Animals Act 1971 (Amendment) Bill

The hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire said at the start of this debate that the number of cases that would be excluded from liability is relatively small. If we start from that premise, the number of cases where the victim would be insured in the way that Mr. Mirvahedy was insured would be even smaller. We would then be using an exception of exceptions to create a new rule. That is the real problem. The debate is building a huge superstructure from a problem that is relatively trivial in the wider scheme of things. It is an important matter and an important legal principle, but the Bill would not make any difference to the insurance industry because it applies to a small number of claims. It would not make any difference to the insurance premium of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams), because he is not a particularly attractive risk for the insurance industry to take on. The real reason for the current situation can be found in another part of the article in the Library briefing. It states that"““insurers are likely now to insist on much higher standards of risk management in the form of record keeping, risk assessments and compliance with local licensing regimes.””" That has nothing to do with Mirvahedy; it is about negligence. If somebody is sued for negligence, those are the sort of things with which they will have to be able to show that they have complied in order to defeat the claim. The Mirvahedy case would have had strict liability irrespective of risk assessments, licensing regimes and record keeping, so the case has made no difference at all. Quite rightly, the insurance industry has recognised that the animal industry is not as safe as it could be. A lot of claims have been made, but they are nothing to do with Mirvahedy. They might instead relate to ordinary negligence procedures and to other parts of section 2 of the 1971 Act. If there has been an increase in the number of claims, that might be where it has come from and the reason why the insurance industry has jacked up its premiums. It might use Mirvahedy as an excuse, but the reality is rather different.