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Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston): I shall make a couple of brief points, which are essentially queries to the Minister about technical matters. If they cannot be explained now, perhaps they should be tackled when the extremely good Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) has promoted is considered in Committee.
The Protection of Animals Act 1911 deals with pets, whereas the Bill deals specifically with commercial animals. I want to ensure that we do not accidentally create a loophole, and an artificial boundary between pets and commercial animals. A person might keep dogs and decide that they are commercial when it suits him and he wants to sell them, and pets when it does not. We want to ensure consistency in prosecution for cruelty to animals, whether the animal is kept as a pet or for commercial gain. We are all trying to prevent cruelty to animals and we do not want to create a loophole.
The reverse of the example I gave might also occur. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) referred to sheep farmers, of whom there are many in Westmorland. A farmer might claim that a little lamb that he had been accused of treating cruelly was not one of the flock but a pet. We must not create such a loophole.
The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale referred to the greater number of animals that are kept for commercial purposes, and the breadth of those purposes now as compared with 1911. Then, commercial animals were either farm animals, racehorses or greyhounds and the definition was fairly obvious. There are now many other sorts of commercial animal.
There are two wonderful establishments near me. I am sure that they would not be subject to prosecution under the Bill or the 1911 Act. The first is Chester zoo, an eminent establishment, which not only displays animals for the benefit of the public and enables them to be understood in a proper habitat, but breeds rare animals. The Blue Planet aquarium--also in my constituency--is a superb resource and a wonderful scientific experience for people, especially children, to enjoy.
Wider facilities are available, which raises another issue that should be considered in detail in Committee. Are animals kept in modern facilities covered adequately by the 1911 Act? We are not necessarily dealing with primates, birds or some of the species that we normally see in zoos; much more exotic creatures, especially amphibians and mammals, may not be adequately covered by that Act. I do not know the answer, as I am not a lawyer, but that matter needs to be considered carefully. For example, it would be absurd if a frog were covered, but a dolphin or a porpoise were not. I am sure that that is not the intention of my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby. She used the word "animal" in its broadest sense.
I wish the Bill well--it is extremely timely and contains some good provisions--but those technical matters should be considered in Committee to ensure that there are no loopholes. If you are in the north-west to watch Lancashire, Mr. Deputy Speaker, please visit the Blue Planet and Chester zoo. You will have a great experience.
1.42 pm
Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border): I, too, wish the Bill well and I am pleased that we have an opportunity to give it a proper Second Reading before it is debated in Committee. We shall then briefly consider it on Report and, I hope, ensure that it goes to and from the other place in good time before the end of the Session.
When the Bill was debated previously, we had insufficient time to explore some of the little concerns that it raises. Therefore, it was right that it did not make progress; we should not have bounced it through either on the nod or after 10 minutes' discussion. Although we do not want to send a signal that we do not care about animals, we certainly do not want send a signal that we do not care about legislation. An animal welfare Bill did not make progress a few weeks ago, but that does not mean that we do not care about animals. We want to ensure that amending legislation such as this brief Bill is properly debated. We need to consider whether it contains any loophole and whether we can improve it.
Hon. Members have already raised many of the points that I wanted to make, so I shall confine myself to emphasising a couple of issues, the first of which is the term "commercial". I understand why the hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) has confined the Bill's scope in such a way. If she had not, I would have been one of those saying that we should consider it carefully because of its serious repercussions. She could have widened the scope to such an extent that its chances of success were endangered because it dealt with all pet animals and, therefore, included rights to enter private homes, which would involve fundamental human rights issues and the right of entry of inspectors from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The hon. Member for Crosby is right to have confined the Bill's scope to the keeping of animals for commercial purposes. I understand that that phrase means not necessarily only cattle, sheep, pigs and other farm animals, but other animals, including those in zoos, kept for commercial purposes.
I hope that a little time will be spent in Committee clarifying what is "commercial". I cannot see a definition of "commercial" in the Bill, and perhaps advisedly so. The hon. Lady has possibly been advised by lawyers in Departments or elsewhere not to define the term "commercial". If it is questioned, it may be determined by the court according to the circumstances of the case. Plenty of animal regulations and legislation on the statute book contain a definition. I could not see a definition in clause 1 of the Protection of Animals Act 1911, because it covers all animals. We need to explore that little matter.
I am not concerned that the Bill will cover too many animals. I want the animals that I see every Monday and Friday from my train to and from my constituency to be covered by legislation. A decision may be made as to whether I am in order, but I hope that, when we consider the Bill, we can discuss the horses that are kept in what I call pony paddocks. I suspect that some of them are personal pets in a field with a little tin shed that has been let, and they will not be covered by the Bill. However, if there is a commercial relationship whereby an organisation is housing someone's pet horse for a fee, I hope to goodness that it is caught by the Bill. I also hope that inspectors from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or the local council will travel on the trains and see those grubby pony paddocks.
Inspectors should go into farms and deal with sheep, cattle or pigs that have not been properly taken care of but, from my background in the countryside, I think that there is a welfare problem when horses are kept in a bare field with no grass whatever and a few bits of scabby hay to eat. One can sometimes see the structure of their rib cages through their skin. Those cases need to be investigated.
