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Lord Greaves: The amendment and the following two groups of amendments are very important parts of the Committee's discussion. The amendments are about what happens when a decision is made, or when a potential decision is made, by magistrates to issue a warrant to a person acting on behalf of DEFRA to go on to a farm or land and slaughter or do other things to the livestock there. Slaughter is the most important issue—people are most concerned about it.

Although an improvement on what exists in the Bill and despite going some of the way to meet what is required, I do not believe that any of these amendments, including the government amendments which we shall discuss later, are adequate. I hope that we can return to the matter on Report.

As I understand it, the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, suggests that people should be given the information or sworn

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statement on which the magistrate makes the decision at the point when the warrant is exercised and people enter the land. That, it seems to me, is too late. The crucial issue is that addressed by the next group of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford; that is, people should be entitled to make representations to the magistrate before the decision is made. I believe that that can occur without causing a huge delay in the whole process—a matter which clearly concerns the Minister.

However, in order for that to happen, surely the details of any other information provided to the magistrate should be made available to the owner of the livestock before, or when, he makes his own submissions. I believe that under the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, the information would be provided too late so far as concerns that process. I still believe that the information should—

Lord Campbell of Alloway: I did it on purpose. I envisaged the emergency situation. Things have to move quickly in a national emergency. I may have been wrong but that is how I saw it. I believed that the minimum safeguard was that, if the information was made available then, one could say, "No, it's wrong. I'm going to seek emergence". But I quite agree—if one wants to play it the other way round, that is a matter for the Committee. But if one does that, one detracts from the emergency aspect.

Lord Greaves: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I was going on to say that, if it were impossible for the information to be provided at an earlier stage, then, as the noble Lord said, as the minimum requirement it should be absolutely necessary for it to be provided at the time the warrant was served. If people want to take further action, they must know on what basis a decision has been made. Without such a provision, I do not believe that the rules of natural justice are being applied.

Baroness Mallalieu: I support what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said. Of all the areas of the Bill which trouble me, this one troubles me most. I am perhaps trespassing into subsequent groups of amendments with which we are about to deal. However, whatever the method and at whatever stage it is done, it seems to me that some way must be found to provide that the farmer or owner of the animals who is on the receiving end of such an order at some stage has all the evidence that is placed before those who make the decision and that at some stage he is given an opportunity to be heard. Perhaps the stage at which that happens is not so important, although ideally it should happen at the earliest possible opportunity. I hope that, in considering this and later groups of amendments, there will come a point at which the Government can say that there are ways in which that can be achieved.

The Countess of Mar: I believe that on the whole in this country we are governed by consent. That consent involves acceptance of the law. One of the big problems experienced during the recent outbreak of

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foot and mouth disease was that people were "jackbooting" their way on to people's premises and killing the animals without the consent of the owners.

Contrary to the belief of some noble Lords whom I have heard speaking in this House, most farmers do not regard their animals as goods to be exchanged for money. They build up affection for them. When one has had a herd of Friesian cattle, for example, for 30, 40 or 50 years, one knows every single animal in the herd, one knows all their personalities and one talks to them. To be told overnight that one's animals will all be killed is an extremely shocking experience. We know that that shock still runs through the farming communities where foot and mouth disease spread.

The Bill as currently drafted and, indeed, the new amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, do not necessarily invoke consent in the farming community. I ask the noble Lord to think very carefully about the amendments both in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, and in that of the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, before he rejects them outright.

5.15 p.m.

Lord Whitty: I disagree with the fundamental proposition of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, that there is a distinction between emergency and other situations. In my view, if foot and mouth disease breaks out in this country, we have an emergency situation. It does not matter whether it involves 60 premises or one. We need to act quickly and we need to stamp it out quickly by whatever method—slaughter or vaccination—is considered appropriate. Therefore, I do not believe that that distinction applies.

The purpose of the procedure that we have adopted here is to speed up the process whereby, where there is conflict between the stockholder or farmer and the authorities, the authorities can apply to a justice of the peace. Clearly this is a conflict situation and, clearly, in such a situation there is not consent. That is why we must deal with it. In the vast majority of cases, reluctantly and with great trauma in many cases, farmers recognised that we needed to act quickly and therefore entry was granted. However, in a few cases, some of which threatened to hold up effective disease control, entry was not granted. That is a conflict situation.

However, speed is still of the essence. The provisions that I am tabling, first, require the authorities to inform the occupier what is required of him and the reasons for it and, secondly, if he refuses entry, then the justice of the peace must be convinced of the inspector's or the authority's claim.

I do not believe that representations are provided for in any other warrant procedure. Many warrant procedures are subject to far less time pressure than exists when one is trying to stamp out a grotesque disease. Therefore, I believe that building in sworn statements, representation—I know that that comes under a separate group of amendments—or other potential delays is not a sensible way in which to approach the matter.

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In our own amendments we have indicated what needs to be conveyed to the occupier and what the justice must take into account when making a decision as to whether or not to grant a warrant. However, I do not consider it necessary to build in a process which would slow down that procedure. As I said, no other warrant procedure requires copies of the information to be provided and, in essence, there is no difference in principle. The justice of the peace must consider all the relevant factors.

It is also the case that the powers provided here have precedence in other enforcement regimes, in particular, in the Food Safety Act 1990, which may be regarded as equivalent to this situation but possibly less fraught in terms of how rapidly one would need to act and the consequences of not acting. Therefore, I believe that precedence, logic and the need for speed rule out the type of provisions which the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, indicate he would like to see.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that, provided those safeguards were built in, it did not believe there was a serious risk that the provisions of the Bill would be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, either in theory or in practice. The committee suggested one particular way of ameliorating the situation; we have suggested others in terms of what the justice must take into account. The central conclusion of the committee was that, given all the circumstance, those powers are compatible.

In terms of Amendment No. 267 and requiring assistance, we have tabled an amendment to restrict a person from whom assistance is required in those circumstances to those who are keeper of the stock or their employees. The requirement would have to be reasonable.

We have built in many safeguards, but to have another legal turn of the loop, as is required by these amendments, would not be appropriate. It is not required for the procedure to comply with the European convention and could be detrimental to the process of controlling the disease.

Lord Greaves: Before the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, replies perhaps I may ask the Minister about the warrants. Thank goodness I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that generally warrants are for purposes such as search or investigation or for seizing property or for arrest or for such purposes that are not as terminal or as permanent as going on to land and slaughtering livestock. The nature of the action to be taken leads some noble Lords to question whether a normal warrant procedure needs further safeguards built around it in this case. If I am wrong, perhaps the Minister can take advice and tell me of circumstances where warrants are issued that are analogous to entering a farmer's land and slaughtering all the sheep or cattle.

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