My Lords, I have added my name to my noble friend Lord Moylan’s amendment. It brings us back to the concern expressed on previous amendments about the committee’s composition—that people who feel very strongly about this will not necessarily share the broad spectrum of views on this whole issue. I have nothing against people being vegetarians or vegans but the reason why they are is because they cannot bear the thought of animals being killed to feed human beings. If we were to have a significant number of vegetarians and vegans on this committee, it might start producing rather strange judgments about animal sentience.
My noble friend Lord Moylan is absolutely right to express concern about this. This committee will have enormous power and its composition will be critical to the judgments it will come out with; that is why it is very important that it gets subjected to peer review and that others can comment about the judgments made by it. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will say that he is determined to set this committee up in a way in which it is sensibly and broadly based and reflects all people who might have an interest in this matter, but of course it will be set up by statute and I have no doubt that subsequent Governments might have different views about its composition. That is why I think that we need some form of academic peer review so that this can be subjected to expert opinion from outside and have a bit more balance in some of its judgments. I support this amendment.