Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Moylan and Lord Howard of Rising

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I have tabled three amendments in this group. The first is Amendment 19, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and my noble friend Lord Mancroft, which seeks to exclude from the scope of the committee any policy related to the advancement of medical science.

British medical science is at the forefront of the world, as we have seen over the last year or so, as it leads on genomic sequencing, vaccine development and large-scale randomised trials for therapeutic purposes. It must be a cause for concern that the actions and inquiries of this committee could create a degree of inhibition in the advancement of medical science and the actions of medical scientists in continuing to promote medical science, because in some cases, and under the strictest controls and with the greatest degree of humanity, it is necessary for animal experimentation to be undertaken in order for drugs to be established as safe and for other processes, which are beyond my medical knowledge but I think what I am saying is well understood, to be validated and found to be safe.

The difficulty with having a committee that can go roaming around, checking all these things in advance, which this committee in practice could, is that it trespasses on a well-worn, established set of mechanisms for ensuring that those experiments, where they are absolutely necessary, are carried out with a proper purpose and in proper circumstances.

We lead in medical science with the full support of the Government, not primarily because we see it as a source of great lucre flowing into the country—the Government’s insistence that the vaccine developed under their sponsorship should be available at cost is a good instance of that—but for the benefit of humanity as a whole. The whole human race will benefit from what we do. I think most people would recognise that that is a worthy objective and certainly one that could be settled on alongside any claims that may be made on behalf of animals and their rights. I would therefore strongly recommend, suggest and hope that this amendment can be made and medical science excluded so that the current position remains as it is. That is all I am really asking.

Moving on to the two other amendments, Amendment 26 has the support of my noble friends Lord Trenchard and Lord Hamilton of Epsom, while Amendment 33 is merely consequential on Amendment 26. Amendment 26 needs a little explanation. Clause 1 requires the committee and the Government to have regard to “the welfare of animals” and then adds the words “as sentient beings”. It is worth reflecting on what that adds to the claim. When you think about it carefully, it does not add anything at all; it actually subtracts. It is perfectly possible to do harm to animals and to damage their welfare in a way that does not affect them as sentient beings.

The example that most readily comes to mind is to do with background radiation. We know that parts of the country have high levels of background radiation, which can affect humans and, I assume, animals—mammals, at least—detrimentally, but you do not know that it is happening to you. You do not feel anything. You feel neither pleasure nor pain; there is no interaction with the concept of sentience. Your health may be deteriorating, but you have no sentient knowledge of it. It would simply be plainer, and would allow the committee to look at things in the round, if it did not have to be excluded, which it would be, from considering something such as the effects of background radiation on animals. It would simply not be permitted to look at that under this legislation. I thought there might be some support from those who thought that perhaps it should. The deletion of those words would restore us to a more common-sense position of looking at the welfare of animals in general.

Those are my other two amendments, but, before I finish, as this is such a large group I shall comment briefly on three others. Amendment 31, in the name of my noble friend Lord Forsyth, seeks to ensure that the committee at least gives due account to, or respects,

“legislative or administrative provisions and customs relating to religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage.”

That is an important point. On Second Reading, I tried to say that there is definitely an attempt here—one may support it, one may not—to shift the hierarchical balance, if you like, between humans and animals to put us more on the same level. I do not think that is too outrageous a claim to make. Of course, part of being human—not for everybody, but for many parts of humanity—is an awareness of, an adherence to and a sensibility about religious belief. With religious belief inevitably comes community adhesion and a certain amount of ritual practice. It takes things too far for the committee to be able to trample over that in the interests of animal welfare, with or without sentience being taken into account. That area should be preserved. The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Forsyth has that effect. I think that Amendment 35 tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, would have a similar effect but, as he explained, he approached this more on the basis of restoring the balance that existed in the previous legislation. I am glad to be able to support that as well.

That leads me to what is in some ways the most important amendment in the group, put forward by the noble Earl as Amendment 16. I have heard it said informally by Ministers that all the Bill seeks to do is to carry forward into current legislation the legislation that previously existed that has almost been dropped by accident as a result of the legal manner in which we left the European Union, which he explained, so all that the Government are doing is restoring that position. That, of course, is not the case, because the previous position had clear limitations. If the Government were to take Amendments 16 and 35 from the noble Earl into account, a great deal of the legislation, although not all of it, would cease to be controversial or difficult. In some ways, those amendments are the key to the whole thing. If the Minister were able to say that he would accept them, we could all have a fairly short afternoon and declare victory on all hands.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in the group. Amendments 24 and 30 both probe why “all” is required. Would not “due regard” by enough, as in other legislation? The extra word may risk the committee not reporting on whether due process has taken place but instead starting to opine or comment on the merits of policy and government decision. That is not its role, but it has the potential to create unnecessary delays and complications for legislation, as the remit of the committee is widened to such a degree that there is almost nothing on which it cannot express views.

