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Earl Peel: My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. In terms of balance and natural justice, it is in many ways the most important amendment to the Bill that noble Lords will address.
It is imperative that there should be a fair balance between the occupier and those who wish to enter his land and, if necessary, slaughter his stock. I can see no reason whatsoever why the occupier should not have information which is available to the justice of the peace and be able to attend such a meeting to present his case. That seems to me basic and natural justice.
It is important to note two supporters of the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, is a former Minister of Agriculture. If he can support the amendment, knowing the implications involved, I see no reason why the Government cannot accept it. If the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, is not concerned from a legal perspective that unnecessary delays are likely to take place, that is another good reason why the Government should accept the amendment. In Committee, I made the relatively mundane but important point that it is appropriate that the Bill gives the new department an opportunity to show the farming fraternity that they care and that they consider farmers' viewpoint. This amendment, almost more than any other, displays that feeling of mutual trust. It is for that reason, more than any other, that I regard it as an imperative part of the legislation. I see no reason whatsoever why the Government should reject it. It is fundamental, and I hope that the Minister will listen very carefully to what has been said.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford: My Lords, there are two points in this amendment. The first picks up on the matter that we discussed in connection with Amendment No. 19, which relates to providing a copy of the sworn information to the person whose premises are being approached. Clause 62B(1) of the Bill as it is printed provides:
The second question is whether that person should have a right of representation. The Minister will say that that will involve delay, and it will. It could be done within a tight period, which need not be longer than 24 hours. When that minimal delay, with the enormous gain in good will that there could be if the possibility
of representation were offered, is compared with the inordinate delays that took place last year, it is as nothing. We would have less delay and there would be an enormous increase in good will. This makes real sense. Arguments that the provision of sworn information would create delay are unsustainable. Of course there would be some delay if there were a possibility of representation, but it would be well worth it in order to achieve the good will.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, we are discussing an important group of amendments, and I do not think that the noble Lord has disconnected his first amendment from that group. Rather facetiously, I thought about the length of time that MAFF took to reply to my letters. However, under the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, correspondence comes back and forth much more quickly than it used to do. He has seen an improvement in that regard. The delay in issuing information in writing may not be as great as it would have been if MAFF still reigned supreme. There is no problem with having pro forma letters, on which dates and times can be inserted. There should be no delay in that regard, so the Minister cannot plead delay as a problem. The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, pointed out that we are not talking about slaughtering animals, but about vaccinating them, and about having healthy animals. A little delay will not hurt.
I strongly support Amendment No. 20A, which the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, tabled. In this situation I can see no reason why an application for admission to premises giving advance notice would defeat the object of entering premises. We want farmers' co-operation; we do not want to upset them or to cause more problems. Amendment No. 20A should certainly be accepted.
The other amendments all apply to dealing with occupiers who are absent. The noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Livsey, have done a good job pulling this group of amendments together and I support them.
Lord Carter: My Lords, this discussion has been very interesting to listen to, but I am a little surprised that not a single contributor has referred to the 10th report of the Joint Committee on Human Rightsa committee that includes the noble Lords, Lord Campbell of Alloway and Lord Lester of Herne Hill. The committee examined this aspect of the Bill very carefully. The report says:
The committee then examined all the procedures and requirements in the Billincluding the requirement to obtain a warrant from a justice of the peace before entering premises without the occupier's consent and without giving notice, and all the rest of
itand concluded that it was satisfied that the powers the Government are undertaking do not impinge on human rights. That was before the amendments introduced by my noble friend the Minister. I am surprised that not one person who has contributed to the debate or supported the amendment has referred to the fact that the Joint Committee of both Houses, which contains great specialist knowledge and expert advice on human rights, does not find that the powers contained in the Bill contravene human rights.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford: My Lords, I have just quoted from that report. I had it in my hand and referred to Paragraph 27, as did the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway. What the noble Lord says is simply not true; two Members of this House have quoted from that report.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate beat me to it. I thought that perhaps we had been listening to a different debate. I was only cross that I had not brought my copy of the report in with me, so I was very glad that the noble Lord referred to it.
