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Andrew George: If night follows day, as the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) suggests, logic dictates that he would favour repealing legislation passed by the House in the 19th century banning bear baiting and dog fighting. [Interruption.] That is the logical extension of what he is suggesting. Mr. Gray: I have tried to express myself in reasonably simple language. I shall try once again for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman to make what we are proposing plain. The 19th century legislation that banned bear baiting has not led us to the conclusion that other human activities are immoral. There is no way in which one can conclude—[Interruption.] The Chairman: Order. I cannot hear the hon. Gentleman if there is a constant barrage. I am happy to allow a slight exchange across the Room, but I must ask hon. Members to enable everybody to hear the hon. Gentleman who is supposed to be on his feet. Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal): My hon. Friend was a little hard on the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber). The issue surely is this. If the Minister is prepared to say that the basis of the Bill is a compromise and not a moral statement, my hon. Friend's argument does not obtain. It is because the Minister has misled the hon. Member for Amber Valley by suggesting that there is a moral base to the Bill that we shall get into this mess. The definition of cruelty in bear baiting could be applied to all the other issues. The only question is: why cannot this be applied? Mr. Gray: My right hon. Friend makes a good point. I hope that I do not do him a disservice when I say that he was a little late in the Committee this morning and may have missed a handsome tribute. I used the arguments that he made on Tuesday as the basis for the amendments. Column Number: 55 It might be sensible, as I dealt initially with the moral justification for the amendments, to talk about them now in more detail. Lembit Öpik: Will the hon. Gentleman give way? Mr. Gray: I would rather not, as I have given way to the hon. Gentleman twice already this morning, I think. We have talked about morality. We must begin to talk about the amendments. Lembit Öpik: We need to clear things off as we go. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the whole point of universality, which the Minister for Rural Affairs discussed on Tuesday, is that if we applied the same rules, there would still be bear baiting? The difficulty is that we appear to be using different criteria for different sports and activities. I presume that that is the big issue that the hon. Gentleman is trying to raise. Mr. Gray: That is right. Hon. Members who keep referring to bear baiting should look back at the debates on that subject in Hansard. The reason why it was abolished had nothing to do with cruelty to animals; it was abolished because the working man was thought to be spending far too much money gambling on the outcome. [Interruption.] The Minister laughs. When did he last check the reason for the banning of bear baiting? If he checks, he will find that it had nothing to do with cruelty to bears; it was because the working man was wasting his time. The Minister for Rural Affairs (Alun Michael): Given that the hon. Gentleman wants a response, I suggest that if he studies the arguments about activities that have been banned in the past, including bear baiting, cock fighting and bull baiting, he will find that his arguments against intervention in or regulation of hunting are similar to those used by old-fashioned Conservative representatives in the last century. Mr. Gray: That is not even slightly the case. However, I am allowing myself to be diverted down some interesting and amusing sidelines and away from discussion of the amendments. Hon. Members will have an opportunity to catch your eye later, Mrs. Roe, and bring up their hobby-horses. Amendments Nos. 100, 101 and 175 are intended to clarify the definition of cruelty and utility and crucially, in terms of amendment No. 100, the relationship between them. The Conservatives believe that the Government have got the relationship between cruelty and utility wrong and that they should not be applied as separate tests, but should be inextricably interwoven. When any human activity is being considered, one should balance cruelty and utility and decide which is greater or less. The phrase ''environmental damage'' refers to the current definition of utility. If we are able to change the definition of utility, as we hope to do, it will be necessary to change amendment No. 100 consequentially, so that it covers other activities as well. Amendment No. 101 deletes the cruelty test because it would be replaced by our proposed joint cruelty and utility test. The purpose of the amendments is plain. A central part of all animal cruelty legislation, including Column Number: 56 the Protection of Animals Act 1911, on which much animal welfare legislation is based, is the definition of cruelty to animals as
