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Lord Greaves: On these Benches we support the thrust of the amendments, which are clearly designed to remove the words,


which the noble Duke, Lord Montrose, said is vagueness taken to extreme, and to set out some principles on which decisions have to be made.

Amendments Nos. 27 and 35, standing in my name and that of my noble friend, in the next group are based on the same principles that he puts forward. Perhaps his amendment is more specific than ours. I shall speak briefly to my amendments, which will save me moving them in the next group.

The principles behind all these amendments are the same. We look forward to the Minister defending his vagueness and explaining why it is necessary. Perhaps we shall ask him to go away and reflect whether on an important matter such as this the legislation ought to be rather more specific in terms of what the Minister should be doing in making these decisions and how they should take place.

We support the amendment put forward by the noble Duke, Lord Montrose. It has the same approach as our amendments in the next group. We shall not then move our next two amendments, which will save a little time at this time of the night.

The Countess of Mar: I have been dying to say that a phrase in the Bill is woolly, and I shall say so now. This phrase is woolly. We need it to be better defined, and I entirely support the noble Lords who have spoken in favour of the amendment.

Lord Whitty: There is a distinction between the judgment whether to impose restrictions and the objectivity of the test. The Bill as drafted already envisages the provision of evidence of a sheep's genotype; that will be objective. We have an established and validated test; that is not at all subjective. But the decision, on the basis of that objective evidence, whether and what sort of

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restrictions should be imposed will be a matter for ministerial judgment. We cannot tighten that; we may find a better form of wording, but we cannot eliminate discretion from whether—and, if so, in what form—restrictions should be imposed on the basis of objective evidence.

The Lord Bishop of Hereford: We are back in the same territory that we covered when debating Amendment No. 12. The Minister was then generous and said, "Yes, of course I will have proper evidence. I would not just make up my mind this way or the other". All of the amendments are trying to pin down the Government to specific and definite evidence. It is strange that the Government are resisting that.

I do not see why the Minister minds including these and related amendments which simply spell out that there must be proper evidence. The impression of subjectivity may not be what was intended but is what is given by the extremely loose language. I hope that the Minister will get the message that what we want is highly specific reference to evidence. That will then give people a sense that the Bill is one that they want to support—there is much good will towards it in principle. We do not want loopholes that can be exploited.

The Duke of Montrose: I am most grateful to those who have supported our amendment: the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, the noble Countess, Lady Mar, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford. We want an assurance from the Minister that he will go away to reconsider the matter. We all consider that it is relevant to gaining the confidence of the farming and shepherding community, allowing them to see that everything has been properly thought out and fits in its place. In the meantime, although we want to return to it, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 27 not moved.]

Schedule 2 [Scrapie]:

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton moved Amendment No. 28:


    Page 15, line 25, leave out "Minister" and insert "Secretary of State"

On Question, amendment agreed to.

[Amendment No. 29 not moved.]

Lord Greaves moved Amendment No. 30:


    Page 15, line 26, at end insert—


"(1A) The Minister in exercising his powers under this section shall pay due regard to the 1992 Convention on Biodiversity."

The noble Lord said: I rise to move Amendment No. 30 and to speak to Amendment No. 31, which is in the same group and in the name of my noble friend and myself. The two amendments are an attempt to pin down in the Bill some of the commitments to biodiversity and the preservation of rare and traditional breeds that may otherwise be affected by the schedule's provisions.

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Subject, as usual, to reading Hansard carefully tomorrow, we were impressed by some of the Minister's earlier remarks, which appeared to give a clear commitment that the purpose of the Bill was not—among other things—to eliminate breeds of sheep from this country. The more that the Minister says that in this House, the better.

However, the Minister saying something in this House—or anywhere else—and including words in the Bill are two different things. As it stands, little in the schedule sets out clearly commitments of the kind that the Minister appeared to give earlier—which perhaps he will give again in response to the amendments. There are simply two lines that say that the Minister can choose not to proceed with the provisions of the schedule for slaughter or castration in certain exceptional circumstances. That is regarded as insufficient by the people in this country responsible for the relevant breeds of sheep.

