, squid and cuttlefish, to be included in the scope of the Bill. Some argued this point on the basis of a film called “My Octopus Teacher” and were advised to have tissues on hand to watch it. However, the evidence contained in a tearjerker does not seem to be the best foundation for the law of the land. The law should be based on hard evidence—hard science and sound evidence—and that is where the problems on animal sentience start and lie.

While everyone agrees that animals are sentient, philosophers and scientists are still arguing about what that means. Does a dog, for example, have the same feelings as a crab, or a crayfish the same feelings as a cow? Perhaps that is why there is no definition of sentience in the Bill. Scientists are not agreed, despite the fact that in the previous debate the Minister gave us two separate definitions of sentience, although neither of them are included in the sentience Bill, which strikes me as a bit odd. So how will a committee opine on something that is neither defined and on which there is no widespread agreement, in fact, on which there is widespread disagreement?

The Government have commissioned an independent review of the sentience of decapod crustaceans and cephalopods. This amendment would require only that where the Secretary of State declares an invertebrate sentient, the scientific evidence on which the declaration is based should be published. It seems unarguable that such transparency on the science must be good, and I cannot imagine any arguments for hiding the evidence and not publishing it. If the Minister rejects the amendments, perhaps he can enlighten the Committee about why the science and the evidence should be hidden away.

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

The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, whose name is next on the list, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, this is a very important group of amendments, which seeks in some cases to dictate which organisations and people should be on the animal sentience committee and for how long they should serve. I have added my name to Amendments 5 and 14, both in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock.

Amendment 5 seeks to benefit from a diversity of expertise on the ASC, including veterinary science, agricultural science and ethical review and provides more flexibility to the Secretary of State. It is likely that some members of the committee will have more than one area of expertise and a membership of between eight and 11 is not unwieldy. It is important that the committee is not bogged down with too many members. The more members there are, the longer the meetings are likely to last and the less likely it is to reach a satisfactory conclusion in a reasonable timeframe. The amendment also ensures the appointment of a chair for the ASC by the Secretary of State. This dedicated chair role will allow the committee to speak with an established and independent voice, boosting its effectiveness.

I am not totally convinced that limiting the length of service of members to just one term of three years is satisfactory as this would lead to a loss of expertise. The members are likely to need a short time to acclimatise themselves to the working of the committee, and then to have to stand down at the end of three years and not be reappointed is, I believe, unwise. Some members may wish to leave at the end of three years; others will feel that they still have something to offer to the committee and want to do a second term. That should be an option for the Secretary of State. The Bill should not seek to fetter his discretion in the reappointment of the membership of the ASC.

Consultation on the appointment of the chair will be key to maintaining the confidence of organisations involved in animal welfare, especially if they are not likely to be members of the committee. The Wildlife and Countryside Link has a membership of some 51 organisations and NGOs. All will have a view on the membership of the ASC. Consultation with them and other interested parties will be key to the success of the animal sentience committee.

I will comment briefly on one other amendment in this group. I am afraid that I do not agree with noble Lords who wish the animal sentience committee to be subsumed into the Animal Welfare Committee. The public must have confidence in the work of the ASC. It is therefore essential for it to be a stand-alone committee with its own reporting regime and not merely a sub-committee of the Animal Welfare Committee, which already has a fine reputation and a heavy workload. A degree of separation is needed, and the Bill provides that.

I turn to Amendment 14 in this group. In order for the ASC to be successful, it will need an adequately funded secretariat and budget. This should be sufficient for it to carry out its work and to be able to call witnesses, should it feel that is desirable. I am sure the Government intend to provide funding for the running of this committee but, as others have said, there is nothing in the Bill that gives an indication that this is the case. I think I heard the Minister say, in his answer to the previous group of amendments, that there would be funding for a secretariat. I look forward to that assurance and to the Minister accepting this amendment.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s Amendment 2 addresses the likely conflict between the proposed animal sentience committee and the existing Animal Welfare Committee by subsuming one into the other. My later Amendment 43 addresses any conflicts that undoubtedly will occur between the two committees if they remain—if my noble friend’s amendment is rejected.

