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Mr. Drew: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hogg: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, and then I shall make progress.
Mr. Drew: If we took the right hon. and learned Gentleman's logic on minority rights to its natural conclusion, we would allow people to arrange dog fights or bull fights. Why do we not have an opinion on that?
Mr. Hogg: The hon. Gentleman has forgotten what I said when I began my speech. I said that there were two important propositions: that we should not impose our own moral standards by the criminal law; and that we should have regard for minorities. However, I said that
they were not absolutes: they were an important guide to legislation. If I were a Spaniard, I would not prohibit bull fighting. I would, however, prohibit dog fighting. Although this point is slightly at a tangent, there is a difference, because the bull fighter--by which I mean the human--stands a considerable risk.
Mr. Alan Clark: No he does not.
Mr. Hogg: I should like to see my right hon. Friend in the ring. I know what the bull would do to him.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Tempting though some of those images may be, we should return to mink farming.
Mr. Hogg: All I can say is that if my right hon. Friend were too close to the bull's horns, he might have cause to regret it.
The central issue is that the proper approach is not to prohibit on grounds of principle, but to ask ourselves whether the methods are inhumane, and if they are to make them more humane. If that cannot be done, it is proper to accept the consequences.
Mr. Hancock:
When the right hon. and learned Gentleman was the head of the service that is responsible for this matter, did he visit fur farms, and if so, what was his opinion of them? Were they run properly and were the animals looked after humanely? If they were not, his comments today beg the question why was not more done by fur farmers to achieve the improvements that the right hon. and learned Gentleman now suggests should be made?
Mr. Hogg:
That is a perfectly fair criticism of my regime. I focused on that question when I was thinking about the Bill. I asked myself whether, when I was Minister, I directed my attention to the matter of welfare in fur farming. The honest answer is that I do not think that I did. I accept that criticism, but it does not go against the principle. It merely means that I did not do that which I now think I ought to have done, and that is a different point.
Mr. Hancock:
Why have the fur farmers not done it?
Mr. Hogg:
They may now make improvements as a consequence of the hon. Lady's Bill, but that does not go to the main issue. The hon. Gentleman is merely arguing that the people who should have addressed the problem previously did not do so, and not that the problem cannot be addressed, which is a difference issue.
Mr. Peter Atkinson:
Perhaps I can help my right hon. and learned Friend. The fur farmer in my constituency would have been delighted to make such improvements, but the difficulty was that the Labour Opposition had a commitment to abolish fur farms. As my constituents could read the political runes fairly well, they did not think it wise to spend many hundreds of thousands of pounds on modernising their farm, but they are prepared to do so.
Mr. Hogg:
I am glad to hear that the runes were disproved to the extent that my hon. Friend was returned.
Compensation is an important issue, and it is raised in the hon. Lady's Bill. The extent to which compensation should be paid when a person's business is totally destroyed or prohibited as a consequence of legislation is an important principle. It arises much more frequently than we think, because many bits of legislation either impose intolerable costs--my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) referred to pig farming--or prohibit an activity. Governments and the House have been ambivalent towards compensation because of the substantial cost implications. For example, the trading profits of gun dealers were excluded, and my hon. Friend was wholly right when he said that the substantial costs of improving standards imposed on pig farmers have not been allowed for in any direct payment. On balance, I believe that compensation should be paid, but that we should not be discussing a governing principle of this kind in the context of a Back-Bench Bill.
Mr. Forth:
My right hon. and learned Friend may recall that the same issue arose in a recent debate about the possible replacement of the long-standing quarantine arrangements. If my memory serves me correctly, the Government resisted any suggestion that owners of quarantine kennels should be compensated if they lost their livelihoods as a result of a Government decision. In that context, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that if the Government support today's Bill, that will mark a distinct shift of direction and may establish an interesting precedent?
Mr. Hogg:
My right hon. Friend raises an important issue. I should like to have taken action on quarantine when I was Minister and I broadly agree with the Government's present position. However, I remain of the view that compensation should not be paid in those circumstances, or at least it is not self-evident that it should be paid as the kennel farmers had been on notice for a long time that there might be a change in the regime. I find compensation an extremely difficult issue. It is so important that it is undesirable that it should be addressed in the context of today's Bill or any other Back-Bench measure.
Mr. Nicholls:
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that there is a distinction between compensation in respect of the owners of quarantine kennels and firearms dealers--and this point will endear me to neither--in that at least there is a possibility of further, albeit restricted activity, whereas if the Bill becomes law fur farming will be illegal and it will be impossible to diversify and use the facilities for anything else?
