Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 209, in

clause 11, page 4, line 14, leave out from 'regulations' to end of line 15 and insert

'form an animal welfare standing committee comprised of members of—

(a) the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and

(b) the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

who are free from bias on the issue of hunting with dogs.'.

Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 309, in

clause 11, page 4, line 14, after 'more', insert 'recognized charitable'.

Amendment No. 30, in

clause 11, page 4, line 15, at end insert

'so long as that organisation has no recognised position on the issue of hunting with dogs.'.

Amendment No. 28, in

clause 11, page 4, leave out lines 16 and 17.

Amendment No. 311, in

clause 11, page 4, line 17, leave out 'or partly'.

Amendment No. 107, in

clause 11, page 4, line 17, leave out 'partly' and insert 'mainly'.

Amendment No. 312, in

clause 11, page 4, line 17, leave out 'animals' and insert

'wild mammals and has never undertaken political campaigning about hunting with dogs'.

Amendment No. 108, in

clause 11, page 4, line 17, at end insert

'and the body has informed him that it is willing to be prescribed.'.

Amendment No. 29, in

clause 11, page 4, line 19, leave out

'a prescribed animal welfare body'

and insert

'the animal welfare standing committee'.

Amendment No. 63, in

clause 15, page 6, line 4, leave out

'a prescribed animal welfare body'

and insert

'the animal welfare standing committee'.

Amendment No. 102, in

clause 17, page 6, line 41, leave out 'prescribed animal welfare bodies' and insert 'animal welfare standing committee'.

Amendment No. 103, in

clause 17, page 7, line 1, leave out 'any of those bodies' and insert 'it'.

Amendment No. 104, in

clause 18, page 7, line 36, leave out

'a prescribed animal welfare body'

and insert

'the animal welfare standing committee'.

Amendment No. 105, in

clause 19, page 7, line 41, leave out 'prescribed animal welfare bodies' and insert 'animal welfare standing committee'.

Amendment No. 64, in

clause 26, page 10, line 7, leave out

'a prescribed animal welfare body'

and insert

'the animal welfare standing committee'.

Amendment No. 65, in

clause 27, page 10, line 21, leave out

'a prescribed animal welfare body'

and insert

'the animal welfare standing committee'.

Amendment No. 66, in

clause 28, page 10, line 41, leave out

'a prescribed animal welfare body'

and insert

'the animal welfare standing committee'.

Amendment No. 67, in

clause 31, page 12, line 4, leave out

'the prescribed animal welfare bodies'

and insert

'the animal welfare standing committee'.

Amendment No. 68, in

clause 34, page 13, line 16, leave out from beginning to 'may' and insert

'The animal welfare standing committee'.

Amendment No. 69, in

clause 35, page 14, line 21, leave out 'prescribed animal welfare bodies' and insert 'animal welfare standing committee'.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I shall not speak to all the amendments in detail, because they all, broadly speaking, deal with the same argument. The most important is amendment No. 209. The others are either alternatives to it, additions to it or consequential amendments. It is not quite such a fearsome group as it might at first appear to be.

The Minister said earlier that the Opposition were making a great to-do about the question of the recognised animal welfare groups. He is right. We are making a great to-do about it because we are concerned about how the system of the registrar and tribunals will work. The Minister has often said that he wants to put the matter to bed, and that he no longer wants the question of hunting with dogs hanging over Parliament. He says that he seeks a settlement that will stand the test of time and be broadly acceptable to both sides of the argument. While we disapprove of, and disagree with, clause 8—which is central to the Bill—we are now discussing precisely how the system will work.

The Opposition, like the Minister, are trying to find ways to make the system work as well as possible, and in a way that will be, broadly speaking, acceptable to both sides of the argument. Of course, it will not be acceptable to those who do not obtain registration. Animal welfare groups will not like it when anyone does obtain registration. Particular outcomes will not be acceptable or agreeable to certain people. None the less, we are aiming for a system that will be, broadly speaking, acceptable to all those who must use it. We must respect the courts. If the public do not respect the courts, the rule of law collapses. It is important that the system introduced in the Bill should achieve broad acceptance in the nation. We believe that at the moment it will not do so.

Central to our belief is the question of the precise role and nature of the prescribed animal welfare bodies. The term appears throughout the Bill, but so far what they are has been a matter of extreme vagueness. I challenged two Back-Bench Labour Members—and, indeed, the Minister—to provide us with some flavour or understanding of what those bodies are. It seems to Conservative Members that a number of perfectly legitimate organisations, such as the Kennel Club, and others from the list that I read out a moment ago, could quite sensibly be described as animal welfare bodies. Such bodies gave evidence to the Burns committee and in Portcullis house as animal welfare bodies. However, they, of course, would speak in support of the applicant.

It seems to us that the Bill is drafted with a presumption that the so-called animal welfare bodies will necessarily speak against the applicants. We find that unacceptable. That is why we want the Minister to make it absolutely clear which animal welfare bodies will be involved. One of the amendments would have the effect of including the names of the animal welfare bodies in the Bill. That seems only reasonable.

Our suspicion is that all kinds of organisations will become recognised animal welfare bodies, even though they are not really animal welfare bodies at all. I suspect that the League Against Cruel Sports, for example, is not an animal welfare body in any real sense. It has campaigned for many years to ban all kinds of hunting with dogs and it would probably claim that it is an animal welfare body, but I do not believe that it is. Even more puzzling is an organisation called the International Fund for Animal Welfare. From the name, one has to presume that IFAW is an animal welfare organisation; it would be odd if it were not, or, at least, the name would be rather misleading. However, one of the main purposes of IFAW is to campaign against hunting with dogs.

The same could be said, to a very real degree, of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The RSPCA used to be a wonderful organisation that looked after cats and dogs in the locality; nowadays, its primary interest and primary spend relate to the high profile campaign to end hunting with dogs. Tens of thousands of pounds are spent on whole-page advertisements in the newspapers as part of a straightforward and very political campaign to ban hunting with dogs. Is the RSPCA

an animal welfare organisation, or is it a political campaigning organisation? Of course, it has an animal welfare role, but nowadays most of its money is linked to being a political campaigning organisation. That makes up most of its profile.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the RSPCA is perpetrating a fraud on the charity commissioners? If it were merely a political campaigning organisation, it would not be eligible for the charitable status that it continues to hold with the support of Her Majesty.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I am certainly not suggesting that the RSPCA is perpetrating any kind of fraud and it would be quite wrong if I were to do so. However, the RSPCA's charitable status certainly ought to be considered from time to time. A body is not allowed to be a charity if it has party political allegiances. If a body makes an argument in favour of party political matters, it stops being a charity. As I understand it, the RSPCA escapes the net and maintains its charitable status because there are two or three Conservative Members of Parliament who are opposed to hunting and two or three Labour Members of Parliament who are in favour of it and therefore it is not, technically speaking, a party political argument, despite the fact that the bulk of people in favour of hunting tend to be Conservative and the bulk of people opposed to it tend to be Labour. The RSPCA is very close indeed to becoming a political campaigning organisation and presumably its standing could be questioned as a result.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I do not want to waste too much time discussing the RSPCA.

Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

Order. The hon. Gentleman has made a valid point. This is not a debate about the charitable status of one organisation or another; it is about prescribing the organisations. Is the hon. Gentleman giving way to the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George)?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

No, Mr. Stevenson. I do not want to waste too much time on this group of amendments. The amendments are intended to tease out which animal welfare bodies will be prescribed by the Government. I cited the RSPCA, the LACS, IFAW and lots of other similar organisations as examples of the kinds of people that the Conservatives do not believe to be sensible animal welfare organisations, in so far as their campaigning against hunting is concerned.

If the clause and the Bill were to become law in the present format, it would be important to come up with entirely unbiased organisations, who have no previous record on the subject of campaigning in favour or against hunting and who would be dispassionate advisers to the registrar and the tribunal. That is why amendment No. 209 suggests the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare, which are, by definition, dispassionate organisations and have no

axe to grind on either side of the argument. They would be seen to be, as well as being, entirely free from bias.

Under the clause, Parliament is being asked to give the Secretary of State the power to appoint to a position of absolutely key importance in the working of the legislation any body that

''he thinks . . . is wholly or partly concerned with the protection . . . of animals''.

There is no restriction on which bodies may be prescribed. The provision relies totally on the subjective view of a particular Secretary of State. The present Secretary of State may think that IFAW should be a prescribed animal welfare body, but subsequent Secretaries of State may wish to prescribe other bodies. When I become Secretary of State—a day to which I greatly look forward—I will take great pleasure in prescribing the Countryside Alliance if, and only if, the Government prescribe the League Against Cruel Sports, IFAW and other anti-hunting bodies. It would be as wrong to prescribe the Countryside Alliance as it would be to prescribe IFAW, and I seek the Minister's assurance that he will take note of that.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I will not just now, because I have been quite generous with the hon. Gentleman. If he will forgive me, I want to get through this part of the Bill so that we can crack on with the rest of it. We have an awful lot to do today, and there should perhaps not be too much arguing backwards and forwards. We should get the arguments over with and on the record.

The drafting of the clause is so loose and imprecise that we do not know what

''wholly or party concerned with''

means. Who will decide? The Secretary of State? Almost any public body that one cares to mention could describe itself as wholly or partly concerned with animal welfare. Such bodies include the General Synod of the Church of England, the British Horse Society, the National Canine Defence League, the Cats Protection League, the International League for the Protection of Horses, the Kennel Club and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. There is an endless list of organisations that could say that they were wholly or partly concerned with animal welfare.

What does ''concerned with'' mean in this context? The Roman Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales has a real concern for animal welfare and is always passing motions on the issue. Would that body come under the definition of animal welfare groups? Of course not; that is not the intention behind the Bill. However, such bodies might qualify given the way in which the clause is drafted. That once again highlights the absurd way in which the Bill is drafted. We have ruled ourselves out from deciding what is cruel and what has utility, but so-called animal welfare groups will be called on to do so. The provision before us is absurd, and we cannot possibly allow it to stand.

The purpose of the clause and of later amendments to it is simply to appease anti-hunting groups such as the League Against Cruel Sports and IFAW. In

tabling our amendments, we seek guidance from the Minister as to which animal welfare groups will be prescribed, because he signally failed to tell us during our previous discussion. Bearing in mind Pepper v. Hart, will he tell us which groups will be prescribed and which will be ruled out? Will he rule out IFAW, the Political Animal Lobby, the League Against Cruel Sports and other organisations whose primary purpose is not animal welfare but campaigning against hunting with hounds?

We will be reassured to a degree if he rules such organisations out, gives us a flavour of those that he has in mind and gives particular consideration to the two that we have mentioned, although others may come into the same category. However, if he shelters behind the fact that such groups will be prescribed by the Secretary of State and appointed by statutory instrument, and he refuses to tell us which bodies he, as an individual, thinks should be prescribed, the true nakedness of his argument will be exposed.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

I rise to speak to amendments Nos. 107 and Nos. 108, which are self-explanatory. Amendment No. 107 would stop the Secretary of State nominating an organisation that merely had a passing interest in animal welfare. Amendment No. 108 would ensure that any nominated organisation was actually willing to be nominated and therefore bombarded with bits of paper relating to applications.

Turning to amendment No. 309, the hon. Member for North Wiltshire read out a list of organisations that he doubts should be prescribed animal welfare organisations under clause 11. As far as I am aware, most, if not all, of the organisations about which he expressed doubts have charitable status. If they were merely political campaigning organisations, they would not have charitable status.

From memory, charitable status is granted to groups engaged in what lawyers call PERC—poverty, education, religion and community benefit. Animal welfare organisations would not be covered under the first three terms, but they would be covered by ''community benefit''. Amendment No. 309 is therefore not a bad amendment because it would clarify the point on which the hon. Gentleman was urging the Minister to be clear.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

On the words ''he thinks'' in clause 11(2), it is the Secretary of State's responsibility to appoint an animal welfare organisation. If he appointed an organisation to be a prescribed welfare body when he had no reasonable grounds for thinking that it was wholly or partly concerned with animal welfare, the appointment would be successfully challenged by, for instance, judicial review. He must, of course, ''reasonably'', which is a term clearly understood in the law, exercise the powers conferred by the Bill.

That is the point about the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. It is a question not of the percentage of the activities that an organisation undertakes that relate to animal welfare, but of its commitment to animal welfare and its professionalism in producing

evidence. I hope that I have satisfied him that the Bill would meet his point.

Under clause 11(2), the animal welfare bodies prescribed by the Secretary of State must be wholly or partly concerned with the protection of the welfare of animals, which is appropriate because the role of the prescribed animal welfare bodies is to represent the interests of animal welfare. The argument of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire was effectively to replace an organisation with a clear and precise role with a members club or coalition.

Returning to the word ''say'', it is not enough for organisations to say that they are concerned in a bleeding-heart sort of way; they must have a track record of professionalism in relation to animal welfare to be able to fulfil the role.

Let us be clear about the intentions behind a prescribed animal welfare body undertaking the role. The Bill clearly sets out four functions and I shall remind the Committee of them. First, animal welfare bodies may make representations on applications for registration. Clause 17(2) provides for that function and clause 25(2) and clause 34 also provide for them to make representations on applications for the renewal or variation of registrations. Secondly, the prescribed animal welfare body may appeal to the tribunal against the granting of registrations as set out in clause 18(2). My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West pointed out that it is for the applicant to appeal when an application is refused.

Thirdly, the prescribed animal welfare body may appeal under clause 31(4) to the registrar for hunts to be deregistered. Finally, there is the inspection role. An automatic condition of all registrations, as set out in clauses 27(3) and 28(3), is that an inspector appointed by a prescribed animal welfare body must be permitted on request to inspect the conditions of registration.