The other amendments in this group seek to add flesh to the bones of the Government’s committee, about which there is no information in the Bill—as I think every other noble Lord speaking to this group has mentioned. Whether or not one agrees with the detail of these amendments—I have concerns about some of them—they all seek to fill the gaps in the Bill that my noble friend Lord Forsyth talked about. They have been tabled from all sides of the Committee, because the Bill as drafted is completely inadequate and is in effect a Henry VIII Bill—one with no content creating a creature, the animal sentience committee, with a skeleton remit and limitless ability to range across government.

I cannot support my noble friend Lady McIntosh’s Amendment 13 because it sets up a new quango—there are already far too many of those—or Amendment 62 from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for the same reason. While I have some sympathy with the proposal from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, some of the detail does not stand up to scrutiny. She volunteers a pretty extensive list of expertise that members of the committee should have, including “animal welfare science”—but, of course, animal welfare is not a science. In practice, it is really a discipline. Why such a committee would benefit from expertise in “animal welfare advocacy” is unclear, but it seems to me an invitation to invite animal rights promoters on to the committee—something I strongly oppose, for reasons I shall explain when we reach my Amendment 12.

Much of what the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman, Lady McIntosh and Lady Jones, propose is more simply resolved by my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s Amendments 11 and 40. If Parliament has the power to set the

“composition … budget, and … terms of reference”

and the Secretary of State has the power to approve or veto the committee’s programme of work, the issues raised by the noble Baronesses will be adequately resolved. For that reason, I will support Amendments 11 and 40. I very much hope my noble friend the Minister accepts them.

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, my name is to Amendment 40 and I support Amendments 2 and 11 in this group. I was a little alarmed to hear the Secretary of State say that he will allow the committee to choose what policies it examines. He also said that the money would come from the Defra budget, but surely the Secretary of State must retain some control over the work programme, or the runaway horse would certainly start to gather speed approaching something of a precipice. It is well known that the Defra coffers are scarcely overflowing and are unlikely to be topped up greatly in the immediate future. An unlimited work programme, or one that targeted matters perhaps not seen as generally important, would lead to money running out pretty quickly and fail to satisfy anyone, so I would like the Minister to reassure us that the Secretary of State will exercise proper control over both the committee’s work programme and the funds necessary to meet it.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Mancroft]

12: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert—
“(4) No person may be appointed a member of the Committee if they—(a) are affiliated to an organisation promoting animal rights;(b) are a member of an organisation promoting animal rights;(c) have been employed by an organisation promoting animal rights; or(d) are employed by an organisation promoting animal rights.”Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that any person who is a member of, is affiliated to, was employed by, or is employed by an organisation promoting animal rights cannot be appointed a member of the Animal Sentience Committee.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, the purpose of this Bill is to promote and advance animal welfare, which is something that we all want to do, and no one opposes. Animal welfare is based on science and evidence; it is well understood but, in casual conversation, it can be confused with animal rights, which are a very different thing and often in conflict. It is a political ideology not concerning the care and welfare of animals but rather their legal status. I am one of those who are absolutely clear that animals do not enjoy the same rights as human beings and should not be granted them. I share with others the view that you cannot have rights without responsibilities and that to impose on animals responsibilities that they cannot possibly fulfil is wrong and is in itself a form of cruelty.

The late Lord Jakobovits was strongly of the view that the enhanced status of animals in Nazi Germany allowed that regime to reduce and ultimately ignore the rights of human beings, and thus contributed to the Holocaust. It is something that my noble friend Lord Moylan touched on earlier in our debates. Those who support animal rights often deliberately seek to muddle up the rights of animals with their welfare, knowing that most people are in favour of promoting the welfare of animals. But animal rights is an extreme doctrine; those who believe in animal rights are opposed to all use of animals for food, science, medicine and sport and the ownership of pets.