The amendments would not only help the legislation, by clarifying the Minister's commitments for the future, but would be a valuable way of telling the owners of rare and traditional breeds that they have a future that would not simply be a struggle against the elimination of their flocks. The amendments have two purposes, and both should be regarded as important.

The first amendment states that,


    "The Minister in exercising his powers under this section shall pay due regard to the 1992 Convention on Biodiversity".

That would be create a clear commitment in the Bill to maintaining the diversity of sheep flocks in this country. The second amendment sets out in detail a proposal that, when the Minister implements the provisions outlined in the section, he must get scientific evidence before he will go ahead with the slaughter or castration of particular breeds of sheep. That would make sure that the decision was based on genuine scientific evidence. It would also ensure that, if circumstances for a particular breed were such that applying the normal provisions of the schedule would endanger the future of that breed, those provisions would not be applied. The Government might think hard over the summer about whether they might table an amendment of their own that would satisfy those of us on these Benches and in other parts of the House, as well as those who are responsible for maintaining something that is an important part of our biodiversity, food, livestock and ecosystem, as well as part of our heritage.

There are several circumstances in which breeds may be endangered, particularly if the numbers are small—in the low hundreds perhaps. The average number of sheep in many of the rare breeds in the country is only about 300 or 350. Where there are small numbers, there is the risk that a relatively high proportion of sheep from those breeds will be of genotypes that are susceptible to scrapie. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust has provided me with some evidence that the situation for three breeds on which testing has taken place—the Soay, North Ronaldsay and Castlemilk Moorit breeds—is not rosy. The most susceptible genotype—the ARR—is rare, and most of

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those sheep are of a genotype that would be in danger if they were treated in the same way as a bigger breed. Scrapie-susceptible genotypes can be bred relatively quickly and easily out of breeds of sheep that have greater numbers and in which all sorts of genotypes are frequent. That cannot be done if the numbers are small and the appropriate genes are rare in a particular breed.

We would welcome a positive commitment from the Government to the future of rare and traditional breeds in this country. Best of all, we want the Minister to think hard over the summer about some appropriate words that could be put into the Bill to give people the confidence that they need. It is an important matter and should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure in this House and another place, as set out in the last part of the amendment.

9.15 p.m.

Lord Jopling: I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for what he has just said. The wording of new Section 36C(2) is too vague and needs toughening up.

I spoke earlier about the position of the Herdwick breed from the Lake District, my former constituency. That breed is not in danger of being eliminated altogether. In the area where I was brought up, the Wensleydale breed was used very extensively as a crossing ram. The noble Countess, Lady Mar, spoke about the stratification of sheep breeding from the top of the hill down to the lowlands, and the eventual production of sheepmeat that the housewife wants through a series of crossings as one came down the hills into the valleys.

In the days before the Second World War, one of the great and most famous crossing breeds in the north of England was the Masham. My noble friend Lady Masham calls herself by that small town where I was brought up. The Masham ewe was one of the most famous crossing ewes of all. It was the product of a crossing between a Wensleydale ram and a Swaledale ewe. They were then taken down into the lowlands and crossed in the classic way, principally, in the old days, with a Suffolk ram. As the noble Countess, Lady Mar, said, that produced a marketable animal.

However, the Wensleydale ram went out of fashion after the Second World War, very largely through the introduction of the Teeswater ram, and now the Masham ewe is by no means as popular as it used to be. It has largely been taken over by the mule breeding ewe. The ancestry of that comes from the northern regions, because the Border or blue-faced Leicester, the Hexham Leicester, ram is now much more popular with mountain breeds. A few Wensleydale rams are still around, and it would be a total tragedy if that great gene line, which was used for centuries in the north of England, were to disappear.

I therefore support what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves said about the need to be much more specific on the face of the Bill with regard to preserving the existing genes. I am very unhappy about the present wording. Because of my concern that some of the great

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genebanks of the now currently unfashionable breeds may disappear altogether, which would be a great loss to the biodiversity of our country and of the world, I feel much more inclined to support Amendments Nos. 30 and 31.


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