Clause 8 - Tests for registration:
Hunting Bill
8:55 am
Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South and Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)
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
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.