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Mr. Drew : The hour is getting late, so I shall be brief. I shall speak to new clause 10, which is tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac), and make a couple of observations about other amendments in this group. I commend the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on persevering with his important proposal, of which I am proud to be a sponsor. I wish him well. It may not advance at this stage, but it should do so in another place. I hope that the Government are taking careful note and will do something about it.
The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) raised many issues, but he is on to something with abandonment. We discussed that subject at length in Committee. The Government need to be clearer about what they will do about people who neglect their animals. The only thing that worries me is what is meant by abandonment. If one tries to bear down on people, they can get rid of their responsibilities by dumping the animal somewhere else. That form of extreme abandonment needs to be dealt with and prevented.
I am happy to put my name to new clause 10, but I wish to query a very helpful and responsive statement by my hon. Friend the Minister on 8 March. It might be called half a loaf: we did not get everything we wanted, but we got half of it. It is worth supporting. I hope that if and when the Minister is able to say a few things in response to my questions I will feel satisfied. People who have campaigned for a generation on this issue, whether Animal Defenders International or, more particularly, the Born Free Foundation, which feels passionately that it is wrong to have animals in circuses, certainly those that we used to call wild animals, will feel some vindication.
The interchange between my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes and the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), who is no longer in the Chamber, was interesting. It clarified part of the problem, which is that if legislation lists what should be banned, those who wish to have rare species in their circuses can go for something even more exotic. The problem to which the hon. Gentleman alluded needs to be thought about very carefully. We should state what we will allow—if, indeed, we allow anything—rather than what we will not allow. That is simpler, even though it is more restrictive.
I largely welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Minister intends to clarify in secondary legislation what will be allowed, but I am somewhat concerned by the use in his statement of 8 March of the words "certain non-
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domesticated species". We would not expect a long list in a statement and we do not need one in this debate, but those words are fairly imprecise. I take it that the statement represents the Government's position, so once the principle has been established, it behoves my hon. Friend to clarify exactly which types of animal are inappropriate.
The list does not need to be exclusive, but how will the process be developed? It is good to hear that secondary legislation will be used, but what is the time scale for that? What are the possible repercussions of secondary legislation? As we know, someone from the circus fraternity has already said that he will take drastic action if the measure comes to pass. Would such animals be put into sanctuaries, or will someone else take them on? They might go to a permanent circus or a zoo. Will my hon. Friend clarify those issues?
My hon. Friend has given us half a loaf. Perhaps he could put some butter and jam on it, by giving us provisions that are long overdue. As Members on both sides of the House said, such a change is the essence of the Bill.
Peter Luff: We are actually talking about only one circus that uses wild animals—the Great British Circus. The hon. Gentleman said that if the circus had to get rid of its animals they could go to a permanently sited circus, so I understood that his attack was on the use of such animals in travelling circuses. However, although new clause 10 refers to winter quarters, it would apply to the use of animals in all circuses, not just static ones. I am confused about the purpose of the hon. Gentleman's new clause.
Mr. Drew: The hon. Gentleman is right, but I was not talking about new clause 10; I was trying to tease out from the Minister what his statement of 8 March would mean. I cannot speak for my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes, but if my hon. Friend the Minister can confirm that something really can be achieved through secondary legislation, I should be willing to withdraw new clause 10. Perhaps the measure could be made more robust in another place. I am reasonably happy that we have made progress, but I should like some clarification from my hon. Friend.
Norman Baker: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). I assure him that I have not been given the chop, as he suggested earlier, but have resisted the temptation to carry on in my present post. I am merely withdrawing from it for the time being. I am happy to give him that reassurance and correct his statement.
New clause 2 has much to commend it. The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) has highlighted an important issue which has not been properly dealt with in the Bill. More and more species—often endangered or exotic species—are being traded on the internet as pets, which is hardly a suitable medium to sell such animals. There is no guarantee that they will be properly looked after during transportation, or, if they are still alive when they arrive, that the people buying them will know anything about how to care for them. Of course, many of those animals are listed in CITES—the convention on international trade in endangered species—and should not be traded at all. So this is an important issue.