The lead amendment, which the hon. Member for North Wiltshire moved, would replace the prescribed animal welfare body undertaking those tasks with a committee. To put so much stress on the view that the organisations should be neutral is to miss the point. We do not expect the body to play an impartial role because the registrar and the tribunal are responsible for impartiality. We do not expect the body to play an impartial role because the registrar and the tribunal are responsible for impartiality. The body's role is, where it considers it necessary, to argue that proposed hunting does not satisfy the tests of utility and least suffering, to challenge the evidence if it is less than clear-cut or to say that a proposed activity is preferable to the alternatives. It might also suggest that a particular activity would be acceptable with particular conditions. That is how it will protect the welfare of the wild animals being hunted. It is then a matter for the registrar—the tribunal's obligation is equivalent to this—impartially to weigh the facts presented by both the applicants and the welfare body.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Minister made a useful clarification. He said that the purpose of the animal welfare body is to argue against the evidence, which is the case against

hunting, or to argue that hunting with dogs is less cruel than an alternative. On some occasions, a body will argue against hunting and on others it will argue in favour. Does he agree that a body must be unbiased because it must be ready to argue one way or the other? If it can be demonstrated that an organisation has a history of bias, it should not be allowed to take part.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

It is not the animal welfare body's job to argue for or against hunting in general. Its responsibility is to look at an application to see whether it satisfies the animal welfare requirements on the prevention of cruelty that are at the heart of the legislation.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

Will the Minister give way?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

May I finish answering the hon. Member for North Wiltshire? The body's responsibility is to look at the application from an animal welfare perspective. In an earlier response, I gave examples of where that will be important. The registrar and the tribunal will, of course, be aware of the representative body's view because they are obliged to ensure that they take an objective, well-informed view in coming to their conclusion.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

I want very much to follow the Minister. Can he explain, however, how a body, which is wholly committed to the retention of hunting on the basis that it is best for the welfare of the animals, could make specific arguments about a particular circumstance? He cannot explain that because he knows that it would start from a biased position. He wants a body committed to animal welfare to look at a particular circumstance. A body committed either to the principle that hunting is not acceptable in all cases or to the principle that hunting is acceptable in all cases could not constitutionally carry out the job.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

The right hon. Gentleman has started to appreciate what we are trying to achieve. If an organisation had a constitutional arrangement or set requirements on the people who would undertake its direct work that would make it impossible for them to fulfil the role, it is difficult to see how the Secretary of State could make a designation. It is not appropriate to go further than that. The Secretary of State would have to look at an organisation being considered for designation and be satisfied that it could professionally fulfil the requirements in the same way as suitable people are sought for responsibilities such as guardian ad litem.

People often express strong views about how children should be treated. The question is whether we can do the job professionally in the way required. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would be fair enough to acknowledge that there are many circumstances to be considered. It is important that the Secretary of State, when designating a body to undertake that role, should be clear about the role and be satisfied that the organisation would not be distorting the service that it was providing. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the appointments must be made properly. However, it would be

inappropriate for me to make blanket comments about what the Secretary of State should do when considering applications. Had the right hon. Gentleman been answering from this Bench he would say exactly the same.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

I genuinely do not wish to push the Minister in a direction that he does not wish to go. However, I want to take up the parallel that he used with the Children Act 1989. Take for example two organisations: one opposes adoption in all cases and the other considers adoption acceptable in all cases. Surely, neither would be given responsibility for adoption. A body appointed to consider adoption would have to be prepared to consider each case on its merits. The Minister must assure us that the body appointed is capable of considering each case on its merits—the merits being the welfare of animals.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I take the right hon. Gentleman's point. My experience of working in child and youth justice tells me that occasionally an organisation may not agree with Government policy or with the legislation but it will be very professional in the case before the court. In fact, his example supports my argument. Of course the Secretary of State must exercise the powers properly and sensibly when making a designation.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

Does the Minister agree that an organisation that says that it does not believe that there is a need to control the fox population nationally or that hunting is ever an effective control or culling measure could fulfil a role under clause 11?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

The hon. Gentleman should have listened to the question asked by his right hon. Friend and my response to it. It is not appropriate to go down that road. When making a designation, the Secretary of State must consider the organisation concerned and ask whether it can carry out the duties laid on the designated animal welfare organisations professionally. Those duties are the four functions I described. That is a decision for the Secretary of State and I will not second-guess her.

Amendment No. 309 would narrow the definition of the body that may be a prescribed animal welfare body to one that is a recognised charity. I see no point in that. It is not the charitable nature of the organisation but its competency that matters.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

Will the Minister clarify something for me? Is he excluding any of the organisations that hon. Members have mentioned as potentially prescribed organisations? I know that he will not name any organisation, but is he saying that it is his job to exclude those mentioned so far?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

That is an interesting intervention, which seems to have nothing to do with anything that I have said so far. The hon. Gentleman should consult the record to read exactly what I did say. I said that it is for the Secretary of State to make reasonable designations and to ensure that the organisations that are designated can carry out the role. The role is the four functions that I clarified and which are set out clearly in the Bill.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Minister says that he does not understand the purpose of the amendment in requiring all the bodies to be charities. I can clarify that for him. All the animal welfare organisations that I can think of have charitable status, but a variety of campaigning organisations, such as the International Fund for Animal Welfare and the Political Animal Lobby do not, so it would rule them out.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I shall not comment on individual organisations, but I do not see the relevance of being a registered charity. The question is not whether an organisation is charitable but whether it is an animal welfare body that can fulfil the requirements that I have outlined on several occasions.

I am sure that, when the hon. Gentleman was a special adviser, he wrote speeches for Conservative Front-Bench Members that included the words, ''Nothing should be read into that statement. I rule nothing in and nothing out. It is for the Secretary of State to designate and to do so reasonably.'' I thought that that was one of the hon. Gentleman's finer speeches.

Amendment No. 30 falls on the same grounds, but amendment No. 28 is worse. It would remove the requirement that any prescribed animal welfare body should be wholly or partly concerned with the protection or welfare of animals. That would allow a body to be appointed that had no track record of protecting the welfare of animals. The underlying principle of the Bill is to eliminate any cruelty involved in hunting with dogs, so I see no value in providing in law that the body that is to be given the opportunity to make representations on an application to hunt—specifically from an animal welfare perspective—could have limited concern, or no concern, for animal welfare. Clearly, a body that is involved in animal welfare would be better placed to make the case than one that is not. Therefore, I reject the amendment.

The remaining amendments are consequential on those that we have discussed. I hope that I have satisfied my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West on the points raised in his amendments.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Minister has now exposed his thinking on the clause. The Bill will embody the rights of the Secretary of State, under statutory instrument, to appoint one or more recognised animal welfare organisations. Those organisations would then have the right to appear at the tribunal or before the registrar to argue the case in favour of, or against, the applicant, although there is a strong presumption in the Bill that they would be giving evidence against the applicant.

If an animal welfare organisation is to fulfil a dispassionate advisory role, which the Minister argues is its purpose, it is important that that organisation can be shown to be dispassionate. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) argued, if the organisation can be demonstrated to represent a clear ideological viewpoint on one side or the other of the hunting argument, it is difficult to imagine that it will be able to

give dispassionate advice to the registrar or tribunal. Therefore, my inclination would be to rule out the Countryside Alliance. It and many other organisations have said that they believe that hunting with dogs is the best way, so they would always give evidence in favour of hunting with dogs. The League Against Cruel Sports has made its position equally clear on the other side of the argument.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

Perhaps I can develop my argument and then I shall give way to the Minister.

