Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Commons Amendments

Motion on Amendments 1 and 2

Moved by

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 1 and 2

1: Clause 2, page 1, line 20, at end insert— “(4A) Recommendations made by the Committee must respect legislative or administrative provisions and customs relating in particular to religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage.”

2: Clause 6, page 3, line 16, leave out subsection (5)

My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 1 and 2. Amendment 1 would require any recommendations produced by the animal sentience committee to respect

“religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage”.

We have carefully considered representations made by noble Lords in debate on a similar amendment, tabled by my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean. Honourable Members in the other place raised many of the same concerns. We recognise the strength of feeling in both Houses. We have listened, and we have accepted the amendment.

The Government have always sought to create a targeted, balanced and proportionate accountability mechanism within this Bill. We want the animal sentience committee to be led by science and to comprise members who are experts in sentience and animal welfare. Religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage will be neither their area of expertise nor their focus. This is a role for Ministers. We expect the committee to respect provisions and customs relating to these areas when they make recommendations under Clause 2(3) of the Bill.

We have always been clear that it is not the role of the committee to make value judgments about policy or to provide recommendations that do not reflect its expertise or its remit. This amendment will provide additional reassurance on this point. I hope that noble Lords will be content to accept it. I beg to move.

My Lords, I first declare my interest as in the register. I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare. I thank the Minister for useful discussions during the passage of this Bill, and I hope that he is a very happy grandfather this afternoon.

I accept these amendments, particularly Amendment 1, but, as a vet and a veterinary scientist, I have to say that I do not condone some of the activities covered under the amendment in terms of,

“religious rites, cultural traditions and historical heritage.”

Some of those activities are not consistent with best practice in animal welfare science or indeed regulation, and I will take this opportunity to make a plea to those directly involved to consider very carefully and to reflect on whether practices which had some historical relevance in ancient times are relevant, necessary or at all acceptable in the 21st century. Having said that, I respect national and international laws pertaining to freedoms—in particular, Article 9 of the Human Rights Act on religious freedoms.

I will make one further point. During prolonged discussions about the Bill in this House, a number of noble Lords raised the potential threat to the use of animals in medical research. That was a fair concern, but one which could be countered—I spoke to that effect, as did others at the time—by the fact that the rigorous application and implementation of our Animal (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 was a sufficient response to the requirement for government departments to have due regard to animal welfare and the development of policies. We have thorough, world-leading regulations around the controlled use of animals in medical research.

Recently, it has come to my notice that there are changes afoot in the Home Office with regard to the implementation of the Animal (Scientific Procedures) Act. It is not yet clear to me what the effect of those changes might be on the welfare protection of animals used in medical research. I urge Her Majesty’s Government to ensure that any changes with regard to the implementation of the law pertaining to the use of animals in medical research should not weaken—or be perceived to weaken—that regulation, which could lead to increased legal challenge to the use of animals in medical research when the Bill becomes an Act. I support the amendment.

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on bringing the Bill to this stage. My concerns about it have not changed, but we are where we are. I want to lend my support to and associate myself in particular with Amendment 1. In doing so, I repeat that I am a fellow of the British Veterinary Association and share some of the concerns outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Trees, regarding its practice.

I seek reassurance from my noble friend as to the response of the devolved Parliaments to the amendments. Have the Government had the chance to square the amendments with them? I further seek reassurance that in the operation of the Bill the Government, particularly my noble friend’s department, will be mindful of the role that farmers and especially livestock producers play in rearing our farm animals, and perhaps recognise that they are best placed to respect animal welfare and are masters in their own right of animal husbandry.

I hope that, in light of the short debate we had elsewhere in Questions this week, the Government will be mindful of the fact that there is still a severe shortage of seasonal workers which is impacting on abattoirs and the slaughter of animals. I hope that there will not be any undue concern over potential animal welfare consequences of that. I realise that it is not entirely within the scope of the Bill, but I wish to draw it to my noble friend’s attention. I congratulate him on accepting the two amendments before us today.

My Lords, I had thought that the Government had completely forgotten this Bill, because it has been so long threading its way through both Houses. Anyway, I am glad that it is happening. It is not the Bill that I would like to have seen passed, but I guess that we have to accept it, since it is better than nothing—although that is not exactly glowing praise. I hope that we can see some effectiveness coming from the Bill and real action, so I say well done for bringing it back and getting us to this point.

My Lords, I want first to thank my noble friend the Minister, who has put an inordinate amount of effort into discussing concerns about this Bill with those of us who have them. I congratulate him not only on becoming a grandfather but on landing this Bill, as he does today.

However, it remains a very bad Bill and I think it is worth repeating why. It is not because it entails a huge administrative reorganisation; in this House, we take huge administrative reorganisations in our stride. We have been reorganising the National Health Service over the past few weeks, which is possibly the largest organisation in the world, certainly in Europe. The Government’s defence of the measure is essentially that it is administratively very minor: it just sets up a committee; it is an advisory committee, and Ministers will make final decisions—“There is nothing to see here; move on”. But the important part of the Bill is not its administrative effects but the fact that it is a declaratory Bill. It declares something in the law of the United Kingdom for the first time to be true—that is, that animals, vertebrates and certain non-vertebrates, are sentient. I know that this appeared previously in a treaty that we were party to, but it moves it on a considerable step to incorporate it into domestic law in this way.

