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10.18 am
Mr. Elliot Morley (Glanford and Scunthorpe): I must state at the outset that I receive research assistance from the political animal lobby. I do not believe that that is relevant to the debate, but I make that point clear.
I begin by echoing the Minister's comments: it is a sad reflection on our society that a measure of this kind is necessary. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it is long overdue. It enjoys the overwhelming support of the people of this country, and that is why I, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) from the shadow Home Office team, give it our full support.
I also add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) and to my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull, North(Mr. McNamara) and for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) who have brought forward similar measures and who have advanced the campaign to ensure that there is protection for wild animals. I was privileged to be a sponsor of all three of those Bills, which were supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House. They were also supported by all the main animal welfare groups, including the RSPCA and the League Against Cruel Sports, which have given considerable technical advice.
Despite all that support and advice, however--and the drafting help given by the Minister's private office--the Bill should be seen as only a first step in the removal of anomalies connected with the protection of wild animals. It would have been better if it had been based on the wording of the Protection of Animals Act 1911, which is tried and tested and has served animal welfare organisations very well when they have brought prosecutions relating to cruelty to domestic and captive animals.
The Bill's wording is not based on that of the 1911 Act, because the Act includes the words "torture" and "mistreat", which were not acceptable to the pro-blood sports lobby, including the British Field Sports Society. A justification of the society's attitude, contained in a briefing, is completely unconvincing. In fact, it would not accept the wording because, if a case involving dogs being set on other animals were brought to court, those responsible would almost certainly lose. That explodes the myth that setting dogs on other animals for entertainment is a humane form of pest control.
Dr. Charles Goodson-Wickes (Wimbledon):
The hon. Gentleman suggests that the Bill should have been based
Mr. Morley:
The Opposition have no argument with angling or, indeed, responsible shooting. Clearly, if the 1911 Act were amended, it would have to be amended in a number of ways to take that point into account, and also to take into account the legitimate needs of farming and pest control. Nevertheless, it would not have been difficult to amend the Act along those lines. We would then have benefited from a form of words that has been well tested in law.
The British Field Sports Society's conversion tosupport for a measure to protect wild mammals is a comparatively recent enlightenment on the road to Damascus. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Dr. Goodson-Wickes) shakes his head, but a leaflet distributed by the society at the time of the last general election, entitled
states:
That ignores the facts: the Bill deals with wild mammals. Nevertheless, I suppose that we should be grateful for late conversions to the cause.
Although we believe that the Bill does not go far enough, it is welcome. For the first time, bodies such as the RSPCA will be allowed to take action against acts of gratuitous violence and cruelty to wild animals. We have heard a number of examples today. Hedgehogs seem to be prime victims, perhaps because they are common in densely populated areas. For some reason, there seem to have been some particularly bad cases in my region.A hedgehog in Hull was painted with spray paint, whereupon its spines fell out; in Pocklington, north Humberside, youths used a hedgehog as a football. They were taken to court, but the prosecution failed because there was no protection in law.
My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby(Mr. Mitchell) has given me a petition organised by aMrs. Blyth from the hedgehog care centre in Cleethorpes, which calls for this legislation because of the increasing number of cases of cruelty. I have also received a lengthy petition organised by a Mrs. Duran in Oxford.
Anomalies still exist. For example, it will be illegal to set a dog on a captive fox--and rightly so--but the Bill will not deal with the cruelty of sending terriers underground when a fox is trapped. That will still be legal.
Mr. Boateng:
Not for much longer.
Mr. Morley:
My hon. Friend is right there.
The public will be puzzled by the difference between the way in which captive and wild foxes are treated.We shall, however, have an opportunity to return to the subject of cruelty associated with blood sports, and I accept that this is not the occasion on which to discuss such matters. For the moment, let me repeat that we welcome the Bill and the measure of agreement that has been reached, and hope that the legislation will complete its passage through the House of Lords without further
amendment. It is a better Bill now: the Bill that came to us from the other place was a mess. Although I concede that there were anomalies in the original legislation, some of the Lords amendments were unhelpful and some were downright stupid--especially the one relating to beating, which would have wrecked the purpose of the Bill.