We strongly support Amendment No. 20. I shall speak also to Amendment No. 20A. Noble Lords from all sides of the House have raised genuine concerns about this part of the Bill. It is one of the most important aspects that we shall consider. The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, spelt the issue out simply. Why is the entry required? Where? When? Is there a chance to be heard? The point cannot be made more briefly or directly. That sums up everything that we said in Committee and are saying again tonight.
We are all anxious to avoid the unnecessary killing of healthy animals if at all possible. We need to give those whose animals may be killed in this way the chance to be heard and to be told what is going on. My noble friend Lord Peel referred to basic and natural justice, which seems to be missing in this bit of the Bill. He felt that the Government had an opportunity to reach out and restore some of the confidence that has been shaken in the farming industry. As I go around, the same frustrations are often raised with me: do the Government understand or care or do they not really mind whether we produce our own food and have our own livestock? Would it not be easier to get rid of the whole lot? There is great concern. It would be immensely helpful if we could allay some of those fears.
In Committee the Minister told us that his legal advisers are not in favour of placing more than is strictly necessary on the face of the Bill. Our contention is that paragraph (b), which would be deleted by Amendment No. 20A, is not only unnecessary, but likely to encourage the sort of behaviour by officials that leads to even greater suspicions and recalcitrance on the part of those whom they are trying to investigate. Many will remember one or two incidents that happened during our last outbreak. A farmer has a flock of sheep. The inspector wants to check them for foot and mouth. The inspector phones up and there is nobody at home. His task is
urgent, so he goes to a JP and seeks a warrant using the first condition and the second part of the third condition as an excuse. If he is successful, he will have been spared the palaver of giving the farmer notice of entry and the reasons for it. Clearly, as other noble Lords have observed tonight, reasons must be given and there must be some recourse available.If feelings are running high locally, does the Minister recognise that this is what I call a "Catch-all-22" with regard to my Amendment No. 20A? I thank the noble Countess, Lady Mar, for her support. I believe that the Minister has enough powers under the Bill without paragraph (b). Therefore, when he responds, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will accept our argument.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I respect the views expressed from all parts of the House on the issue, but I disagree with them very centrally. We are talking about one of the powers in the Bill that I personally feel was lacking the last time round. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, referred to misinterpretation of what we call the "Thirsk area". I am not quite as repentant as he suggests, but the statistics certainly relate to North Yorkshire and the patterns of the area because that is the way we keep statistics. However, the occasion of the Thirsk outbreak would, of course, cover the wider area. Thirsk was a new outbreak in that the outbreak in the west of North Yorkshire had been there for some time.
The outbreak in that area of North Yorkshire was both new and very dangerous. As the noble Lord rightly said, it threatened the pig herds of East Riding and of the East Midlands. Moreover, had the disease moved in the wrong direction, we would have been involved in mandatory slaughter or mandatory vaccinationand, therefore, market negation at that pointof all the pigs in those intensive pig farms. As a consequence, many people's livelihoods would have been substantially destroyed.
The noble Baroness says that we must make a gesture that recognises the concerns of the farming community. I should point out to her that all the Bill's provisions are aimed at protecting livestock farming in this country. All the Government's actions were directed towards that aimsome of them worked, but some of them did not work well. However, there was too much delay in the culling of contiguous premises and this threatened the whole process. There are people who object to the contiguous cull, and who say that vaccination is required. But vaccination would also require swift action in these areas.
I do not believe that any Minister of agriculture faced with a new outbreak that threatened huge parts of the pig and livestock industry in a key part of the country would have been happy with the fact that delays were built into the process which threatened to slow down the way in which the disease was being controlled. Those people who we are trying to protect in such areas also have human rights and, indeed, rights to their property. Therefore, it is important for swiftness to be written into these procedures.