That is not the Minister's departmental responsibility. Baroness Hayman now has responsibility for horses, but the matter of the welfare of horses has always fallen between different Departments. I do not think that it is a ministerial responsibility for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, because those paddocks are not registered MAFF farms. I flag up that issue because I want to explore the potential for animal cruelty. If the Bill cannot deal with it, perhaps another measure can.
I do not want to discuss issues that are not covered by the Bill, because that would not be in order. It is narrowly confined, and we have had advice and information from the RSPCA. It is nice that the RSPCA has on this occasion confined itself to subjects that are a core part of its activity. I trust that, after today, my secretary will not receive more letters from RSPCA supporters who were incited by an article 18 months ago. I have a splendid letter that says, "Maclean you dirty b . . . , I hope you die nastily of cancer of the throat and all your family with you." That was an exciting bit of mail such as one gets occasionally. I had made an intervention on another animals Bill.
Angela Smith: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that the RSPCA was responsible for that.
Mr. Maclean: I am afraid that I am. It does not concern me, because the letters were not from my constituents. They were from all over the country, so they made no difference politically. They upset my secretary for a while. The article had been printed in an RSPCA magazine, and gave a slightly biased account of some of our proceedings--hence the letters flowed. We are dealing with a Bill that the RSPCA entirely supports and that we shall back, not because the RSPCA supports it, but because it is right in principle and has considerable merit. Therefore, I hope that people outside the House will give a fair account of our proceedings.
I am aware that the RSPCA wants bigger changes in legislation in future. I hope that amendments will not be tabled to this Bill in an attempt to meet that agenda, because that would endanger it, but the Minister--in conjunction with other Departments--may need to establish a taskforce or working group to review the 1911 Act. We know that the RSPCA, along with other organisations, wants a wider scope of reference to include all animals, not just domestic or captive animals. That would include zootypes such as frogs and other exciting animals that people are keeping nowadays--and, in my opinion, keeping dangerously. When those animals are released into the wild, we are seeing the destruction of our native wildlife. The giant American bullfrog is an example. I am terrified to look at my own wildlife pond in case I see one of those ten-foot monsters.
The RSPCA wants extra powers enabling the courts to confiscate animals from people who care for them, not just their legal owners. I think that that was the problem
with the Chipperfield case. It wants a new offence of "likely to cause suffering", clarification of powers of arrest under the Act, tighter rules on disqualification, and a change in the age at which people can buy pets. Those are legitimate subjects for debate and consideration, and it might be in order to incorporate some of them in the Bill, but I would caution against any such attempt. Unless consultation takes place with the wider industry, with cattle and dog owners and with all the other organisations involved in animal welfare or production related to animals, the Bill will suddenly come up against strong opposition from those quarters.I urge on the Minister the solution that we adopted a couple of years ago with regard to dog breeding and licensing. I am pleased to say that I blocked the Bill in question, because I had been told by some organisations that they had not been properly consulted. I had been told that this was a one-man show on the part of the RSPCA, which was trying to drive the Bill through without the views of others being taken into account. We set up a working group involving the RSPCA, the National Canine Defence League and a range of other organisations. After they had torn each other's hair out for a while, they produced the material for a Bill that we were able to support.
That is the solution that I recommend to the Minister and all Members, rather than trying to put everything into the Bill and widen its scope so that it is endangered. That is the right way in which to deal with extraneous problems. I do not use the word "extraneous" in the sense of "trivial"; I am referring to other problems that the RSPCA wants to deal with.
There are one or two other little points already mentioned by my hon. Friends that we may look at in Committee. The Bill refers to "a person authorised". Who is the person authorised? We shall want to ensure that, if RSPCA inspectors have those rights, it will be appropriate people--properly authorised people--who go into what will be not domestic premises, but private property, with what could be described as draconian rights. We shall want to ensure that the "reasonable" costs are reasonable, and that, if animals that are suffering are taken away and housed, slaughtered, disposed of or dealt with in some other way, the person responsible is saddled with a reasonable bill, not a gold-plated Rolls-Royce bill.
I support the thrust of the Bill. There was clearly a loophole in the 1911 Act. We cannot allow circumstances to exist in which, when someone is prosecuted for animal cruelty, it is not possible to do anything with the suffering animals.
I sincerely hope that the Minister is given permission to speak again. If he does, I hope that he will be able to tell us a little more about the statistics supplied by the RSPCA. I think that they tell us that, in the first half of 1999, there were nearly 1,500 convictions, 45 of which related to pigs, 27 to cattle and 16 to sheep. That is quite small beer in some senses, although many sheep may have been involved in each prosecution, and, indeed, many pigs. Those figures give me a sense that the vast bulk of the other prosecutions involved cats, dogs and other domestic animals. I may or may not be right, but, given that the Bill deals with commercial animals, given that cases relating to commercial animals constitute only a tiny proportion of prosecutions, and given that there is a big problem of cruelty to cats, dogs and other domestic
species, the time will come when we need to address that problem--not in this Bill, but perhaps in a Government measure after full and proper consultation.
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