It is worth asking why that declaration matters. It matters because it is very much part of the agenda of the animal rights movement to achieve agreement on three things. The first is that animals are sentient; the second is that sentience is the sole basis for judging moral conduct; and the third, as a consequence of that, is that humans and animals are to be treated on the same basis in moral terms. That is a complete upturning of our established view of moral conduct; it is a completely new anthropology. This Bill is therefore profoundly anti-human. It opens the door to a moral calculus in which people can ask the question: how much chimpanzee suffering is equivalent to a human baby suffering? That is why it remains a very bad Bill. It is a Bill that we will come to regret.

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as declared in the register. I thank my noble friend the Minister for indicating that the Government wish to agree with these sensible amendments, which merely import principles which previously existed in relation to sentience provisions in the Lisbon treaty and will create a better balance in the Bill and in the operation of the sentience committee.

I fear that I rather agree with my noble friend Lord Moylan that this remains a bad Bill and it stores up trouble for the future, but we have made all those points before. Even if the Government came to this late, they are wise to have accepted the view of the Commons that some balance needed to be injected into the measures, so we are doing the right thing by agreeing with them. I thank my noble friend for everything that he has done to get us to this place.

My Lords, I endorse thoroughly the remarks of my noble friends Lord Herbert and Lord Moylan. I congratulate the Minister on entering this whole discussion with great good humour and with a certain amount of patience as well, because we have certainly asked him many questions and put him under quite a lot of pressure, but I hope that at all times we have been courteous to him, too.

My starting point was exactly the same as that of my noble friend. This Bill really was not necessary. If one looks at the raft of legislation in this country that protects and stands up for animals, one sees that it is one of the most effective legal frameworks anywhere in the world. Some of those laws date back to the start of the last century. Flowing from those different Acts of Parliament have been numerous regulations, such as the Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations, which are pretty comprehensive.

So the Bill was not necessary, but in the context of realpolitik, I understand why the Government decided that they had to move down this route. The Bill has certainly been improved by the Commons amendments, which I welcome. I once again thank the Minister for what he has done to help improve the Bill substantially from where it was when it started out.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to the Commons amendments to the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill. This was a very small Bill which was trailed in the Conservative Party’s manifesto. I am not usually an advocate of following another party’s manifesto, but, on this occasion, it was necessary to bring forward the Bill in this parliamentary Session. I would have wished the Bill to have had more detail in it and perhaps to have had more support from the Government Benches, but to have amended it further would have delayed it, and it could possibly have been lost in the welter of other legislation we are dealing with.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, referred to the shortcomings in the Bill, as have others. It is nevertheless long overdue that animal sentience should be recognised in law and on the face of legislation. This Bill fulfils that need.

The Bill, although short, received minor amendments in the other place. The first, to Clause 2, inserts the provision around religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage. It seems sensible that those who have strongly held religious beliefs should be able to have those rites and cultural traditions respected; this is the correct way to proceed. However, insertion of the provision is not necessary, as the Bill already gives the ASC the right to consider non-welfare factors, but we are content to let it stand.

The other amendment made in the other place was to Clause 6. A clause inserted in the Lords prevented any charge being placed on the people—on public funds—but it was removed in the other place. We do not oppose the removal of that amendment and hope that others similarly do not oppose its removal.

For some considerable time, animals have been recognised as being capable of feeling pain, sadness, hunger, thirst and warmth, and able to enjoy a good life. This is now recognised in legislation, and it will be the responsibility of the animal sentence committee to ensure that consideration is given to that during its work. I look forward to the reports which the ASC will produce, informing us all how it is carrying out its work and how sentient animals are being protected through its deliberations.

I thank the Minister and his officers for their time and briefings during the passage of the Bill, which was at times somewhat choppy. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, for her work on the Bill; it has been a pleasure to work with her to ensure its passage. We have now reached the stage where the Bill can move to Royal Assent, and those of us who care about the plight of animals can be assured that the end of the current Session is not the end of this vital Bill—and I apologise for the interruption from my phone.

My Lords, I will be brief. I thank the Minister for his clear introduction to the amendments that have come forward from the Commons and for his explanation of the Government’s acceptance and the changes to the Bill.

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, will not be at all surprised when I say that I completely disagreed with absolutely everything he said. I think the debates we had in Committee and at Third Reading will have shown him exactly where I stand on the Bill and my support for animal welfare.

On these Benches, we very much welcome the Bill, which we believe will be important. It may not be perfect, but we will be very pleased to see it on the statute book. We are also very pleased that the Government earlier accepted the amendment to include decapod crustaceans and cephalopods; we believe that is an important addition to animal welfare sentience. I thank the Minister in particular for all his hard work on that particular area of the Bill.

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for her support on the Bill. We have done important cross-Bench work to get to this stage. I am fully aware that not all noble Lords agreed with us, particularly on the Benches opposite, but we have got the Bill to the place where we think it needs to be and it is good to see that it will move forward and provide more protection for animals in the future.

On the further government promises on animal welfare that we have yet to see, does the Minister have any kind of update on the situation is with the animals abroad Bill, which seems to have hit the buffers? Obviously, we are very pleased that the kept animals Bill has a carry-over Motion but it would be useful if he had any further information on that.

Finally, I give the Minister my very warm congratulations on becoming a grandfather, if that is true—will he confirm it?