Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
TUESDAY 15 NOVEMBER 2005
MR BEN
BRADSHAW MP, MR
JOHN BOURNE
AND MS
CAROLINE CONNELL
Q40 Patrick Hall: A maximum of 1
point something and a minimum of 2?
Mr Bourne: 0.26.
Q41 Chairman: 0.26, I thought it
was 2.6.
Mr Bourne: I apologise, I was
not being clear.
Q42 Chairman: Perhaps the easiest
thing if you could drop us a note for the record and make certain
we get the right number of what the percentage is of.
Mr Bradshaw: 0.26 minimum, 1.1
maximum.
Q43 Patrick Hall: Nonetheless the
point seems to be being made that with non-CITES wild imported
creatures, there is no responsibility on the part of the importer
for animal welfare conditions?
Mr Bradshaw: I do not think that
is the case. There is responsibility.
Q44 Patrick Hall: For non-CITES,
the majority?
Ms Connell: CITES is an international
convention, therefore I am not an expert on CITES law but I think
that because it is an international convention then certain regulations
in that convention can extend to other contracting parties for
that convention. If you are talking about non-CITES imports, as
I say, obviously once the consignment is within the jurisdiction
and somebody is responsible for it, then somebody will have a
duty under the welfare offence to be responsible for looking after
their welfare. The question that I think the Committee is interested
in is to what extent can that spread its tentacles beyond our
shores and go to where these animals originate and make sure they
are packaged properly, transported properly, et cetera.
Q45 Patrick Hall: The answer that
was passed to you by somebody further back was that responsibility
lies with the importer with regard to CITES-listed creatures and
therefore it concluded that it did not apply, logically, to non-CITES
listed creatures. Therefore, if it is outside the UK jurisdiction,
how is responsibility brought to bear on importers?
Ms Connell: I do not know that
that can be a matter for UK criminal law.
Mr Bradshaw: There are, as I understand
it, international transport regulations governing the transport
of all wild animals, including birds, whether or not they are
CITES species.
Q46 Mr Williams: Before we go on,
I understand, if I remember correctly, that codes of good practice
have been established for people who keep farm animals. I remember
there have been Statutory Instruments involved. I did detect a
faint suggestion that there may be codes of practice set up for
each species of pets which might be kept by the people in Britain?
Mr Bradshaw: I think not every
single species but generic codes of conduct which will help people
to make informed decisions as to what the welfare needs of that
animal are, and may help as well courts arrive at a view as to
whether they have been met.
Q47 Mr Williams: I understand the
vets think that it might be difficult to draw up a code of good
conduct for keeping cats. Have you heard of that or is it not
in existence at the moment? It seems as if there is such a common
pet as a cat without an adopted code of good practice—
Ms Connell: There is a draft code
of practice on cats but obviously there are quite a lot of variables
on an animal like a cat. I think New Zealand has a code on dogs,
Sweden has a code on reptiles and exotics, and with something
like a reptile or an exotic type of pet, like an iguana or a snake,
then maybe you can be a bit more specific about the types of temperature
that it likes to be in, what type of food it likes to eat, whether
it likes its mice frozen or defrosted.
Q48 Mr Williams: Moving on again,
the draft Bill, as I understand it, has been amended so that it
would not now be an offence for somebody to provide as a prize
a living animal or pet in a competition to a person under 16 who
is accompanied by an adult. Why have you decided to do that? A
number of organisations are not happy about it.
Mr Bradshaw: Basically, there
was a view across Government that to ban outright the giving of
pets as prizes or to prevent under 16s winning them in the company
of an adult, at a fair or winning a horse in a gymkhana event
or something like that, was too nanny-ish. As long as you had
the security that there was an adult involved in the transaction
that was a more proportionate approach.
Q49 Chairman: What is your definition
of adult?
Mr Bradshaw: Over 16 year olds.
Q50 Chairman: The wisdom of adulthood
under your definition arrives at one minute, or even a lower time
order, past the arrival of the 16th birthday. You could have a
situation where you had got twins, one of whom was born at, if
you like, 59 minutes to the hour and the other one is born at
one minute past the hour so one is the adult and one is still
the child.