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As I said in an intervention, the Home Office has done some good work on countering child pornography, so the systems are in place in the Home Office to deal with such matters, and I hope that they will be taken more seriously than they have been so far. As the hon. Member for The Wrekin is my brother's MP, I shall pass on the news that he is doing something useful in the House when I next speak to my brother.
9.45 pm
New clause 6, on abandoned animals, is also something for which I have considerable sympathy, and if it were pressed to a vote, my colleagues and I would support it.
We heard a very long presentation about new clause 10, on circus animals, from the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) and a long discussion of it, too, all of which was slightly academic because we heard from the Minister last week that he intended to take some action on the matter. I very much welcome the statement that he made last week. We need to get to the stage, with which many people are comfortable, whereby dogs, horses and certain other animals can carry on in circuses and animals with much more complex needs—lions and tigers, and so on—do not end up in circuses any more. That is where the centre of gravity lies in the House, and the Minister seems to be getting there, so let us allow him to do so.
Incidentally, some of the animals shot by circus owners are doubtless endangered species, such as tigers, so I ask the Minister to investigate whether it is legal for circus owners to shoot endangered species if they no longer require them in their circuses.
The hon. Lady referred to Ming. Ming has clearly had a very bad deal. Ming deserves full respect and support from hon. Members, and I am sure that that will happen if the Minister's actions are forthcoming. Ming needs to achieve full potential, and I am sure that that will be achieved if we end up with the Minister's proposals.
I want to refer briefly to amendments Nos. 107, 108 and 109, which I tabled. I hope that, if the Minister has a chance, he will respond to them, because they deal with matters of concern. I particularly want to refer to amendment No. 107, to which the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) also referred. As the Minister knows, I have supported the Bill throughout, as have my Liberal Democrat colleagues. The thrust of clause 4, on unnecessary suffering, is the right way forward, but he will be aware that it uses the word "property", which is of great concern to me, as it seems to provide the opportunity for a large loophole—a significant exemption from the provision on unnecessary suffering in that clause.
When I raised the issue in Committee, the Minister mentioned that, for example, the police or the armed forces may need to use animals to defend property. I accepted that there might be occasions when it is necessary to use animals in those circumstances. However, in return, I asked the Minister to accept that, by including the word "property" without qualification, we could end up with the opportunity for a defence
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against the charge of causing unnecessary suffering being made to stick because property has been defended. The Minister has not qualified that word in any way, and I am very concerned that the use of the word "property" significantly weakens the clause on unnecessary suffering and provides a get-out for those who want to use that as an excuse. I tell the Minister quite seriously that he needs to do something about that, so I encourage him to respond to amendment No. 107 in particular, and I look forward to his comments on that matter. If he does not accept amendment No. 107, I hope that he will undertake to consider something similar in another place, as the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire suggested.
Amendment No. 108 also picks up points, to which the Minister responded in Committee, about people receiving animals as prizes. He will remember our discussion about ponies being won at gymkhanas and so on. My amendment recognises that individuals win prizes in such circumstances, but it imposes a duty on entrants, requiring them to be prepared to meet the animal's needs if they are successful in the draw. That would allow ponies to be raffled, but it puts the onus on the person winning the prize.
Finally, amendment No. 109 deals with a concern that I raised in Committee. The Minister will remember our discussions of the words "yard" and "garden". I expressed concern about the fact that there is a big difference between a yard in which an animal can be seen—people may have a genuine desire to intervene if they see that the animal is subject to unacceptable treatment—and a private area such as a garage. The Minister said that a yard could be enclosed, and asked whether we would like someone climbing over our back fence to deal with a problem.
Amendment No. 109 deals with his objection by defining a yard more closely. It says that the provision would not apply
That answers the point that the Minister made in Committee, so the example that he gave of an enclosed garden would no longer be a problem. The amendment is constructive and tries to meet his concerns while retaining my point about the area being seen from public land. If there is a vote on new clauses 2 and 6, or new clause 10, I shall recommend to my colleagues that we support those provisions. I shall be grateful if the Minister responds to amendment No. 107 when he has the opportunity.
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