It is also important for reasonableness to be included. We have accepted that greater safeguards on reasonableness should be built into the Bill than was the case with the original format. We have written that into the legislation in terms of the conditions of the warrant procedure, and in many other parts. As my noble friend Lord Carter pointed out, the original Bill was not challenged in this respect by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. We have made it more "bomb proof" from the human rights point of view as a result of these additional safeguards.
The key issue here is representation. Inevitably, delay arises from the ability to make representations on this procedure. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was good enough to mention, it is also true that that does not apply in any other warrant procedure. Moreover, speed is not so much of the essence in some of those other procedures as in the case where one is trying to control a raging epidemic. I should stress that these provisions do not take away all rights from the occupier; indeed, he has the right to make representations to the DVM; the right to seek a High Court injunction, which could block a warrant; and, although this is post facto, there is also the judicial review process as a fall-back. So it is not the case that there is no means of redress, or of delay, open to the occupier.
In normal circumstances, however, the process that we are proposingthe warrant-issuing proposal, which very closely follows warrant-granting proposals in other contextsis the swiftest way of getting the authority to act. That is what we need. We accept that people have to act with reasonableness, but we also have safeguards in that regard. The magistrate, for example, has to have regard to reasonableness in all aspects of the matter. So we do have a balance between swiftness and reasonableness. To go further and build in an inevitable delay in terms of representations is a safeguard too far for me and could endanger large parts of the rest of the livestock industry. I do not believe that it would in any sense be in the interests of the farming community to build in that delay.
On the face of it, there is a slightly different argument in relation to unoccupied premises, which some of these amendments deal with. I can certainly understand that people might feel that they could be caught out if they were inadvertently down the road when the inspector called. There again, however, the authorities will have to act with reasonableness, and the magistrates will have to be persuaded that the authorities acted with reasonableness. It would not be reasonable if the inspector failed to contact the occupier although he knew, or could reasonably be supposed to know, that the occupier was easily contactable although he or she was not on the premises. The magistrate could find that that was not reasonable, and a court could subsequently find that it was not reasonable. The thread of reasonableness, therefore, already runs through all of these powers.
We therefore do not need this additional requirement. It could even be counterproductive to impose a requirement of reasonableness in relation to this power when there is no such requirement in
relation to the other powers. In normal situations, reasonableness runs through all of the qualifications to the actions of the authorities.We have a situation in which swiftness is essential, and in which reasonableness has been built in substantially more than it was in the original Billwhich was itself in this respect given a very clean bill of health by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. But noble Lords wish to build in another safeguard which will inevitably cause delay. I do not think that there is a strong human rights argument for doing that. Rather, I think that the human rights and property rights of the rest of the farming community need to prevail over the view that we should provide the occupier of particular premises with an additional delaying process. Such premises may not be diseased, but in the judgment of the authoritiesand regardless of whether they are adopting a vaccination or slaughter policythey are an essential part of preventing the spread of the disease.
Therefore, despite the widespread support on all sides of the House for this group of amendments, I cannot accede to their central point. In the light of what I have said, I hope that they will not be pursued.
Lord Greaves: My Lords, although I was not terribly encouraged by what he said, I thank the Minister for that reply. I thank all noble Lords who took part in the debate. I also thank the Minister for taking part, but not for what he said. I tell the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, that I am not usually known for being diffident; perhaps I need some time after the dinner break to get going again.
I have several comments on the Minister's reply. I do not think that any of us are challenging the central powers which he seeks. We are certainly not trying to do so in these amendments. He said that the central point of the Bill was to provide the Government with powers that the Secretary of State lacked in the recent outbreak. We are not challenging those powers. We are simply considering some of the ways in which those powers should be constrained to ensure reasonable behaviour.
I am not sure that the discussion of human rights and the Human Rights Act is a fundamental aspect of this debate. I see the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights as a floor below which things should not fall. If things are seen to fall below that, a contravention or problem will arise which clearly has to be dealt with.
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