Mr Bradshaw: They still get the
animal though, do they not? Wherever you set an age limit, Chairman,
on anything you will get those people who are either side of the
cusp.
Chairman: We will come back to that in
a minute but Mr Williams wants to continue.
Q51 Mr Williams: How easy is it going
to be to enforce this type of legislation? Is it proportional?
It seems that the effort that we are going to enforcing this type
of legislation will not gain benefit in terms of animal welfare.
The best way to learn how to look after an animal is as a child,
is it not, and then that good practice goes through with you to
adulthood?
Mr Bradshaw: Yes, but the difficulty
that we had was that we were raising the age at which a child
could buy a pet from a pet shop from 12 to 16, that is making
an informed choice. There was a feeling, I think it was shared
by this Committee, that it was better that somebody should make
an informed choice before owning a pet than if they were able
to just win one. There was then a debate about at what age a child
should be allowed to win one and what we have tried to do is we
have tried to have consistency at 16 for both buying and winning,
as long as there is an adult present.
Chairman: I will come back to my own
experience in this field in a moment but Mr Taylor has a small
question he wants to put on this.
Q52 David Taylor: The Minister will
know that I tabled EDM863 calling on the Government to incorporate
within the Bill a clause to ban the sale of unweaned puppies in
pet shops. You gave me informal advice that you felt that good
practice would exclude that particular activity. There is still
a problem pursuing that through the courts, it would be rather
more difficult to successfully prosecute someone for that offence
in the absence of a code of practice. How long are we going to
have to wait for codes of practice which will articulate this?
Mr Bradshaw: This is already clearly
illegal and if it is happening and is being reported it should
be acted upon.
Q53 David Taylor: It is illegal,
why?
Mr Bourne: Caroline will know
this.
Q54 David Taylor: As long as the
answer goes on to the record and into the public domain, I am
happy to leave it at that, Chairman. This was the only opportunity
I had to say this to the Minister.
Mr Bradshaw: My advice is that
this practice is illegal already.
Q55 Chairman: Let me return to this
question about a transfer of animals by way of sale or prizes
to persons under 16. I am all in favour of an animal, whenever
it goes into the care of anybody, being properly looked after,
which is the purpose of this Bill. Let me ask you factually: how
many cases a year is your Department aware of where the winning,
by a means of a prize, or sale to a person under the age of 16,
has today caused a problem? What evidence is there that you need
to legislate in this area?
Mr Bradshaw: I do not know that
we have those figures available, Chairman.
Q56 Chairman: Something must have
informed your decision to have clause 9 in the Bill.
Mr Bradshaw: It was a principle
that the welfare needs of an animal are more likely to be met
if a conscious decision has been made to own that animal by somebody
who was of an age to have some idea about what looking after an
animal involves. A lot of parents will say to you that—
Q57 Chairman: Minister, you are ducking
away from my question. I want to know what the evidence is, Mr
Bourne, perhaps, wants to tell us?
Mr Bourne: I think I can enlighten
you, Chairman. Firstly, I am going to come back to your immediate
point, secondly, in terms of the sales of animals, there are some
very well documented issues, such as during the craze on Ninja
Mutant Turtle, which you may recall, Chairman—
Q58 Chairman: I do, yes.
Mr Bourne:—when under 16s
bought quite a lot of terrapins and then they died because they
were badly looked after. It would have been rather inconsistent
if we had addressed that issue to do with sales of animals to
under 16s and then said it was all right to win it as a prize.
Q59 Chairman: I hear what you say.
Would you say, from your feeling and knowledge in this field,
that there are more problems caused by adults who mistreat animals
than children?
Mr Bradshaw: I think the RSPCA
would be a better organisation to give you a view on that.[6]
I suspect there are a considerable number of examples of children
buying or pressurising parents to buy pets and not giving careful
enough thought as to how the welfare needs of that animal are
going to be met. When this was announced we had representations
from members of the public saying "That is a relief, that
takes the pressure off us from our children putting pressure on
us because of other children saying they have got a particular
pet, so can we have one too".
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