Sustainable Livestock Bill

Before I start, I just want to pick up on a couple of points that were made by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello). I congratulate him on coming second in the ballot for private Members' Bills this year. The point that slightly confused me came quite near the end of his remarks. He said that not a single policy arising out of the comments from the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, had found its way into the policy platform for DEFRA in the coalition Government agreement. I have to say, having spent some time studying the Bill in the past couple of days, that the Bill itself is somewhat light on policy. I would submit, as I will explain in a moment, that there is nothing about policy in this measure. It is a bit rich to make that point because, as the hon. Gentleman himself says, the Bill is simply a ““direction-of-travel”” measure. It does nothing to suggest specific policies. I have no doubt at all that the sponsors of the Bill have entirely laudable aims and good intentions. I am entirely in sympathy with those who would wish to see the ending of the indefensible deforestation of the tropical rain forests in south America, which are one of the last natural regions of the world that has not been ravaged by man. We should do all that is reasonable to try and protect them. I am sure that everyone who is promoting the Bill is well-meaning, and that no one would argue that we should not do all that we properly can to make wise and sensible use of our world's precious resources. The underlying rationale behind the Bill is one which I am sure that everyone would support—that is not in dispute. After all, who could possibly argue against the idea of sustaining the lives of cows, sheep, goats, pigs and so on? Sadly, I fear that the net effect of the Bill could well result, not in the continuation of livestock farming in this country, but in its steady and gradual decline.