Only last month, activists targeted a game farm to release some young pheasants into the wild. They presumably believed fundamentally and ideologically that pheasants should be free and that it is the pheasants’ right to roam—but what happened last month when a lock was deliberately broken to release 400 pheasant chicks was that all 400 chicks were killed by a fox. In their pen they were fed, watered and looked after. The animal rights activists thought they knew better, and their actions caused the suffering, stress and death of 400 pheasant chicks.

How could anyone who held such beliefs be in a position to report to Ministers on the welfare of animals in consequence of any government policy that condoned continued use of animals in the fields of farming, science or sport? Their beliefs would inevitably lead them to condemn all such policies, regardless of the welfare aspects. It is important to remember that animal rights is not a mainstream doctrine. It is by its very nature the territory of extremists. These are not people with whom one engages in rational debate. Violent discourse and physical violence are never far beneath the surface in the world of animal rights, as my family and I have been on the receiving end of that on more than one occasion.

The reason why so many amendments have been tabled to define the parameters of the proposed sentience committee is that many noble Lords are concerned about where the committee might venture in the future, way beyond the remit set out by this Government. Your Lordships need only to venture a short way on to social media and the platforms of the animal rights movements today to see that they are already rubbing their hands with glee at the prospects held out by this committee. These are, as the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, said, people who excel at entryism, as we saw in the case of the RSPCA—a much-loved institution almost brought to its knees by extremists with an animal rights agenda, all of whom got themselves voted on to the ruling council as reasonable people. Those same people are aiming their sights at this new sentience committee.

We have spent a lot of time this afternoon talking about who might go on to this committee. My amendment talks about people who should not be allowed on it and allows my noble friend the Minister to explain how the Government are going to ensure that political extremists who do not share his higher purpose are not in the future able to wheedle their way on to the committee for their own purposes. I beg to move.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, I do not think that I could improve on what my noble friend Lord Mancroft has said, but people in the animal rights movement are extremists and do not have respect for the animal kingdom. They have an agenda, but the respect for animals themselves is not included. It would be detrimental to allow people like that on to the committee, which would then devalue its work to which the Government attach importance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I apologise if I did not answer that point; I am conscious that I did not. My noble friend Lady McIntosh asked: if a committee is created by statute, how do you uncreate it? The answer is by primary legislation. Once this is established in statute, the only way is to unmake it by legislation. I do not think a sunset clause would give much confidence to the people we would want to serve on the committee if they felt that it was in any way a temporary feature.

My noble friend made another, wider point about whether advisory and expert committees have any place in government. I yield to his undoubted abilities as a parliamentarian, but as a layman on most of what I deal with—despite coming from a background which has put me in touch with many areas in my ministerial responsibilities—I rely on experts to inform me about how I take forward the day-to-day warp and weft of government, including legislation. Experts have a distinct place in our legislative process and in how we form policy, and therefore I respectfully disagree with my noble friend.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend the Minister for answering my Amendment 12. I am not sure that there really is an answer to it. We spent an earlier part of Committee talking about who should be on the committee and I just wanted to raise the dangers of those who should not be on it. I am ably supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, who made the point much better than I could have, as she always does. I am grateful that my noble friend the Minister has taken that point on board.

I did not speak to my Amendment 43 because your Lordships may have been slightly amazed by its appearance in this group. It got there in the same way Pontius Pilate got into the Creed—by mistake. It really should have been in an earlier group, I think group 2, where we had those sorts of debates. This does not require an answer now, but there was within it one point about the two committees which I thought needed to be aired—maybe we should do that later in these debates. What happens if the two committees—the Animal Welfare Committee and the sentience committee—give the Government conflicting advice on the same policy? Whose advice do the Minister and the Government take? Will not the Government inevitably be challenged in the courts or elsewhere for taking the wrong piece of advice? The conflict between the two committees worries me, and it has not been touched on yet. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister may think about that overnight and come back with a wonderful answer the next time we have a chance to discuss this in Committee. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 12 withdrawn.