It would seem incorrect to leave the window open either for the League Against Cruel Sports or the Countryside Alliance to be appointed as a recognised animal welfare body. The appointed body should be demonstrably unbiased.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I am unsure why the hon. Gentleman demonstrates such bias against the Countryside Alliance. I would have expected him to support the appointment of an organisation whose chairman has said, ''If something is cruel, we should not be doing it.'' The whole point is that the Secretary of State must make a reasonable decision and we should not attempt to prejudice the appointments.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The chairman of the Countryside Alliance—a man for whom I have the highest respect—will be listening extremely carefully to this debate, or at least reading it tomorrow in Hansard. He and all hunting people would stand by what he said. In my experience, hunting people are the least cruel people in the countryside, but the Minister and I, perhaps, differ on that. None the less, I should be the first to say that if the Countryside Alliance were the prescribed animal welfare body advising the registrar, it is likely that it would be as biased in its evidence as the International Fund for Animal Welfare would be biased on the other side of the argument.

Both those organisations have clear standpoints from which they are likely to argue. It is difficult to imagine the League Against Cruel Sports arguing passionately in favour of issuing a licence to the Beaufort hunt. It is extremely difficult to imagine the Countryside Alliance arguing passionately against it. There is a theoretical possibility, but it is difficult to imagine. Therefore, there is a presumption that the two organisations that I have mentioned, and some others, would take a particular slant on the evidence in supporting the registrar.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

We have more important matters to discuss this morning, so perhaps the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not do so.

The Minister has made his position extremely clear. We have challenged him time and again, but he is not prepared to specify what organisations are to be the animal welfare bodies. He has not said that they should come from any particular group, such as charitable or learned organisations, or animal organisations. He is not prepared to identify them, or to rule any organisation out. Because of the loose drafting of the clause, organisations such as the Political Animal Lobby, the International Fund for

Animal Welfare, the League Against Cruel Sports and the Countryside Alliance would fall within the terms of the Bill. The same would apply, of course, to the RSPCA.

The Minister told the Committee that it would be up to the Secretary of State to decide. The organisations must be professional organisations, but the Secretary of State must be satisfied—or he must think—that they are mainly or wholly concerned with animal welfare. The clause is worded extremely loosely, leaving the door open for a host of organisations to seek recognition from the Secretary of State.

As a result of the debate, the Minister has at least made his position on the clause absolutely clear. He has said that he will rule nothing in or out. He thinks that it is as least possible that the League Against Cruel Sports and the International Fund for Animal Welfare may become registered animal welfare organisations under the Bill. The amendment has thus served its purpose.

Having argued our case that the choice of animal welfare organisations should be restricted, and explained our dislike of the way the Bill is drafted, we have at least teased out a straightforward position on the issue from the Minister. We shall press only the lead amendment in the group, No. 209, to a vote, for the sake of the record. The others are consequential or similar and it would be otiose to vote on them. The system that the Bill would establish is wrong and biased against pro-hunting organisations. The Minister's tacit acceptance that the dubious organisations that I have listed could be registered under the Bill is entirely wrong.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 18.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 320, in

clause 11, page 4, line 18, leave out subsection (3).

In the last debate, the Minister made perfectly plain his position on the identity of the animal welfare bodies. He has refused to rule anything in or out. He has accepted that—we have constantly raised this issue—the League Against Cruel Sports, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Political Animal Lobby, the RSPCA, and other such

campaigning bodies might at least be considered for appointment to the position of recognised animal welfare body.

The Bill as it stands, particularly in clauses 18 and 19, and the Minister's comments this morning, make it plain that there is a general presumption that the animal welfare bodies will argue against the applicant. There is a clear presumption in clauses 18 and 19 that the applicant will apply and that the animal welfare body will make representations or give evidence on the other side. However, I accept and welcome the fact that there is a theoretical possibility that the animal welfare body will make representations in favour of the applicant—the Minister has clarified that somewhat this morning. There is none the less under clauses 18 and 19 a strong presumption that things will be the other way round, and the Minister's comments have reconfirmed that impression.

The precise nature of those animal welfare bodies adds to the presumption that they will speak against the applicant's best interests. The loose drafting of the Bill, and the presumption under clauses 18 and 19 leave us with the clear impression that the Minister's refusal to rule any organisation in or out under clause 11 will leave the individual open to some criticism.

Leaving to one side our belief that such abolitionist organisations might be recognised by the Government under the clause, we come to the most outrageous provision in it and probably the Bill as a whole. Once such bodies have been appointed as recognised animal welfare groups under subsection (3), which the amendment would delete, they are paid grants from the public purse. That is a bizarre and totally unfair notion. In the tribunal, there will be the registrar. On one side will be the applicant, who will be there entirely on his own means, and on the other will be a body that we presume will oppose hunting whose costs will be paid from the public purse.

As far as I am aware, no other public body has a similar provision. A nice parallel might be the planning system. For example, developers might use their resources to apply for a large development on our green and pleasant land. The Council for the Protection of Rural England or other countryside organisations might argue against the development, which might be extremely costly. Some public inquiries last a long time. The fees of Queen's counsel are enormous, and the business might become very expensive indeed. Nobody has ever suggested that the CPRE or other organisations should be subsidised out of the public purse. Such organisations raise money by subscriptions and spend enormous amounts arguing their case before a judge, in very much the same way as is proposed in the Bill. However, the animal welfare bodies—we do not know which they are, but we presume that they will be anti-hunting—will be paid grants out of the public purse. There is no precedent for that in English law.

The provisions seem to be biased and heavily weighted in favour of the objectors and against the applicants. It is a gross misuse—I put it that strongly—of public money to fund one side of the process, but not the other. How on earth is the farmer

or gamekeeper to match such resources financially or in terms of manpower?

On one side, the League Against Cruel Sports argues the case for the registrar; on the other side is an individual farmer. That is unbalanced. The LACS will be paid out of the public purse to do that, whereas the individual making an application must bear the whole burden of the costs. I have never heard of such a biased and prejudiced provision in English law.

Committee members have failed to lay down what we believe to be the correct principles behind the Bill. We have failed to define cruelty. We have failed to accept the ''hierarchy of cruelty''. That has left it open to the registrar and the tribunal to make difficult subjective judgments when balancing weighty scientific evidence.

In other words, it can be presumed that those who can employ the right QCs and who have the financial and manpower muscle to take the case through the courts will be able to master the complicated arguments. It can be presumed that the unfortunate individual, however, who is making an application will be unable to do the same. That is entirely wrong. It breaches one of the fundamental principles of English law. We must ask ourselves why that provision is in the Bill. It is bizarre—it stands out like a sore thumb.

Why have the Government suddenly decided to make grants out of the public purse to organisations that object to hunting? After all, IFAW, LACS and PAL do not need much financial help; arguably, the RSPCA does. Those organisations are pretty well off. Why are the Government risking criticism by making it possible for anti-hunting organisations to get funds from the public purse? It is very curious.