Mr. Hogg:
Yes. There will be a limited use for the kennels even if we substantially change the quarantine laws. The same does not apply to gun dealers, however--at least not to the same extent--as they were primarily hand gun dealers. Some were also supplying other guns, but broadly speaking they were hand gun dealers so their businesses went out of the window. Today's Bill would impose total prohibition. If it is right in principle that
We should also bear in mind some important parliamentary points. The ability to pay compensation is not an obligation; it is within the discretion of the Minister. Therefore, the Minister would be able to pay out public money without any authority from the House. He or she would be able to make payments under a scheme that had not been positively ratified by the House. The hon. Member for Garston is shaking her head, but she is wrong. She will be aware that statutory instruments that are subject to negative procedure are seldom debated in the House. So we are talking about compensation in a context about which I have real doubts, which excludes as a subject for compensation the main head of loss, namely loss of income, which would be paid entirely at the discretion of the Minister and which in all probability would never be considered by the House. That strikes me as a pretty offensive procedure and I am against it.
Mr. Gareth R. Thomas (Harrow, West):
I join the House in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle) on her good fortune in the ballot and on her excellent presentation of the Bill. In the spirit of today's debate, I also pay tribute to the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg). Although I disagreed entirely with his views, I found his speech interesting and thoughtful.
For many years, fur was a popular accessory for those who sought to portray themselves as sophisticated and fashionable. Indeed, the fur of dead mink was a regular raw material for the fashion collections paraded on the catwalk. Harrods, Selfridges and the Hudson Bay Company would all religiously advertise, promote and joyously count the sales of expensive fur clothes. We owe a considerable debt to the work of the RSPCA, the World Society for the Protection of Animals and other animal welfare organisations, together with some of the more enlightened members of the fashion industry, for the fact that fur has become a much less economically rewarding product. Only 4 per cent. of the population in Britain wear fur and the number of mink factory farms has substantially reduced. Specialist fur retailers are in decline--the Hudson Bay Company has left Britain and Harrods, Selfridges and many other retailers no longer stock fur.
The Bill is extremely welcome as it will finally kill off the remnants of a sick and discredited domestic industry in Britain. It will also send important signals to the
international fur trade that there is simply no place in decent, modern society for fur farming--an unnecessary industry that is completely indifferent to the animals that it exploits.
Mink farming is cruel and vicious at many levels. As we have heard many times already in this debate, mink are essentially wild animals. They defend semi-aquatic territories of up to 22 acres in the wild. They hunt, swim, explore and patrol their territories using aggression and scent marking. According to recent research, they sometimes make journeys of up to 4.3 km, yet on fur farms a typical cage is no longer than a person's arm. It does not allow access to water and is designed purely for the benefit and ease of the fur farmer.
Recent studies of mink have highlighted their natural and instinctive response to water and to a stimulating, extensive and diverse environment. One cannot help wondering what quality of life such lively and intelligent animals can possibly enjoy by being forced to spend their short lives in small wire cages. The conditions in which mink are kept lead to stereotypical behaviour which includes tail biting, self-mutilation, running to and fro along the floor of the cage, sometimes on two legs, rising up and down on their hind legs, moving their heads and forelegs, circling, sham feeding, rising up and head circling. Scientists at Cambridge university recently concluded that such stereotypical behaviour by mink is an indication of stress. Indeed, certain forms of stereotypical behaviour are likely to derive from attempts by the mink to escape their cages--evidence that their physical conditions are completely inadequate. While the levels of such behaviour vary--one study shows 70 per cent. of animals demonstrating such behaviour and 10 to20 per cent. showing signs of self-mutilation--all scientific evidence has concluded that it is an ever-present feature among farm mink.
In 1979, the Farm Animal Welfare Council--the Government's scientific and technical advisers--stated that
My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela Smith), in an extremely helpful intervention, pointed out that, as a Government body, the Farm Animal Welfare Council has refused to draw up a new code of conduct for fur farming precisely to avoid it being seen to be given any form of Government approval. Fortunately for the fur trade, its appalling treatment of those animals has not impacted on the individual value of a mink pelt. Mink are killed after the winter moult when the fur is in prime condition and does not reflect the animals physical condition.
"fur farming does not meet all the basic welfare needs of"
what are "essentially wild animals".
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