My Lords, my name is to Amendment 40 and I support Amendments 2 and 11 in this group. I was a little alarmed to hear the Secretary of State say that he will allow the committee to choose what policies it examines. He also said that the money would come from the Defra budget, but surely the Secretary of State must retain some control over the work programme, or the runaway horse would certainly start to gather speed approaching something of a precipice. It is well known that the Defra coffers are scarcely overflowing and are unlikely to be topped up greatly in the immediate future. An unlimited work programme, or one that targeted matters perhaps not seen as generally important, would lead to money running out pretty quickly and fail to satisfy anyone, so I would like the Minister to reassure us that the Secretary of State will exercise proper control over both the committee’s work programme and the funds necessary to meet it.
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On Amendment 2—others have asked this, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, just now—what is the future for the much-respected Animal Welfare Committee of Defra? Is its work to be duplicated, is it to be combined in some way, or is its future limited? At Second Reading, other noble Lords—and others today—disagreed that this was a suitable committee, with of course expansion of its remit, to fulfil the role of this new committee. However, we need to know what the Government intend should be the relationship between the two. I hope the Minister will tell us in answer to Amendment 2 that he has plans for this
committee which would not mean any loss of it. There would be a serious loss to animal welfare if it were to go.