My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said that we need this provision in the Bill. She is absolutely right. The reason why the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Grantchester and others is so important is that we have put considerable effort and commitment into build up the standards of food, animal welfare and husbandry and, as we were debating earlier, pesticides. It would be quite wrong, inadvertently or deliberately—and we cannot discount deliberately, given the way things are—to allow the commitment with which we have made all these improvements to be rapidly undermined. We need these amendments very seriously.
As a former Defence Minister—albeit long ago—I often remarked that we like to use the phrase, “The primary responsibility of government and Parliament is the safety of the British people”. Here, we are
talking about a very real dimension of the safety of the British people, not to mention animal welfare; it is as strong and important as that. I therefore hope that there will be widespread support in the House for these vital amendments.
We get lots of interesting and well researched briefs from all sorts of people who are concerned about the Bill. The strength of feeling about our responsibility at this juncture to put our commitment firmly in place and reinforce it has never been more convincing. I am very glad, therefore, to be able to support the amendments.