Absolutely—I accept that entirely. I was painting the picture that had been depicted by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, in order to illustrate how ludicrous the situation is. The noble Lord is right with regard to the backgrounds, the national origins, of a
very large proportion of the vets that we have; we just do not have enough now. If the demand is going to be that much higher, the problem is going to grow out of all proportion.
I turn to Amendment 30, to which I have my name, to support the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I support the amendment, which probes the surprising situation that the Bill does not include provision to carry into UK law the principle of Article 13 of the Lisbon treaty recognising animals as sentient beings. Of course animals cannot be put on a pedestal alongside human beings, but they are clearly sentient, as the noble Baroness said. No one who has had anything to do with the countryside or with animals would deny that possibility, so the question arises as to why we are deliberately excluding this. Alarm has been raised among animal lovers as the Animal Welfare Act 2006 does not fully cover this, if we had to resort to that direction.
In the other place, the Government gave an understanding that they would consider how this could be rectified. I would be glad to know what their intentions are. I am not sure whether they are in a position to do so, but I suggest that an amendment should be put into this Bill to give MPs another bite at the cherry. However, if the Government are relying on the draft legislation that I believe they introduced on 12 December to cover this point, a response to the draft Bill was due in by 30 January, as I understand it, but there is still considerable dispute about the appropriateness of Clause 1. We in the Committee have a right to know what the Government’s intentions are on that, and whether the provisions that they are trying to make in that direction will meet some of the points raised by the amendment.
The other aspect that I wish to address is that EU laws on animal sentience have allowed Wales—the National Assembly and the Welsh Government—to take a lead on certain animal safeguarding matters. I remember that when my own party, Plaid Cymru, was in coalition government in the National Assembly from 2007 to 2011, we were able to introduce legislation to ban the appalling electric shock collars that had been used. Can the Government give an undertaking that, when these powers are repatriated from Brussels, the National Assembly and indeed the Scottish Parliament will retain the competence that exists under European provisions in order to take the sort of steps that I have mentioned in relation to electric shock collars and, indeed, a range of other animal well-being provisions? Can we be assured that these powers will not be centralised to Westminster, thereby imposing on to Wales and Scotland a straitjacket that may constrain their ability to act in a positive manner on these important matters?