That is a legal definition that has stood the test of time. It is often used in courts across the nation and judges are used to coming to a conclusion by referring to it. Suffering happens; it is part of the world. Every time we eat anything, some degree of suffering is involved. For something to be illegal, the suffering has to be unnecessary. In other words, the test of unnecessary suffering is comparative and relative rather than absolute and is concerned with method rather than outcome. The cruelty and utility tests should be intertwined in the same way. Cruelty should be weighed up against utility and vice versa; neither test should be sufficient on its own. Cruelty, however great or slight, may be allowed if the utility is greater. I hope that the Committee will agree to amendments Nos. 100 and 101, which would give the registrar the ability to make it absolutely clear whether an activity should be allowed. I move to amendment No. 175. Cruelty cannot be defined absolutely; it can be defined only comparatively. That is central to the argument underlying what has been said so far. Neither Lord Burns, nor, as far as I am aware, any of the scientists in Portcullis house, nor any scientists who have considered cruelty over the years, have come up with a one-sentence definition of cruelty. They cannot do it. There is no such thing as cruelty, leaving aside definitions that refer to the act itself. Cruelty is unnecessary suffering. What is unnecessary suffering? Unnecessary suffering involves cruelty. There is no clear and straightforward one-sentence definition of cruelty. We cannot say that one activity is cruel and another is not; all that we can say is that one activity is more cruel than another. That is central. Dr. Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test): Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there are certain phrases that cannot be defined exactly, but nevertheless have a clear meaning? For example, would he suggest that there was no such thing as genocide because one cannot decide precisely what is or is not genocide, or precisely at what point non-genocide becomes genocide? Mr. Gray: I am not certain that I want to enter a debate on the precise definition of genocide, although, off the top of my head, I should have thought that it was reasonably easy to arrive at a clear definition of it. It seems fairly clear that Adolf Hitler took part in genocide, but I am ill qualified to comment on genocide and I do not intend to enter a debate on it. The important point is that to say that, if something is cruel, it must be banned, would follow logically only from saying that we knew exactly what cruelty was. Genocide is banned. Whatever one's definition of it, it is banned. If one commits genocide, one goes to prison, or worse. If one commits cruelty, one does not. All of us in this Committee perform many cruel actions very often. We might squash a fly in our sitting Column Number: 57 room, which to some degree is cruel. However, the cruelty is very small, the utility is very large and so we carry on doing it without even thinking about it.
9.15 amEvery time we train a horse to race or a dog to race at Walthamstow dog track, some degree of cruelty is involved but, because the utility is greater, we allow the cruelty to happen. Every time we sit in a leather chair—as all of us are now—that involves killing a cow. We hope that that is done without cruelty but it must involve it to some degree, because we are depriving that cow of its life. However, we condone that because we like green leather chairs in the House of Commons. We must constantly balance the utility and cruelty involved in an activity, and my real point about cruelty is that there is no clear and straightforward definition of it. It is always comparative. Judy Mallaber: I am not altogether clear whether, if the hon. Gentleman thinks that it is difficult to define cruelty precisely, that means that he could not support amendment No. 174, which requires someone to decide which is the cruellest of various methods. Amendment No. 175 seeks to ask the Secretary of State to give precise guidance on the relative cruelty of nine different methods. Presumably, that guidance would provide the test of which method was the cruellest and would be barred. I am unclear whether the hon. Gentleman is supporting amendment No. 174. Mr. Gray: The hon. Lady is unclear about quite a lot this morning. Of course, amendment No. 174, promoted by the Middle Way Group, and amendment No. 175, which I promote, are in effect alternatives to each other. Amendment No. 174 suggests that that group believes that there is no evidence that hunting with dogs is the cruellest method of dealing with the pest. Amendment No. 175 offers the Secretary of State a hierarchy of different ways of achieving the same aim. The two amendments are alternatives, but not different in any sense. If amendment No. 175 were to fall, I would certainly support amendment No. 174. I am not quite sure what point the hon. Lady was making. The central point in justification of amendment No. 175 is that the definition of cruelty must be not absolute, but comparative. One activity is more or less cruel than another.
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