My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 38, in the name of my noble friend Lord Caithness, to which I have added my name. I was not here—because I was at a previous engagement—when the debate was held in this Room about merging the Animal Welfare Committee and the animal sentience committee. My noble friend the Minister made the point that the two committees did two different jobs and therefore there had be two different committees. That was really accepted rather too glibly. There is no reason why we should not keep one committee and give it two different jobs to do. It is a pity that we seem to be so dedicated to the spread of bureaucracy and quangos in this way, when the Government have made it clear that they do not really agree with that.
However, let us leave that and move on to the fact that there is obviously potential for conflict between the Animal Welfare Committee and the animal sentience committee, as outlined by my noble friend Lord Caithness. We have to do everything we can to avoid that and ensure that they work together—not in opposition to each other, which seems highly likely knowing the way that Whitehall works. I therefore sincerely hope that my noble friend the Minister will look hard at this amendment, because it has great value.