Why should PAL get public funds? The answer may be in a letter that I received from Mr. Stanley Johnson, a well-known environmentalist, a senior paid adviser to the International Fund for Animal Welfare and a former Member of the European Parliament. Before I start this section of my speech, I should make it clear that I will not accept any interventions during it. However, I will take interventions when I have finished from Committee members I have mentioned. This is what Mr. Stanley Johnson says:

''Tony Banks benefited from IFAW's largesse for a substantial period during the 1990's in the sense that his research assistant at the House of Commons was paid for by IFAW. ( So by the way was Elliot Morley's . . . .) Moreover, Banks was directly involved in the negotiations which led to the gift of £1 million by the Political Animal Lobby (at that time a wholly owned subsidiary of IFAW) to the Labour Party in exchange for a manifesto commitment on hunting.

Don't let anyone tell you this was not a quid pro quo exchange. It was. I have the clearest recollection of having lunch in the garden of my farm in Somerset and answering the telephone from the United States to be informed that IFAW officials had done a deal with Peter Mandelson and Jonathon Powell whereby IFAW would put up £1 million and the Labour Party would make a manifesto commitment on hunting. I came to the table and announced as much to my horrified guests''

Those guests included several well-known public figures that I will not list here.

Mr Peter Bradley (Wrekin, The, Labour)

Go on.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I do not see any point in bringing public figures into the debate. The Minister, by sniggering, obviously thinks that we should. To return to Mr. Johnson's letter:

''Its also worth pointing out that Banks' wife—Sally—has until recently served as a director of the IFAW charitable trust, and his sister, Angela Beveridge is currently the director of PAL, whose founder is listed on their website as none other than Brian Davies, founder of IFAW . . . ''

This is what is at the heart of this bizarre provision in this dreadful Bill: the Labour party gets £1 million in direct payment—direct causally linked payment—for a manifesto commitment on hunting. The Minister duly delivers the Bill and says: ''I will try to dress it up as a registration/tribunal system, but the truth at the heart of it is a ban on hunting. I have done what I was asked to do, PAL and IFAW. You gave me £1 million and I am now banning hunting, despite 407,000 people on the streets. Thank you for the £1 million, and I am giving you what you asked for. Moreover, I will not only give you what you want, but I will set up in the Bill that you should become a prescribed animal welfare group.'' I asked the Minister repeatedly whether he would rule that out and he said that he would not.

Organisations such as IFAW and PAL may, therefore, become prescribed welfare groups. Not only does that mean that they will be able to ensure that no one becomes registered, and they will achieve their lifelong ambition, but they will get paid by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to do so. The taxpayer is subsidising the RSPCA, LACS, IFAW and PAL—the very organisations that gave the Labour party a disgraceful sleazy bung of £1 million. Not only is the Minister now delivering what those organisations wanted, but through an extraordinary sleazy little clause in the heart of the Bill, he is undertaking to repay them that money. That is a disgrace and a scandal and I have written to the Prime Minister, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Committee on Standards in Public Life to ask them to look into the worrying allegations made by Mr. Johnson.

While there is some doubt about whether there is impropriety in the clause, and while the matter is being considered both by the Prime Minister's office—officials in his office are named by Mr. Johnson—and by those public bodies, it would be wrong for the Minister to press for that sleazy clause to remain part of the Bill. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw the clause, at least until those public organisations have investigated Mr. Johnson's allegations.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

That was a most disappointing speech. The hon. Gentleman has descended into the gutter this morning, but I do not intend to join him there. To add to that metaphor, being pompous in the gutter only made him look silly, petty and mean. The hon. Gentleman reverted to his previous profession as a spin doctor to justify his synthetic outrage at a simple, modest and reasonable provision in the Bill. He built one expression of prejudice on another, working hard to portray himself as a sort of Mr. Grumpy—an ''outraged of North Wiltshire''—spitting

out baleful references to individuals and to hon. Members with no word about the public interest or our responsibilities as a Parliament to consider animal welfare issues.

Clause 11(3) provides for a payment to be made to a prescribed animal welfare body that undertakes functions under the Bill. Those functions involve making representations on applications for registration to hunt, seeking deregulation for alleged breaches of registration, and inspection. I laid them out clearly in an earlier contribution. Amendment No. 320 would remove the power of the Secretary of State to pay the prescribed body for carrying out such functions.

The power given to the Secretary of State does not require payments to be made. It is permissive. There is no obligation on the Secretary of State to make a payment. Clause 11(3) expressly states that any payments made may be subject to conditions.

The hon. Member for North Wiltshire, as he chortles in a juvenile manner, is laughing at the sort of words that he has put into speeches on many occasions. He demeans the profession of politics by the way in which he is behaving this morning.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

What I am laughing at has nothing to do with that. I was laughing at the fact that the Minister started by saying that he was going to rise above it all and not be personal, but so far his speech has been full of personal vitriol and cheap abuse.

Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

Order. We are getting a little close to that line and perhaps all hon. Members will bear that in mind.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

Absolutely, Mr. Stevenson. I have made clear what I think of the hon. Gentleman's behaviour this morning.

Payments could be made only for an animal welfare body carrying out its prescribed functions under the Bill and not for aspects of its activities. Some of the slurs that the hon. Gentleman has sought to make stick are mud that will simply slide off.

Mr Michael Foster (Worcester, Labour)

Would my right hon. Friend be surprised to hear that while I was walking up to the Committee, I received a telephone call saying that the The Daily Telegraph had heard that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire was going to mention that letter and that issue? Does my right hon. Friend think that the issue has more to do with the hon. Gentleman getting his name in the papers than seriously considering the Bill?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I am certain that my hon. Friend is right, but I am also certain that most serious journalists, having followed up the press release which the retired spin doctor has probably sent out, will treat his attempt with the contempt it deserves.

The tribunal system is designed to avoid disparities in the resources available to the parties, which might give rise to an injustice. It is an informed arena in which the tribunal's members can take an active role in drawing out issues that a party may be unable to draw out on their own behalf. The tribunal will be

inquisitorial, not adversarial. Its members will be trained to give weight to the relevant arguments, whether they are made by expensive lawyers or unrepresented individuals.

The tribunal can also appoint experts to assist it on matters of fact that arise in proceedings and to balance out advantages and disadvantages. That point is worth making to help people understand that we are talking about a proper tribunal system, which will be assisted by the requirements in the Bill. I have already made it absolutely clear, but I shall underline it again, that payments under the Bill will be for a prescribed animal welfare body carrying out its functions, and not for other aspects of its activity or as general assistance to it. An automatic condition of all registered hunting is that an inspector appointed by the prescribed animal welfare body is permitted to accompany the registered individual or group under clauses 27(3) and 28(3). The power of inspection underpins the legislation to prevent abuses, which is in the public interest and should inspire confidence in the effectiveness of the law.

