My Lords, I wish to speak to my own amendment in this group, as well as supporting the other amendments in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady McIntosh.
On animal sentience, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, rehearsed the background to the amendment and other noble Lords have done so too. Animal sentience is an important underlying principle. It comes from Article 13 of Title II of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which states clearly that animals are sentient beings. It is therefore very important that this principle is transposed into UK law. However, as we have heard, when the Greens, Labour and others fought for amendments in the Commons to enshrine this principle in the Bill, it was voted down by the Conservatives. I hear the voices of some Members opposite who still do not quite understand why that happened; we, too, do not understand why they took that decision.
There was then an immediate backlash, not only from animal charities but from animal lovers around the UK. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, gave us a flavour of how passionate people are—quite rightly—not only about the countryside but about their personal interconnection with animals and about how important animals are to them. All those arguments have been made very well.
Effectively, the Secretary of State realised that his reputation was about to be trashed and he decided that there would be a process of damage limitation. His solution was to announce that the original amendment was not well drafted and that a separate Bill on animal sentience would be produced. A draft Bill has now been produced and it bears all the hallmarks of a rushed job. Apart from anything else, it combines two distinct issues: increasing sentences for animal cruelty—something that has been in the pipeline for some time—and attempting to define animal sentience. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, pointed out, it is therefore not surprising that the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee produced a scathing pre-legislative scrutiny report on it. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, queried whether he could quote the noble Baroness as having rubbished it. It is fair to say that the committee did rubbish it. It said that the Secretary of State should go back to the drawing board and that animals,
“deserve better than to be treated in a cavalier fashion”.
It also recommended that the separate bit of the Bill on animal cruelty should go ahead as planned and that much more thought should go into the Government’s vague and ambiguous reforms around animal sentience.
We agree with that analysis. We would be happy to work on the animal sentience Bill to make sure that we get it right, but then of course it has to take its place in the queue of Defra Bills that have already been promised within the next year—a point echoed by other noble Lords. Bills on agriculture, fisheries and the environment have already been promised. Most are in draft form, although some are not even at that stage, and they all have to be delivered within the next 12 months or so. This one would have to take its place in that line of legislation, not to mention all the other EU withdrawal Bills also currently in the pipeline.
It is a bit of a stretch to think we will ever get to a separate animal sentience Bill, so we come back to the amendments on animal sentience before us today. Our belief is that amendments of this nature are necessary to provide a guarantee of the transposition of EU rights for animals, which the Government have promised. Again, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made that case very forcefully. Ultimately, this is a simple process, which can be accomplished by a simple amendment. If we can find better wording than that which we have put forward, that is absolutely fine; that is the purpose of Committee stage and we would be happy to hear the Minister’s suggestions on that. We would then welcome the chance to work on a more thorough animal sentience Bill, which would take into account the concerns of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and reflect the latest scientific evidence on how animals experience pain and suffering—a lot of new research is coming forward on that issue, of which we need to take account. Today, the task before us is to ensure that all existing EU law is transposed appropriately. We believe a simple amendment of the kind we have put forward would achieve that purpose.
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On a separate issue, we also welcome Amendment 212, which relates to the transport of live animals across borders and requires that animals being brought into the UK comply with UK welfare standards, even where those standards are higher. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, made a powerful point about live animals crossing the Irish border. Again, this is an issue we have rehearsed here a number of times. The Irish border remains an unresolved challenge that has to be addressed, of which the transport of live animals is one part, but we all know that the issue is much bigger than that. Although we agree with the wording of the noble Baroness’s amendment, she also raised the broader issue of the continuing transport of live animals. We do not necessarily see eye to eye on that, but it is a matter for another day because it is not specific to the amendment before us. However, the Minister might want to comment on it.
As we have heard from around the Chamber, there are huge challenges around the movement of livestock from outside the EU. Noble Lords have raised all sorts of practicalities: for example, we have heard about the lack of vets, with virtually all vets in abattoirs being EU nationals; and about the import of US beef that is full of hormones, and of chlorinated chicken, which disguises the poor welfare standards that they have in the US. This is not just a US issue but, as we know, a global issue. We take pride in our own current high standards of welfare and it is absolutely right that we should maintain them.
A number of the issues raised by noble Lords fit into other Bills, such as the Trade Bill and the subsequent migration Bill. They also fit into other Bills about the governance and environmental standards that we have been promised. For example, we would say that we need a statutory animal welfare body that makes sure our best animal welfare standards are maintained, and it is important that that is put in a separate bit of a separate Bill. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, is absolutely right: we need a holistic approach
to all this. Lots of these issues relate to separate Bills, but that does not mean we should not deal with the amendments to this Bill today. If they need to be cross-referenced with other legislation that comes on stream later, we may have to do that to make sure all passes are covered.
These amendments are important and we hope that the Minister has heard the strength of feeling from around the Chamber on these issues. By far the easiest thing to do is to adopt the amendments that we have proposed or some similar wording, on which we are happy to take advice. I hope the Minister sees the sense of this position and is able to support the amendments in this group.