My Lords, I am particularly interested in and concerned about several regulations on animal welfare cited in Amendment 37. I seek clarity from His Majesty’s Government on their intentions regarding these. I welcome and thank the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, for his presence. I welcome his clarification in the briefing—sadly, I was not able to attend—that retention would be the default position. I am sure he will forgive me for probing and asking for a bit more detail on some of the key regulations.
The first thing I will highlight is REACH, mentioned by the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Hayman, which protects us all from potential toxicity in chemicals to which we might be exposed, and which involves animal testing. I can accept that in some circumstances it may be necessary to use animals, but it must always be justified and we must minimise animal use as much as possible. Will His Majesty’s Government keep the REACH regulations or their equivalent? If so, will they ensure that there is mutual recognition between the UK and the EU of animal testing protocols and data sharing to avoid the duplication of animal testing, which would be seriously detrimental to animal welfare and a serious impediment and financial burden to industry trading in chemicals?
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Another important law that is threatened is the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, an exemplary piece of legislation on which Britain led. There is a
threat that the Act may fall or be reduced as it may be interpreted as EU-derived subordinate legislation because of the amendments made through regulations in 2012. Similar concerns apply to a huge raft of regulations currently governing, for example, the welfare of farmed animals. These lay down all manner of statutes regarding stocking densities, care of animals and their welfare and so on. While, if they fell, we would resort to the Animal Welfare Act, that Act has only non-mandatory codes of practice. Incidentally, there is a risk that we might lose, for example, our ban on veal crates and sow stalls. I seek assurance on this.
The transport of farmed animals is another area where there is a risk that regulations may either fall or be watered down. The laws regarding welfare at slaughter, the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations—WATOK—were derived initially from European legislation, PATOK. Again, that might be classed as EU-derived subordinate legislation and thus be under threat. What about the associated regulations safeguarding the welfare of animals in abattoirs—for example, the requirement for CCTV and, critically, the requirement for the mandatory movement standstill of animals killed by the throat cut without stunning, which ensures that at least there is a minimal exposure to pain? These are important animal welfare issues.
I hope that my concerns can be assuaged; I very much want to be reassured. I sought answers at Second Reading for some of these specifics. I am sure that this Committee, as we have heard throughout this debate, seeks specific answers to many similar questions. At present it seems that we are being asked to sign a blank cheque without knowing the true cost of the Bill—the pun is intended. When will we know which of these laws are to be retained, which are to be revoked and which we are likely to have some debate on? With no possibility of materially changing decisions through SIs, it is inevitable that the Bill will be faced with a whole raft of amendments to exempt this, that and other current laws.