Another function is making written representations, which enables both sides of the case to be put before the registrar. Those functions are important and are integral to the Bill's effectiveness. It is reasonable to expect the body carrying out those tasks, which would be a statutory role, to be considered for appointment where it is appropriate. We have made the arrangements for such appointments by putting a permissive power in the Bill and not requiring it. It is in the public interest for those opinions to be clearly representative, and it is right that the public purse can pay to ensure that that happens. Similarly, it is in the public interest to ensure that, where hunting is proposed, all sides of the argument are presented both to the registrar and the tribunal, and it is reasonable for those costs to be met from public funds.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

I have two major concerns. First, I do not want to get involved in the financial claims because I do not have the information and it is not relevant for us to discuss the matter in Committee. I am tremendously concerned that the matter raised by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire should be clarified. In the interests of probity, we must be assured that it is not possible to buy bits of the Bill by giving money. I will not take that matter further because it is not my job to do so.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I can give the hon. Gentleman an absolute assurance that we came up with the Bill after the most careful and objective consideration in which we gave everybody the opportunity to take part. That process had nothing to do with the sort of slur that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire has brought into the discussion. He demeans himself, not us.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

I will take the matter no further because it will have to be resolved, but probably not in Committee.

Secondly, there is a natural injustice in the way in which the funding is proposed. The earlier references to clause 18 gave me the impression that the Bill was framed on the assumption that the animal welfare bodies would be the organisations most likely to

oppose an application to be allowed to go hunting with dogs. As far as I understand it, those bodies would get financial support to build their cases but applicants would not have the same opportunities. That does not seem right. We are helping the prescribed animal welfare body with funds to back up its case through research. The applicant will possibly have much more meagre financial means than the animal welfare body and it would be unjust if an applicant lost the case due to a lack of resources in comparison with the grant that had been paid out to the animal welfare body.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

The hon. Gentleman extrapolates considerably, perhaps in the light of earlier comments. I do not see the grant as money to build a case, which implies that there are large sums of money to assist in distorting the process. It is normal for legislation to provide a permissive ability for the Secretary of State to pay out funds if they are necessary to ensure that the provisions in a Bill—in this case, the four purposes of the animal welfare organisation—can be fulfilled. I assure him that the tests of reasonableness referred to would constrain the Secretary of State in deciding what payments, if any, should be made.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

That raises three questions. First, I am sure that I would not be the only person who has grave concerns about a provision to allow a grant to be paid to a prescribed animal welfare body while there appears to be no provision for it to be paid to an applicant. If what the Minister says is correct, why is there not a permissive clause potentially to allow money to be given to an applicant? Such a clause would not mean that an applicant had to get money, but it would mean that, where it seemed appropriate to the Secretary of State, an applicant could get money to construct their case in the interests of justice. A grant could provide research or information, which it might be possible to provide only through, for example, veterinary advice or topological analysis. I do not see why the Secretary of State should be prevented from providing a grant in the same way as the provision allows for a grant to an animal welfare body.

Secondly, I assure the Minister that I am not being influenced by the previous debate about £1 million or by what the hon. Member for North Wiltshire said. I have reached that conclusion because, if I were the Secretary of State, I would not want to be in a position where I was permitted only to give a grant to one side of a case. It should not be too difficult for any of us to think of an example in which the other side of a case might equally be worthy of financial support.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

The hon. Gentleman has a serious point and I can see what he is getting at. His mistake is to look at the issue as though there were two sides to the argument, as in a dispute over a piece of property or in a civil case in which a court has to adjudicate between two individuals, both of whom have an interest. In that situation, it is, of course, clear that there should be fairness and balance.

We are, however, talking about an application from an interested party who wants it to be approved. The Bill will ensure that the court has the information to

enable it to make a judgment on the animal welfare considerations of the application before it. The grant has nothing to do with two sides: it is about ensuring that an application is looked at from an animal welfare perspective. Payments would be made when one could ensure that there would not be a gap in the information available to the court only by ensuring that that public interest issue was dealt with, which is why the permissive arrangement to pay is in the Bill. I hope that I have explained to the hon. Gentleman why I am not persuaded by his argument.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

What I am about to say is predicated on the fact that I want this Bill to work. Hon. Members know that as a member of the Middle Way Group I have wanted regulation to work. My concerns are sincerely intended to make this part of the Bill consistent with how natural justice can be carried out. The reason that I am more concerned now than when I came in at five to 9 this morning is that the spirit of the discussion gives me the impression that the prescribed animal welfare body is likely to be appointed on the assumption that it opposes hunting with dogs.

I asked the Minister about this before and he tried to reassure me that that might not necessarily be the case. I will discuss clause 18 later, but if we import where it says:

''Where the registrar grants an application under section 13 or 14 a prescribed animal welfare body may appeal to the Tribunal''

to our discussion, it is reasonable to deduce that the prescribed animal welfare body may receive a grant to provide information to the tribunal on the basis of opposing the application. That is not unreasonable, but if I am correct, surely it would not be a great step further to make the same allowance for the applicant. As the Secretary of State may imagine, applicants might not have much money and have to put their case by themselves. To ensure that all the facts are considered they deserve a little support.

I will give a brief example to highlight the point, because it is important. A farmer in my area of Montgomeryshire, which is the area I know best, makes an application to go hunting with dogs—let us call him David Jones, who is a real person who goes hunting—because he thinks that the way to control foxes in his area is by killing them with dogs, as I am sure he does. However, he does not have much money to back up the application. He does not write it all that effectively because he is not a lawyer; he works in agriculture. The prescribed animal welfare body sees the application and says: ''Since we are opposed to hunting with dogs we will construct an opposition case to ensure that the application is unsuccessful''. The Secretary of State has decided that the prescribed animal welfare body deserves a grant to construct its case effectively. So, it receives the money and puts a slick, well-argued case to the tribunal. David Jones is there on his own with his case, with which he has done the best he can, but he has not had financial support to put it together. It would not be a surprise if David Jones lost his application because he was not in a position to invest the same degree of time and money in preparing his case.

To put it another way, David Jones could lose, not because he should but because he did not have the

resources to win. That is the issue here. I hear the Minister, but even if he is right and it is not his intention to create this injustice, I do not see how the clause would be compromised by having a fourth subsection stating:

''The Secretary of State may make a payment by way of grant, which may be subject to conditions, to the applicant''.

All that that would mean is that there would be balance, but without that, subsection (3) on its own mitigates towards a potential injustice. It mitigates towards a situation where someone loses simply because they cannot afford to put together a case to win.

I am sympathetic to amendment No. 320 because it rebalances matters. I am coming at the issue from the other side to the hon. Member for North Wiltshire who says that the animal welfare body should not receive a grant. I am agnostic about whether it should receive a grant, but on balance, if subsection (3) is allowed, there should be reciprocal provision for the applicant. In the absence of such provision, it seems potentially unjust to give a prescribed animal welfare body the money, given that the applicant could reasonably walk out of the tribunal and say that he lost the case because he did not have the money to compete with a prescribed animal welfare body that received public funding to put together its case.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point and I support his argument that if the animal welfare organisations are given the money, applicants must be given it too. Given that there may be thousands of applicants, however, does he agree that that would place an enormous burden on the public purse simply in the administration of the Bill? It is interesting that the Minister has so far given us no indication of how much it will cost.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

Indeed. There is a financial implication. No one should pretend that the Bill will lead to a saving for the state; I am almost sure that it will lead to a cost. All the same, I suppose that I place my concern about justice above my concern about the public purse. I used the example of David Jones. He would make an effective case, because he is a professional and would make great efforts to be clear and persuasive. However, many other people who want to go hunting because they regard it as a pest control matter or something else may not be able to make their case so effectively.

