House of Commons Hansard Debates for 14 May 1999 (pt 4)

Mr. Forth: Listening to my right hon. Friend's excellent analysis, it occurred to me that there is something slightly peculiar about a Bill that starts out as a welfare provision, but ends up by mandating--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are not discussing the Bill in its entirety; we are discussing the new clause.

Mr. Maclean: I accept your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The new clause attempts to make that part of the Bill more sensible and toughens it up.

I have said enough on new clause 2. I shall touch briefly on new clause 3, which I propose to the hon. Member for Garston and to the Government as an alternative to new clause 2. Because of the nature of the subject, I accept that, even if Labour Members like some parts of new clause 2, they or the Minister might not want to accept it--even in principle or in spirit, so that they could clean it up later. The hon. Lady might think that some parts of new clause 2 are sensible, but I point out that, if she and the Government cannot accept that new clause, new clause 3 is a much simpler method of trying to achieve the same thing.

Mr. Paterson: Before my right hon. Friend moves on, I should like him to answer my question. If the animals are to be exported to large farms in Europe, which is by far the likeliest scenario, how does he envisage the costs of that being borne in terms of the new clause?

Mr. Maclean: It depends who does the exporting--actually, in terms of the new clause, it would not depend on that. If the animals are forfeited, the person who takes them, whether that is a veterinary officer or the SVS, may decide that disposal of the mature animals shall be by lethal injection, or by carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide poisoning, so that the value of their fur can be obtained.

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That would deal with some of the animals, but I do not think that the Government--if the Government were in charge--could do that. If the Bill is passed prohibiting the farming of animals solely for their fur, the Government cannot order animals forfeited, kill them and so obtain the value of their fur; the animals would have to be destroyed--killed and incinerated or disposed of by some other means.

With young animals, the Government may decide that the best thing to do is to kill them humanely, or to export them overseas. I do not know what they will decide. If the Government are in charge, I think that, for practical or political reasons, they will decide that they cannot sell off forfeited mink or export them to another country where they would be kept in cages--it is simply not good politics. Therefore, I think that the Government will probably have to kill all the animals and dispose of the carcases by incineration, dumping or some other legitimate method.

However, if the person responsible for disposal of the animals is not the Government, but a third party, that third party might conclude that it is perfectly sensible and legitimate to sell all the animals to an overseas operation, or to sell off the young or immature animals that can be raised to maturity and their value then obtained. I do not know who will decide what, but I believe that there is a lacuna in the Bill on that point.

In new clause 3, I offer an alternative to new clause 2. It states that the persons to whom clauses 3 and 4 refer--the person who is "authorised in writing", the person who is "appointed by the court", the person who has authority to enter the premises, or the person who will be in charge of the forfeited animals--shall be not just any old veterinary officer, but a veterinary officer of the SVS. The Minister will be able to confirm how many such officers there are--I am not trying to make a political point about their numbers. I know that they are spread around the country and have access to all parts of England and Wales, and that Scotland has a similar service under the Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries Department of the Scottish Office. The aim of new clause 3 is to ensure that only suitably qualified persons are given responsibility for entering premises for inspection purposes and for carrying out forfeiture orders. That offers a sensible alternative to new clause 2, and I shall say no more about it, even though there is a lot more that I could say.

At this point, I should have liked to comment on the substantial amendment that the hon. Member for Garston has not yet moved, but, for the sake of time and because it be unfair to comment on the amendment before the hon. Lady has had a chance to move it, I shall move on. Instead, I shall comment briefly on some other alternative amendments that stand in my name and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth).

Amendment No. 10 would provide that disposal of animals that are the subject of a forfeiture order must be carried out in an appropriate way. I suspect that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, disposal of mink will be by means of destruction, because other means of disposal are not appropriate. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire has pointed out, methods of killing legitimately used in respect of other farm animals--for example, captive bolt--are not used for mink; as he says, there are only three legal methods of killing mink.

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Again, I am trying to obtain clarification on the matter of disposal. Do the hon. Member for Garston or the Government envisage disposal being achieved by any means other than destruction? The Bill refers to "destruction or other disposal", but I am working on the assumption that, in every case, destruction will be used.

Maria Eagle: In respect of mink, disposal will be by destruction, but the Bill deals with all other fur-bearing animals that may be farmed, so a different method of disposal may be used in respect of other animals.

Mr. Maclean: I see the hon. Lady's point: in the case of mink, destruction or death by one of the three legitimate methods would be appropriate, but if someone were in the business of fox farming--I realise that there are currently no fox farms--it might be appropriate to dispose of those animals by sending them to a zoo or wildlife enclosure, or by some other acceptable means.

I am not sure whether export or removal overseas would ever be acceptable, if only because one of the Bill's main faults--a fault that we can discuss at length on Third Reading, but not now--is that it relates only to Britain, but will not make the slightest difference to Europe or the rest of the world. It would not be acceptable for the Government to ban the farming of animals in this country and then deliberately to export them overseas, even though the effect would be the same either way: the number of animals overseas would increase, because production would increase to make up for the slack caused by the ban here.

My amendment No. 10 would improve the Bill, because it would permit

"disposal by other such means as the appropriate authority may specify in regulations."

Following the hon. Lady's intervention, my comments on the amendment can be brief. The amendment would give the Minister a power to make regulations in the event that farming of, say, arctic fox or some other animal were to crop up in this country. We are concerned about some of the more valuable fur rabbits that are sometimes farmed, especially in France, where at most times the fur is worth more than the meat. Under the Bill, the hon. Lady and the Minister would have a problem if someone in Britain were to start farming rabbits primarily for their fur. My amendment would provide a regulatory power to deal with farming of different sorts of fur-bearing animals which are farmed in Europe and elsewhere in the world and which might crop up in this country.