Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1080-1084)
MR BEN
BRADSHAW MP, MR
JOHN BOURNE,
MS CAROLINE
CONNELL AND
MR HENRY
HOPPE
27 OCTOBER 2004
Q1080 Paddy Tipping: You think you can
drive this from the centre, from within Defra, but you do not
need a separate body to enhance good practice?
Mr Bradshaw: Can I add one thing,
Mr Chairman. Going back to the burden on local authorities, there
is a proposal that you will have read about to lengthen the gaps
between inspections as a way of off-setting the extra requirements
on local authorities once the new regulatory obligations come
in.
Q1081 Chairman: Not a lot of support
from the evidence. I have to say, Minister, a lot of people did
not want 18 months and thought it should be 12 months. Again,
the detail is on our record as far as that is concerned. Can I
finish up our line of questioning with a couple of quick points
of fact? There was an indication that you might want to use this
legislation to amend the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 to cure
what are described as "deficiencies". Is that still
your Department's intention?
Mr Bourne: I think at the latest
stage of play, as I understand it—you will appreciate that
it is not my team that does this, it is elsewhere in Defra—is
that they have discussed with Parliamentary Council the planned
amendments and it is not thought that in the time available, if
this Bill were to be in the next session of Parliament, that those
amendments could be done in time, and therefore they would be
put into another suitable bill. Should, of course, this Bill come
to Parliament at a later date then that may yet happen.
Q1082 Chairman: How does this Bill relate
to the question of the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection
of Pet Animals, because we have not signed up to that? Is that
right?
Mr Bradshaw: No, we have not.
There is a lot in this Bill that replicates a lot that is in the
Convention, but the Convention is still under consideration. There
are bits of it we are not very happy with, but the bulk of what
we would gain by signing up to the Convention, which has no legal
force, as you know, we are going to get through this Bill.
Chairman: In other words, that is not
a material consideration. I just want to raise with you one issue
which has troubled the Committee. The Committee spent a lot of
time on what I call two quite difficult areas. Tail-docking we
have dealt with in some detail, but the other was the question
of pet fairs. I appreciate that is going to be the subject of
secondary legislation, but are you, first of all, going to consider
making a legal distinction in terms of, for example, something
like Crufts, which I understand is counted under the generic term
"pet fair", where clearly the principle objective of
somebody like Crufts or any dog or poultry show is to enable a
competitive environment to be created for the purposes of comparison
and excellence in terms of breeds and other activities, as opposed
to those activities which seem to be held solely and wholly for
the purposes of commercially enabling people to buy and sell a
wide range of animal species from the basic bog standard domestic
to the more exotic? The first question is, will there be any distinction
between those two. Secondly, what work is going to be carried
out to evaluate some of the concerns that have been put to us
about disease transfer and animal welfare issues in the context
of some pet fairs? One organisation has furnished some members
of the Committee with a disturbing video film of, I think, a bird
fair, was it, Mr Hall, at Stafford?
Patrick Hall: This month—which
took place this month.
Q1083 Chairman: This month. I think it
would be incumbent upon us to send you copy of that, if you have
not already seen it, because, in my humble view as a layman watching
it for the first some time, it raised some very series issues;
and if that is the way that things like that are being conducted,
it raises question marks as to whether, in fact, they ought to
be allowed to carry on. That is a personal view and not a view
of the Committee, but it does raise serious issues and I would
like to know whether all of this is going to be thoroughly investigated
prior to your coming to a conclusion about the licensing regime
that may apply to that type of activity?
Mr Bradshaw: Yes, it will be.
Q1084 Chairman: That is very good and
very clear, and we will send you a copy of this so that you can
see it. Thank you very much. I am sorry we did not quite stick
to my hope of finishing before Prime Minister's question time
started. Nonetheless, we have stuck to our last and we have got
through a lot of extremely useful areas. Again, may I thank you,
Minister, and your officials for their courtesy in answering so
fully our questions, and can I close by also putting on record
my personal appreciation to the Members of the Committee who have,
in my judgment, worked extremely hard on this in September and
subsequently dealing with an enormous amount of material. It has
been very heartening to see their commitment to the work of pre-legislative
scrutiny, and I am personally delighted at the support they have
given to this exercise.
Mr Bradshaw: Thank you; we look
forward to receiving your report quickly.
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