Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-146)
MS JANET
NUNN, MS
MERIEL FRANCE,
MR STEVE
ZLOTOWITZ AND
MR STEVE
FAIRBURN
7 SEPTEMBER 2004
Q140 Alan Simpson: I am just trying to
work out where, in practice, this would work. I want to be clear
about how this would work on the ground because there may be a
case for separating the responsibility for prosecuting from the
responsibility for the care and welfare of the removed animal.
It just is a bit vague to say "the government should be responsible".
Mr Zlotowitz: The government is
responsible for policing criminal acts; there is a police force.
We heard this morning that the police do not want to be involved
in the welfare but they will be involved in prosecuting. We already
have wildlife liaison officers within the police force—maybe
that needs to be developed. I know all these things cost money
but if it is a function of government it is a function of government.
Q141 Chairman: I think, in fairness to
colleagues who were not here this morning, there was a distinction
made in the information from Defra between what the police said
they wanted to be involved in, which was issues connected with
fighting and cruelty, whereas the other parts—codes of practice
and their implementation—seemed to be more the territory
of the RSPCA. The role of the police was spelled out quite specifically
this morning.
Ms Nunn: If I may, the membership
were saying they wanted statutory enforcement bodies, so you would
be looking at local authorities pulling on experts as necessary,
as they see it, to make their visits. So, experts in particular
taxa, for example. Certainly they are not happy with the RSPCA
having that function since it has a stated policy to oppose the
sale of pets from pet shops. So, as a whole sector, the pet care
industry is not happy with this new approved prosecutor status
that the RSPCA has and is fearful it might be extended under the
Animal Welfare Bill in due course.
Q142 Chairman: Could I just, in the remaining
few moments that we have got, ask you to say a word or two about
the cost of the licensing regime which is proposed by the Bill?
You have touched briefly on the difference between a perpetual
licence and an annual licensing regime in terms of the trade-off
between the costs of inspection and the costs of licensing and
the regulatory burden. Could you just say a word about what the
proposals would mean—for example, the extra costs to the
industry? Would it actually deal with the problems of your industry
or not?
Mr Fairburn: In terms of the costs,
the costs vary currently across the country quite substantially.
One thing that we have got a concern with is the obligatory veterinary
presence at all of the inspections, which we do not see as necessary
or necessarily useful.
Q143 Chairman: Why not?
Mr Fairburn: As it stands at the
moment, the vets will inspect and usually the feeling is that
it is the local council which is trying to defer the responsibility
of that inspection to the vet, and the vet puts his opinions and
views on the conditions. What you are actually inspecting is a
pet shop which should be full of normal, healthy animals. The
vet would get a snapshot of those animals that are in the shop,
and obviously they will be different in the following week, and
they are not trained to inspect, necessarily, the housing, the
network systems (?) and all the rest—that really falls down
to the EHO. I am not saying that the inspecting officer should
not have access to the necessary experts—and that may or
may not be a vet; there may be other people, reptile experts for
instance, that they should be able to call on—but as a routine
a vet at an inspection is not necessary; it does not add any value.
Q144 Chairman: For example, given the
lead time that is going to be involved as proposed in the annexes
to the document that Defra published, the veterinary profession
could change its training; it could train its vets to do some
of the work that is required under this. So, in other words, they
would acquire the expertise which, perhaps, today's vets do not
have. Given the movement in the veterinary profession, as our
last inquiry into that area showed, there is an increasing involvement
in the small as opposed to the large animal sphere, so the trend
of veterinary experience is moving in your direction.
Mr Fairburn: Yes, I would appreciate
that and that is probably true, but vets are not omni-competent.
A vet looking at a tank full of fish—was it Keith Davenport
who said that the vets get very few hours' training on fish? They
are not veterinary trained in that. It is fine, yes, they are
moving towards the small animal sector and they are gaining more
expertise and knowledge, but it is still very hit and miss with
vets around the country. Having a vet go into a pet shop and inspect,
yes, they may be very competent on cats and dogs, and they may
have an interest in rabbits locally, but they are not going to
be qualified to look at all the animals there or comment on all
the housing. I do not think it is really practical to expect a
vet to have a wide knowledge of all the animals, and it does take
a long time for the veterinary profession to follow the general
trends in animals, which I think is quite obvious from the lists
of vets that are published.
Q145 Joan Ruddock: At the moment, then,
are you saying that the people that do this, Environmental Health
officers, do have this huge range of expertise, or are you actually
acknowledging that at the moment those who are doing the task
equally to vets can only have a limited expertise and, therefore,
there are issues that nobody is essentially policing?
Mr Fairburn: I would reiterate
what Steve said. A pet shop can be inspected by any number of
people that have been appointed by the local council. I think
it was mentioned earlier that some of them will be dog wardens
that are inspecting pet shops, some of them are qualified Environmental
Health Officers and others are specialist animal wardens, so locally
the knowledge is very good, but nationally it is very patchy.
I do agree that that is an issue and we need to look at that to
raise the general level of competence across the country of the
people inspecting pet shops—and, perhaps, the pet shops
themselves. To take a vet along simply does not add any value
to the process, in my experience. If you imagine the local council
may only have, say, three pet shops and that person will be inspecting
three pet shops, it may not be the case that a vet is inspecting
more than one pet shop a year.
Ms Nunn: There is an idea abroad
in the industry that it might be good to have centres of excellence
or panels based regionally. One idea I heard is to have these
replicated in a band of expertise. I would imagine there would
not necessarily be enough experts to go around to have a seat
on each of those panels regionally, so certainly if you were to
have, for example, an expert panel in the Nottingham area on reptiles,
or in the Shropshire area on fish, knowing there is that national
centre of excellence ought to be enormously helpful for Defra
or any inspectors going in, to be able to call on them.
Q146 Chairman: We wish we could talk
to you longer but, unfortunately, we have a lot of people that
we want to see. May I, first of all, thank you most sincerely
for answering our questions this afternoon and thank you again
for sending in your very helpful written evidence. If as a result
of this, at any stage, now or later in our proceedings, other
thoughts occur to you there is no inhibition to writing again
to us. Thank you very much.
Mr Fairburn: Thank you.
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