My Lords, I welcome the regulations before us. I welcome the Minister to her position and thank her for setting them out.
We will not rehearse all the arguments we had in the debate on the Bill, but I welcome the fact that horses are not covered. I am sure that pony clubs across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will be extremely happy to hear that. When does the Minister think she will be in a position to come back to the Committee to explain the position on horses and how it relates to the tripartite agreement?
I have a number of questions that reflect my concerns. I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, to her place; I think she is going to speak in a later debate. She will recall all the excitement around Brightlingsea, which was in my Euro constituency at the time, when one of the first incidents of live animals for export came to my attention. Of course, the cases have been small in number and heavily regulated by the EU and our own domestic regulations.
Paragraph 6.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum states that the regulations, certainly in England,
“will usually be enforced by the local authority”.
Has the Minister’s department done an impact assessment on the cost implications for local authorities and their resources, bearing in mind that we are well aware of the pressures on local authority budgets and resources at this time?
I regret that this is a unilateral measure and is not being imposed by our former partners in our erstwhile membership of the European Union. There is meant to be a legitimate trade in breeding stock and stock for racing. Obviously, it is excluded at the moment because of the prevalence of bluetongue disease. The last time we debated this, which was round about the time before the Bill gained Royal Assent, my understanding was that there were as yet no facilities to allow this practice to happen. This is a legitimate and very lucrative trade, and it is a source of great concern in the farming community that it will still not be permitted once we get over—in due course, I hope—the threat of bluetongue disease.
I perfectly accept that the Minister might not be able to respond today, but could she give us a written reply on where we are with the facilities? They have to be paid for. I understand that they could potentially be at Harwich, in my former Euro-constituency; they could be elsewhere, for example at Dover, but at the moment this is a very serious gap in a legitimate trade. Although it is not necessarily covered by the remit of these regulations, it is a great loss of earnings to those who ply that trade.
5.15 pm
The Minister referred to record-keeping. I see at paragraph 6.10 of the Explanatory Memorandum that the requirement is to keep records for three years. That seems a long time, and with a lot of animal movements it could mean a lot of records. How did the Government reach that timeframe?
Could the Minister also outline the sharing of responsibility and who the responsible person will be, particularly when it comes to hold notices under paragraph 6.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum? I imagine that in most circumstances the responsible person is the farmer sending the animals for slaughter, but once those animals are on the lorry or the ship they are the responsibility of the haulier. If a hold notice was issued it would pose all sorts of practical questions as to how they will be returned to be held. Who will be responsible for ensuring that they are returned to safekeeping? How is that responsibility to be shared? At the moment, the way the regulations read is that there is no distinction between the owner, the keeper and the haulier. The haulier may not have knowledge of the intended purposes. That relates in particular to the holding notice.
The Minister talked about the trade—again, a legitimate trade—that is allowed to continue with the movement of animals from anywhere within Great Britain to Northern Ireland. I think we debated this and accepted that those journeys can, in fact, be longer than some of the shorter ones that took place historically between Essex, Kent and other parts and the nearest continental ports of the European Union. Does she accept that there are substantial disadvantages for farmers living in the southern parts of Great Britain, who will be deeply affected by the regulations and the enforcement because it is probably too long a journey to take animals to Northern Ireland?
Is the Minister concerned by a lack of abattoirs? Can she reassure the Committee that there is sufficient abattoir space for the numbers of animals that may be required to be slaughtered, either in Great Britain or Northern Ireland?
Finally, it is extremely important that sufficient, timely advice and guidance are given to the enforcing authorities, in particular on the plans for the animals retained under the hold notice but also on other parts of the regulations. Who does she expect to give that advice and at what stage of the process will it be given? Obviously, this is a new set of circumstances in which hauliers and farmers will find themselves. Those are my concerns, but I welcome the enforcement regulations following the Bill.