Dr. Charles Goodson-Wickes (Wimbledon):
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak in this civilised debate, whose tone was set by the hon. Members for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) and for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall). What they said reflected the manner in which we have conducted negotiations over the past few months.
Let me declare my interest as chairman of the British Field Sports Society, which is recognised as the unifying body for political lobbying on behalf of all country sports. It represents the views and interests of hundreds of thousands of people of all political persuasions. In the present climate, I should also declare that the appointment is unpaid.
I welcome the Bill. It is a carefully targeted, sensible animal welfare measure that will help to prevent cruelty, and it will be strongly supported by the public.I congratulate the hon. Member for Mansfield not only on his good fortune in securing the debate, but on his wisdom in introducing the Bill in this form. I am grateful to him for the trouble that he took in consulting me so that an agreed, workable measure, acceptable to those in the countryside, could be presented.
For the last 100 years, every piece of animal welfare legislation has been passed by the House on the basis of political consensus. That is a proud record, and the hon. Gentleman has been wise to follow it. Real progress has been made, because all of us who genuinely care about animal welfare were prepared to put aside our differences and identify the common ground represented in the Bill.
We have dwelt to some extent on the history of the matter, but a few points are worth recording. If the Bill had been introduced in its present form in the last Session and had been sponsored by the hon. Member for Dumbarton, it would now be on the statute book. It was clearly unwise to couple such measures with clauses to abolish hunting and attack shooting. We could never have accepted the Bill in that form, and its fate should have been perfectly obvious to anyone.
The hon. Member for Dumbarton and I did everything that we could to secure an agreed Bill after he dropped the anti-country sports measures at the eleventh hour. Unfortunately, there were real flaws in his Bill, as the other place soon pointed out. I am afraid that the drafting efforts of the hon. Gentleman and me, assisted by the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), were found to be defective--perhaps we would not make a very good firm of lawyers; hence the amendments that were tabled in another place.
My noble Friend Lord Mancroft needs absolutely no protection, but the hon. Member for Dumbarton said that my noble Friend tabled vexatious amendments in the
other place. I absolutely refute that. The other place did its traditional job extremely well, and the expertise there was represented in the tabled amendments, which were accepted by Labour Front-Bench spokesmen in that House. As a result, we ended up with a much better considered Bill.
It is a matter of history that, despite the joint efforts of the hon. Member for Dumbarton and me, it was simply not possible within the procedural framework to have those amendments considered here. However, if the amendments had not been sound, we would not now be considering a Bill that, to a large extent, incorporates all those amendments.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville), to my right hon. Friend at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and to officials for all their help to ensure that the Bill was as near perfect as we could make it. It would be remiss of me not to pay a warm tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Sir J. Cope), who, in his typically sound, able and measured way, played an important part in the negotiations with the hon. Member for Mansfield and the RSPCA, and also to my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson).
Since the passing of the Protection of Animals Act 1911, Parliament has passed a succession of specific measures to outlaw particular forms of cruelty to wild animals. For instance--this is in direct contradiction to what the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe maintains--the gin trap and self-locking snares have been abolished, and the gassing of some species has been outlawed with the support of the BFSS. There are other examples. Field sports are regulated under the game laws as well as by their own codes of conduct. If we want to deal with a specific form of cruelty, we should do it in the established way--incrementally and by consensus. The Bill falls into the category of sensible animal welfare as opposed to measures that are pursued by the animal rights lobby. It thus deserves to succeed.
"Will your sport be safe after the next election?",
"Fact three: Labour's plan for a bill to protect wild mammals is pure window dressing to create an opportunity for a free vote on hunting. There is no need for a new law. Since 1911 it has been an offence to cause suffering to a captive wild animal."
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