Standing Committee E
Tuesday 4 December 2001
(Afternoon)
[Mr. Eric Illsley in the Chair]
Schedule 2
Scrapie
Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 95, in page 18, line 18, leave out ''or third''.—[Mr. Breed.]
4.30 pm
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are taking the following amendments: No. 96, in page 18, line 26, leave out
''or a refusal is expected''.
No. 97, in page 18, leave out lines 30 and 34.
No. 156, in page 18, leave out lines 31 to 33.
No. 157, in page 19, leave out lines 3 to 5.
No. 111, in clause 6, page 3, line 26, leave out
''or a refusal is expected''.
No. 112, in page 3, leave out lines 30 to 34.
No. 133, in page 3, line 31, leave out paragraph (a).
No. 134, in page 3, line 34, at end insert
''and uncontactable during the 24 hour period from when the warrant was granted.''
No. 135, in page 3, at end insert—
''(6A) If animals are mistakenly slaughtered while the occupier is absent, the farmer shall receive compensation at the level of 200 per cent. of market value.''
No. 113, in page 4, leave out lines 3 to 5.
No. 40, in page 4, line 4, leave out ''such'' to ''for'' and insert
''personal assistance as is reasonably necessary''.
No. 89, in page 4, line 4, after ''reasonably needs'', insert
''and that that person can normally give''.
No. 99, in clause 7, page 4, line 24, leave out ''or third''.
No. 100, in page 4, line 31, leave out
''or a refusal is expected''.
No. 101, in page 4, leave out lines 35 to 39.
No. 138, in page 4, leave out line 38.
No. 149, in page 4, line 39, at end insert
''and the inspector can demonstrate that all reasonable efforts to contact the occupier have been made.''
No. 102, in page 5, leave out lines 6 to 8.
No. 139, in page 5, line 6, leave out ''any person'' and insert
''the owner and any person employed by the owner.''
No. 41, in page 5, line 6, leave out ''such'' to ''for'' in line 7 and insert ''personal assistance as is reasonably necessary''.
No. 73, in page 5, line 7, after ''needs'', insert
''and that that person can normally give.''
No. 106, in clause 8, page 6, line 3, leave out ''or third''.
No. 119, in page 6, leave out lines 14 to 18.
No. 75, in page 6, line 30, after ''needs'', insert
''and that that person can normally give''.
Mrs. Ann Winterton (Congleton): We come to the vast group of amendments which I have marked in red ink although I do not know whether it is a red-letter day. I shall begin at the beginning with amendment No. 95, which was tabled by the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) and Conservative Members. Essentially, it would leave out the third condition in the Bill under proposed new section 36H of the Animal Health Act 1981, which is entitled ''Warrants''. The proposed new section states that
''If a justice of the peace is satisfied on sworn information in writing that the first condition is satisfied and that the second or third condition is satisfied he may issue a warrant authorising a person mentioned in section 36G(1) to enter premises . . . The first condition is that there are reasonable grounds for a person mentioned in section 36G(1) to enter premises for the purpose there mentioned . . . The second condition is that . . . admission to the premises has been refused or a refusal is expected''.
There is another part to the second condition, but the amendment refers to the third condition, which we want to omit. It is that
''an application for admission or giving notice of intention to apply for a warrant would defeat the object of entering, . . . the case is one of urgency, or . . . the premises are unoccupied or the occupier is absent.''
Other amendments refer to the second condition, which is in proposed new subsection 36H(3). Its paragraph (a) states that
''admission to the premises has been refused or a refusal is expected''.
Amendment No. 96 would leave out the words
''or a refusal is expected''.
Short of having a crystal ball, I do not know how that phrase could have been included in the provision. When admission to the premises has been refused, the provision will be reasonable and sensible, but I cannot understand what is meant by a refusal being expected. When officials and others call on farmers and find a problem or dispute, people often say things in anger and become extremely worked up. However, that is not fair to insist that even if a refusal were expected, or had been hinted at or threatened, a warrant would be issued under those terms. It seems wrong.
Amendment No. 97 seeks to leave out the whole of the third condition.
