Standing Committee F
Tuesday 14 January 2003
(Morning)
[Mr. George Stevenson in the Chair]
Clause 8
Tests for registration:
utility and least suffering
Amendment proposed [9 January]: No. 100, in
clause 8, page 3, leave out lines 11 to 14 and insert—
'(1) The test for registration in respect of proposed hunting is that its utility in preventing or reducing environmental damage outweighs any suffering that may be an unavoidable result of the hunting.
(2) In subsection (1) ''environmental damage'' means damage to—.'—[Mr. Gray.]
8.55 am
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment No. 101, in
clause 8, page 3, line 26, leave out subsection (2).
Amendment No. 174, in
Amendment No. 24, in
clause 8, page 3, line 30, leave out 'significantly.'.
Amendment No. 175, in
clause 8, page 3, line 30, at end add—
'(3) The Secretary of State shall give guidance to the registrar as to the relative cruelty of—
(a) trapping and ensnaring,
(b) gassing,
(c) poisoning,
(d) shooting with a rifle by day,
(e) shooting with a rifle by night,
(f) shooting with a shotgun by day,
(g) shooting with a shotgun by night,
(h) shooting with an air gun, and
(i) killing by dogs.'.
Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire): On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. Before making my point of order, may I welcome you to the Chair? I know that it will be a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.
I am grateful to the Clerk for a letter that I received from him on Saturday morning confirming that the blue notice of amendments, published on Friday 10 January, included new clauses 9, 10, 11, 12 and amendments Nos. 176 to 182 in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) when they should have been in the name of the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster).
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The amendments would have the effect of banning hunting entirely [Interruption.] and I was a little surprised that some groups outside this place attributed them to me and my hon. Friend. I am grateful for this opportunity to correct the record and note that they now stand in the correct name on the amendment paper. I express my appreciation to the Clerk for his efforts.
Peter Bradley (The Wrekin): On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson.
The Chairman: It is always good to test the Chair with points of order. We want to get on, but I shall deal with first point of order.
I am glad that the confusion has been cleared up. We all want to leave this Room more enlightened than when we came into it, so we are grateful for that.
Peter Bradley: On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. I was hoping to be the first to welcome you to the Chair but I have been pipped at the post. I see from the record that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) is shown as having attended our sitting on Tuesday afternoon. I have no recollection of him being present during our deliberations and I have searched the record in vain to find any contribution, or even an intervention, from him. There is none. I am sure that he would be the first to concede that if he was not in the Committee, his name should not appear on the record. This is an opportunity to put the record straight and if I am doing him an injustice, perhaps he would tell the Committee when he arrived.
The Chairman: I am advised that the hon. and learned Gentleman arrived towards the end of the sitting. The record of attendance appears to be correct.
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough): Further to that rather silly point of order, Mr. Stevenson, the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley) knows very well what time I arrived in the Committee. He also knows that if hon. Members appear in the Committee five seconds before the end, as many Labour Members tend to do, they are recorded as having attended. If the hon. Gentleman is interested in our debate, he will allow us to proceed rather than acting like the child that he is.
The Chairman: I concur with the final sentiment. My advice is that the hon. and learned Gentleman attended the Committee, albeit towards the end, so his attendance is recorded.
As I look around at a distinguished group of right hon. and hon. Members I realise that the issue is important. As we make progress, the Committee will find that my training has led me to believe that points of order can be used in a somewhat difficult way. I am anxious to move on to the debate and perhaps we could do that.
Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle): On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. Do you have any information on whether the hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) intends ever to attend the Committee?
The Chairman: I am sure that hon. Members do not want that. No, I have not.
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Peter Bradley: On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. I do not want to try your patience, but I want to put on the record the fact that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough was so interested in our debate that he appeared about 30 seconds before the Committee adjourned so as to have his name recorded.
The Chairman: Order. That is not a point of order.
The Minister for Rural Affairs (Alun Michael): I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Stevenson. I am sure that you will find it an interesting debate, although it seems that some members of the Committee do not wish to be here for long.
Towards the end of the last sitting, I drew the Committee's attention to a point to which many hon. Members responded positively: the injunction of Gibbon in ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'' that the operation of the wisest laws is
''imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice. Their power is insufficient to prevent all that they condemn nor can they always punish the actions which they prohibit.''
That reminds us that we must not just express opinions in the debate, but seek to ensure good law. I have tried to find the right principles that a fair-minded person might regard as common sense in deciding what use of dogs is acceptable to deal with the protection of livestock, crops and the other issues dealt with in clause 8.
I want to construct practicable, workable and enforceable legislation. In response to an issue raised earlier in the debate, I argued strongly that the way to achieve that is not—as some amendments would have it—through a single test in which cruelty is balanced against utility, but to approach the matter sequentially. The test should ask if reasonable purposes are achieved by a particular activity and then ask if using dogs in undertaking that outcome is the least cruel method. That sequential approach is the right, sensible and practical way of dealing with the matter.
We discussed the need to avoid futile argument over minute differences in what is not an exact science, but an area in which comparisons need to be made about the extent to which suffering is involved in any particular approach. I suggested that we needed the word ''significant'' to protect the tribunal from a range of unsatisfactory opinions. That was an interesting debate because the lay eye may misinterpret the intention of legislation. A word used in everyday parlance may have different implications in legislation. We need to do our best—I took this point from several contributions—to reconcile everyday language with good legal drafting. I continue to reflect on that. To some extent, it is a question of the word being interpreted in context. One has to consider whether the word applied in context—or the context itself—is perfect. I found that debate engaging and continue to reflect on it.
I did not respond to amendment No. 175, which would provide for the Secretary of State to give guidance as to the relative cruelty of trapping, ensnaring, gassing, poisoning, shooting with rifle by day and night, shooting with a shotgun by day and
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night, shooting with an airgun and killing by dogs. It seems that the Secretary of State and several other research organisations and institutions with a professional interest are able to provide information to inform such judgments. That amendment also confuses keeping suffering to a minimum and judging what is cruel. I remind the Committee that we need to make a clear distinction between suffering, which is something experienced by the animal, and cruelty, which is intentionally and unnecessarily to cause suffering.
The independent registrar will be able to make use of all the information in the public domain. That includes the findings of the Burns report, the evidence submitted to Lord Burns and to me, evidence from the three days of hearings in Portcullis house in September 2002, and other appropriate sources. Any new research or work done by or for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs can inform those considerations, as can bodies that report to DEFRA. For instance, the legislation allows the registrar to seek advice on biodiversity from the Countryside Council for Wales or, in the case of England, English Nature. It would be for the registrar to reach a decision based on written representations made to him by the applicant and by the prescribed animal welfare bodies, and on any relevant directions given by the tribunal in previous cases—in other words, the decision is to be informed by case law.
Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire): I am aware, as is the Minister, that people confuse cruelty with suffering. I want to ensure that we are all using the same definitions, because they are crucial to the debate. Does the Minister agree with my definition that cruelty is a circumstance in which suffering exceeds utility, however one measures it? He mentioned unnecessary suffering. I assume that he is using a definition of unnecessary suffering, not saying that it is unnecessary to cause suffering.
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