Animals Act 1971 (Amendment) Bill

As always, I take your constraints to heart, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I assure you that I was not going through all the cases; I was just discussing a selection. If I selected too many, I apologise for doing so. There are some interesting ones to come. Let us move on to how the proposed change to the law came about. We have heard a lot about the Law Commission proposals of 1967, but we have not heard about the January 1953 report of the Committee on the Law of Civil Liability for Damage done by Animals, which was chaired by Lord Goddard. That was the real precursor of the 1971 Act. The Committee held 19 meetings, and, as we are finding today, it found the subject matter of its inquiry to be"““of considerable difficulty and complexity””" because many of the cases were ““of great antiquity””. The Committee rightly drew the distinction between mansuetae naturae and ferae naturae in considering where the law stood and made various recommendations. It concluded that someone"““in the absence of scienter cannot recover for damage to the person whether caused to himself or his servants.””" That is where the law stood, and that is basically the problem that we face in this debate. That ultimately led to the Law Commission inquiry, in respect of which a great deal has been prayed in aid in this debate. I freely acknowledge that Lord Goddard's 1953 inquiry and the Law Commission's 1967 one came to different conclusions from mine. The Law Commission report's introduction emphasised that the reform in this field is controversial, but it thought that the modernisation and simplification of the law was necessary. Again, it referred to the importance of the strict liability principle in relation to wild animals and drew the distinction in respect of tame—domestic—animals based on the knowledge principle, the scienter action. I am not going to go through all the Law Commission's conclusions, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I am sure that you would bring me to order if I were to attempt to do so.