I move on to amendments Nos. 111, 112, 133, 134 and 135, and I shall leave the first two and talk about amendment No. 133. It seeks to delete proposed new section 16(6)(a) of the 1981 Act, which is proposed in clause 6 of the Bill under the powers on enforcement. It states that
''an application for admission or giving notice of intention to apply for a warrant would defeat the object of entering''.
I cannot see what that adds, so perhaps the Minister would like to intervene. How would that provision defeat the object of entering premises? We need some clarification.
Amendment No. 134 is rather meaty. It deals with the third condition, under which entry can be gained if
''the land or premises are unoccupied or the occupier is absent''.
It is quite wrong that no notice can be given if that is the case, so the amendment adds that the occupier should also be
''uncontactable during the 24 hour period from when the warrant was granted''.
An occupier might be absent for good reasons, and I can think of many examples but I will spare the Minister them.
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton): There are problems sometimes when farmers cannot get back to their farms as, for biosecurity reasons, they are trapped on someone else's farm. That would be a reason why a farm would not be occupied for a 24-hour period.
Mrs. Winterton: My hon. Friend is right. We discussed such issues earlier in Committee, especially in relation to separate sheep flocks being wintered off or grazing on other land. The problem with extensification is that one has to take animals to where the food is. That provides a perfect example of when the farmer might be away from the premises. The sheep would be on a parcel of land and might be checked now and again to ensure good husbandry, but the occupier would not be present. In that case, so far as scrapie, enforcement and the powers in the Bill are concerned, action could be taken by an official in the absence of the owner or occupier of the land, who would then turn up and find that action had been taken without his knowledge or any attempt having been made to contact him.
As most parcels of land are registered under the integrated administration and control system, and housing is usually nearby if land is rented, one would have thought that reasonable inquiries could be made as to whose flock was on a parcel of land. Reasonable attempts could therefore be made to contact the owner of the flock and discuss with him the action that the inspector would take, so that he was aware of the warrant that was about to be granted.
Amendment No. 135 is also about land or premises that are unoccupied or from which the owner is absent. It provides that if any animals were mistakenly slaughtered while the occupier was absent compensation would be payable at a level of 200 per cent. That follows on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning). If for some good reason the occupier is not present, and then comes back to find that the flock has been slaughtered or dealt with without his permission or knowledge and without attempts to contact him, it is reasonable for compensation to be at double the market value of the mistakenly slaughtered stock.
Mrs. Browning: Amendment No. 135 suggests that compensation should be paid at the level of 200 per cent. where animals are mistakenly slaughtered in the owner's absence. Animals that graze on open moorland or uplands might well be mistakenly slaughtered. I hope that it would be some comfort to owners to know that they would be properly reimbursed if that happened.
Mrs. Winterton: Indeed. My hon. Friend makes a good point. A huge number of hefted sheep were slaughtered on moorlands and common land in Cumbria, although I do not know of specific instances where mistakes were made. However, I know that mistakes were made elsewhere in Cumbria, and compensation should be paid at 200 per cent. of market value in such cases.
Mr. Colin Breed (South-East Cornwall): Animals may mistakenly be presumed to be owned by the person whose land they are on, and we know of several such cases. They might, therefore, be culled even though they do not belong to the owner in question and should not be killed in any case. Such mistakes can be obviated if people are given proper notice and are on the premises.
Mrs. Winterton: That is another example of what can go wrong. This does not relate to scrapie, but animals were mistakenly slaughtered during the foot and mouth epidemic because people were given the wrong map references and the wrong integrated administration and control system references. It is not beyond the wit of man to imagine such distressing mistakes being made. If farmers must be responsible for their actions—the Bill requires them to be even more responsible—officials should be, too.
Mrs. Browning: I raised the issue of the reliability of the maps with the Minister on Second Reading. He helped me with some cases during the foot and mouth crisis, and we sat in his office with his official, looking at a map of Devon farms. None of us could identify from the map the farm that we were discussing. It is incumbent on the Ministry to put together a definitive map on the computer or wherever. There is a clearly a lack of accurate information that one can rely on to identify farms.
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