Amendments 25 and 32 would give the committee a further remit—the power to consider both a positive and a negative impact on the welfare of animals. That is crucial when we consider policy that relates to pest control. The formulation and implementation of policy, having all due regard for the welfare of animals as sentient beings, must consider the particular circumstances of all animals, the welfare of which the committee is considering. Lawful pest control activities are undertaken to stop the spread of diseases and to protect livestock. The positive effect of those actions should be noted if the policy is to be reported on.

As I am sure the Minister knows, the animal world can be pretty brutal. If some of the gentler species are to survive, there needs to be control of predators. It is no accident that, where there is such control, there is a far broader range of species. I hope this will be recognised by the committee. How it seeks to balance the demands of the various sentient species is of great importance.

Amendment 34 would limit the remit of the committee to future policy and prevent it considering existing law. Amendments 18, 23 and 29 in my name, to which I shall speak later, cover the point of existing law. Limiting reports to future policy would be a sensible limitation, because if the committee was suddenly given the job of reviewing all existing policy, large amounts of government business might have to be stopped for review by the committee. Such a standstill could cause severe disruption and would place a huge burden on government departments and the committee. It is difficult to think how the committee could possibly cope from scratch with looking at large swathes of policy. The potential damage and the massive cost of stopping government work would be immensely onerous and impractical.

Amendment 36 probes why the Bill does not cover the devolved Administrations. There seems to be somewhat of a blind spot in that reports of the committee may not include any policy falling within devolved competence. After all, this debate on animal sentience only began with our departure from the European Union, as there would no longer be an explicit reference to law applicable in the United Kingdom on the sentience of animals. Should the Bill therefore not apply to the policy of all Governments?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I have a few slightly disconnected remarks that fit in well here. It is a delight and a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering and to support her in this course of inquiry.

The first is that noble Lords might be under the impression, from references made earlier in the debate and at Second Reading, that we are under the cosh of the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto. My recollection of that manifesto is compendious but, in case noble Lords did not believe that, I have looked it up in the course of the afternoon. All it says on this is:

“We will bring in new laws on animal sentience.”


That is a very fine pledge but nothing at all committing us to a committee, or indeed to laws that did not abolish animal sentience. As far as the manifesto is concerned, we are under no obligation to take forward any particular measure in the Bill; we just have to pass some legislation.

The second thing is—as I say, these are slightly disconnected points—that I have heard Ministers involved in this, although not my noble friend, say that this committee will roam across Whitehall, holding the Government to account. There is a real constitutional question here. I am very new in this House, but I was brought up to believe that it was Parliament’s job to hold Governments to account. Although I have every sympathy with my noble friend Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, I have a slightly different take on this topic. It is not that I am worried that this committee will go off making decisions that the Government have delegated to it, but I am really dispirited that it is going to go off to hold the Government to account on the basis of something that we have effectively delegated to it as a Parliament.

The right role and location and the proper place for this committee, if it is to exist at all, is not as a statutory body holding government to account; this committee should be a creation of Parliament reporting to us and giving us expert advice on how we should do our job holding the Government to account. I very much hope that my noble friend will take that on board and pursue it, because it would certainly allow us to get rid of Clause 1 very easily and put in place something that was much more constitutionally reputable.

I come to a third slightly disconnected point, which will be my last, more or less. The Minister has correctly stated the position—and, no doubt, I can already hear him preparing to state it correctly again a number of times before we rise this evening—that this committee will not make or change any laws and that that is entirely for Ministers and Parliament and, therefore, we need have no fear because Ministers will always have the final decision—or at least Parliament will, or some combination of the two—and they can be trusted to hold everything in balance. But of course, although that is the correct constitutional position, I suspect that my noble friend the Minister is perfectly aware that that is not the point of this Bill at all.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who is a seasoned campaigner and activist, does not support this Bill because she thinks that it will allow the committee to make laws that we will all live under. She is perfectly well aware that this Bill in itself does nothing for animal welfare. She wants it because she wants to see a group of like-minded people—I am not saying violent activists—installed at the heart of Whitehall, going round, summoning Ministers and holding them to account. What she wants is to shift what I think is called the Overton window so that we all have to discuss animal welfare the whole time and it becomes impermissible not to discuss it every time a Bill comes up.

My noble friend may not understand that that is what drives concerns—not that we are worried that the committee will itself go and make laws and impose decisions on us, since we are perfectly well aware that it will not have the power to do that, but that Ministers will find themselves constantly on the back foot on topics like this, constantly giving ground and accepting what is still a relatively narrow agenda. That is what we are worried about. Sadly, I do not believe that my noble friend, to whom I have listened with great attention in the course of this afternoon, has so far either today or at Second Reading made the case as to why this committee, which is there to advise him and other Ministers, needs to be on a statutory footing at all. Therefore, I am very comfortable in supporting my noble friend Lady McIntosh in suggesting that this clause be removed from the Bill.

[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.