In certain circumstances, it may be justifiable to give money to prescribed animal welfare bodies by way of the discretionary grant. It may be right, because the body may have important facts that would not be put forward effectively without it. It is fair to assume that that body will not necessarily be wealthy. It is unlikely that it will not be, but it is possible. In any event, I am certain that there will be many applicants who do not have the financial support, the experience of tribunals or the ability to take time away from their main work to put their cases together.

On balance, I am inclined to say that the ideal would be to have a fourth subsection that provided for

grants to applicants. However, as that is not in the Bill, and we face the options of an injustice as the Bill stands or a rebalancing by leaving out subsection (3), I support amendment No. 320. That is not to disrespect the Minister's arguments. Even if this means that we have to speak on this matter again, I hope that he can convince me that I have missed something and my argument is inconsistent, or that he will revisit the matter on Report. If he can assure me that he will revisit on Report the benefits of providing a grant to applicants, I might be persuaded to change my position on the amendment.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

I hope that I can, to some extent, cut this Gordian knot. The tribunal system in England and Wales, and, I believe, in Scotland, traditionally does not award costs other than in exceptional cases. An applicant to a tribunal has to meet their costs, as does the respondent. However, the registrar and tribunal systems in the Bill are slightly different from the traditional way of doing things. I think, and hope, that it is the way in which the intersection between tribunal and registrar is set out in the Bill that has led to the confusion among hon. Members.

We are talking about the role of prescribed animal welfare bodies, and I stress that the Bill uses the plural. That is particularly relevant when we consider the appeal system, but also when we consider the registrar's determination. Those at registrar level are in the nature of expert witnesses. A registrar will invite representations under clause 17(2)(a) and consider them under clause 17(2)(b). The Bill states that on receipt of an application the registrar shall

''consider any written representations made by any of those bodies''—

note the plural—

''within that period.''

It is entirely proper that a body seeking expert evidence should pay for it.

Unlike Opposition Members, I do not necessarily think that all animal welfare organisations prescribed by the Bill will be cut-and-dried anti-hunting. If they were, their representations to a registrar or a tribunal would be almost useless. It is an insult to those who are likely to be registrars, to chair a tribunal or to be wing members to suggest that they cannot give due weight to evidence and take into account where it comes from. It would be equally insulting to magistrates, existing tribunal chairs and wing members in social security appeal or employment tribunals. It would not help anyone to specify a cut-and-dried organisation because its opinions are likely to be severely discounted by the registrar.

Confusion may arise in clause 18(2), which states that

''a prescribed animal welfare body may appeal to the Tribunal''.

I seek the Minister's clarification. It would be strange, under the tribunal system, that a prescribed animal welfare body that chose to lodge an appeal under clause 18(2) had the costs and expenses of lodging and pursuing an appeal met under a grant provided by the Secretary of State in clause 11(3). My understanding is

that, under clause 11(3), grants are intended to meet the costs and expenses of prescribed animal welfare bodies who are, in the nature of expert witnesses, providing assistance to a registrar in making his or her decision, but that grants would not be made available under clause 11(3) to prescribed animal welfare bodies who were seeking to pursue an appeal under clause 18(2). I seek the Minister's clarification; is my understanding correct?

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

In speaking to the amendments, my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire revealed a highly disturbing and almost unparalleled example of cash for policy. This is not the first time—

Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

Order. I should comment on this interesting and important debate, which refers to the use of public money. When nothing is ruled in and nothing is ruled out, a great difficulty is thrown on the Chair in trying to establish the boundaries of the debate. I think we have probably reached that boundary. It is right and proper for hon. Members to talk about why the money may be used, who may use it and what it may be used for, and I hope that we can move on to those issues.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

This is not just about cash for policy, but it is unprecedented that the donor of £1 million to the Labour party, through the mechanism of the Bill, is being offered cashback, because there is a potential for hundreds if not thousands of applications—

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. Is the hon. Gentleman in order when he says things that are untrue and deliberately calculated—

Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

Order. That is a fair point. I attempted a few moments ago to guide the Committee in the way that I hoped the debate would go. There is no evidence in the Bill or the amendment that indicates that any particular individual will benefit financially from it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear that in mind.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

Indeed. However, it is clear from the Bill that certain prescribed organisations will receive money from the public purse and that is a matter of record. Would the Minister care to disagree?

Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

Order. I have listened carefully to the debate. The Conservative Front Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, tried to get the Minister to identify what may be prescribed. What the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle claims is not in this morning's record. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am trying to be helpful.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

I am grateful for your help and guidance, Mr. Stevenson. However, an organisation that receives a grant could receive tens, hundreds or even thousands of individual payments, given that the extraordinary labyrinth of bureaucracy that will be established under the guise of a regulation regime could allow hundreds of individual payments. It would not take a great deal for those payments to add up to well in excess of the £1 million given by IFAW to the Labour party. We have an extraordinary—

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

Speech.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

Yes, it is a speech. I would be grateful if the Minister did not heckle; it is clearly uncomfortable listening for him.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

It is very nasty stuff.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

The Minister is absolutely right. If what I am saying is proved, it is corrupting the heart of the British constitution.

Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

Order. I have tried to guide and to help, but I am not prepared to put up with any more of this. It is perfectly right that when nothing is ruled in or out, the boundaries of the debate will be wider than normal. I accept that when public money is involved, it is right and proper to debate where it is going and what it may be used for. However, impugning personal motives and making allegations that may or may not be correct at this stage will not help the debate.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. I might be able to assist on one point. You referred properly to words that I used earlier about nothing being ruled in or out. However, the purposes in the Bill are ruled in, but inappropriate payments that are not designed for the fulfilment of the narrow objective of looking at any application from the animal perspective, which is clearly in the Bill, would be ruled out.

Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

That is a helpful intervention for me, and that is what I meant by trying to define the parameters of this important debate. I wish now to do that. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

I am grateful to you, Mr. Stevenson. I have made the points that I wanted to make, and they will be expanded on. I am sure that if they will not be heard in this Committee, they will certainly be heard outside, because they demand an answer. I hope that the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Electoral Commission will consider the allegations seriously. Given that 184 of the 194 submissions that were made to the Portcullis house hearings, over which the Minister presided, were in favour of hunting, perhaps we will get an answer about why we have ended up with this extraordinary piece of legislation. The reason for the £1 million gift becomes all too evident.

Mr Michael Foster (Worcester, Labour)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would want the record to be correct. It is my understanding that IFAW did not make a donation to the Labour party. Will he tell the Committee in what year that donation was supposedly made and whether it is relevant to today's debate? It is the hon. Gentleman who is making the connection between the two.

Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

Order. I think that this is the fourth time that I have been on my feet about this point, and Committee members will know that I do not like to do that. I have made my comments about the parameters of the debate. I can see no indication in the amendment or the clause that any particular organisation will get any particular amount of public money. Hon. Members are entitled to question the Government about what types of organisations may

receive money and why the clause is included, but I see no use in the Committee in speculating on a particular organisation as if it is already in receipt of a grant. I will not allow that debate to continue. The hon. Gentleman may want to finish his comments.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

I will indeed finish my comments. It is not just the issue of mega political donations to secure policy; the interests of individual applicants will be severely prejudiced. They will not have the resources or the armoury that is at the disposal of the big international organisations, which under the Bill will receive yet more taxpayers' money from the Government. It is a profoundly illiberal, biased and unjust move simply to favour one side of the argument. It runs contrary to all the principles of justice. I hope that it will not prevail.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

This provision was one of the few surprises when the Government made their announcement about the way in which hunting with hounds would be handled. It therefore deserves particularly careful scrutiny. On the whole the Bill was well trailed. When it was eventually published it contained few such surprises. The matter also deserves to be looked at carefully because the provisions under the clause will all be enacted by regulation. I am not entirely sure that this provision is covered by regulations. It seems to give an entirely arbitrary discretion to the Secretary of State to make payments not covered by the regulations referred to in subsection (1). That is a matter of considerable concern.

Committees should always be careful about giving powers to Secretaries of State under regulations, because regulations are not amendable when they, in turn, come for further consideration by the House. We must be particularly careful about such a broad-brush approach in any event. If I am correct, we need to be even more careful again in relation to subsection (3) because I do not think that the House will have a chance to debate the matter again. This is our only opportunity to do so and we will have signed a blank cheque if we do not delete subsection (3).

The Minister must make a much more careful case for subsection (3). He has not been as convincing as he often can be; perhaps he has not understood the seriousness of the matter. Perhaps because of the entirely legitimate concerns that were expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire when he opened the debate, the Minister was sidetracked into party political mode, rather than his normal objective ministerial mode. I invite him to return to that objective ministerial mode and to think about what these regulations do.

My colleague the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire has made the case for balance and so I will not go over that argument again; it would be tedious repetition. I simply say that I associate myself entirely with every word he said. There is a worrying lack of balance in these provisions for precisely the reasons he described. The Minister said that such provisions were normal. I think that he was referring to the regulation-making provisions of the clause, not

its financial provisions. Is there any precedent for this kind of money being paid as a blank cheque by the Secretary of State to a prescribed body?

My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire talked about the unlikelihood of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister making a payment to the Council for the Protection of Rural England during a planning inquiry. Normally, if people do not like something that is happening, they must put up with it or make their own case at their own costs. An objection to a planning committee about a planning application does not attract a grant from anyone and nor should it. This is important because we do not know how much money is involved. The Minister has given us no indication of the kind of costs that he foresees falling to the Exchequer as a result of the clause.

Thousands of applications will be made under the Bill. That is not in doubt. They will come from groups and individuals. Just look at the 300 or so registered hunts that exist at present in England and Wales. How much money does he expect the clause to cost in considering those applications alone? It would not be unreasonable to expect costs to the order of £10,000. That does not go very far these days to cover the costs of calling expert witnesses, obtaining information, travel and all the rest. A cost of £3 million would fall on the Exchequer if each and every one of those applications were contested by one of the prescribed animal welfare bodies and the Secretary of State decided to give that body money. We are talking about a very considerable sum of money.

The fact that the Minister has ruled nothing in and nothing out is immensely significant. If the Minister had said during the previous debate that he was talking about organisations such as the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare and the Animal Health Trust, which has not featured so far in the debate, our concerns would have been significantly reduced because those are genuinely reputable bodies that are free from bias and take an objective view. He has not said that.

By implication, I draw the conclusion that he is considering organisations such as the RSPCA, IFAW, PAL and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which are all explicitly and totally opposed to hunting on principle. It is wrong to give money to those organisations, which, with the exception of the LACS, are already richly endowed, despite their small memberships. I should say that the RSPCA has a small membership; some of the other organisations, such as IFAW and PETA, have bigger, international memberships. It is wrong to give them money when they already have substantial funds at their disposal.

As my colleague, the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire said, the organisations that will make the applications typically do not have rich endowments behind them. There are currently very few rich hunts in the country; most survive from hand to mouth and are engaged in desperate fundraising activities. The supporters clubs are crucial to the

survival of many hunts and raise money to keep them going. Hunts are typically poor organisations. The lack of balance is all the more important when one thinks of the very rich organisations that hunts will be up against.

What exactly are the organisations being asked to do? If the Minister is not ruling out the bodies that I have just named, he is paying for them to continue their campaigning activity. It is true that that is on a piecemeal, one-by-one basis, but that is still what the Minister is doing. If he just wants expert witnesses to be available to the registrar and the tribunal, I have no problem with that. That is a good idea, but let us give the registrar and the tribunal the power to pay for the expert witnesses that they believe are necessary to contest a particular decision. They will not necessarily need animal welfare evidence; they may need evidence about the topography of a particular landscape or wildlife management expertise. They particularly do not need animal welfare expertise from bodies that have already said that hunting is always wrong. That cannot be an expert witness; that must be a prejudiced witness, who should not be able to receive money under the clause.

I agree in particular with what the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said in his characteristically thoughtful remarks. We do not always see eye to eye, but I pay tribute to him for the objectivity of what he says. It would be utterly outrageous if the grant-making power, which appears to apply to the whole of this area of the Bill and every power in it, were available in relation to mounting appeals. If the registrar has heard a case properly, why should money for mounting an appeal be made available to what may, if the Minister chooses the wrong bodies, be highly prejudiced organisations?

This is a very worrying provision. I think that so widely drawn a provision is without precedent in English and Welsh law; I should be grateful if the Minister found such a precedent. The fact that this is the one provision that came as a surprise to everyone and provoked quite wide outrage in the media leads us to wonder about the Government's motives for including it in the Bill.

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

There are some parallels with the debate that we had on Thursday afternoon about who could be the registrar and what links they should be allowed to have with political parties and campaigning. I made the point that transparency is the key issue. It is important that people know which organisations are involved, what they represent and whether there are any links to political parties. It is not just about who does the job; it is about what people know about an organisation. They should be prescribed because of that.

For instance, the hon. Member for North Wiltshire mentioned PAL earlier in the debate and rightly pointed out that it has made a large donation to the Labour party. In his view, it should therefore be ruled out of any further contact. That argument was mitigated by his not mentioning that PAL has made donations to the Conservative party and to the Liberal Democrat party; if it is nothing else, that is at least a balanced approach. The Labour party has had a policy

on a free vote on hunting with dogs for a very long time. The only reason why it has taken until now is our singularly unimpressive record in getting elected.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. I hate making points of order, but on balance is it not better that none of us should talk about that matter?

Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I do not want to repeat what I said earlier because I try to stamp down on repetition and tediousness.

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. My point is that there is a balance to be struck; people in glass houses should not throw stones. It is more important that people should understand the transparency of the issue. The matter is now on the record because the Government have introduced legislation to ensure that donations to political parties can be seen by anyone. That did not seem to be the case, but it is where we are now.

Mr Adrian Flook (Taunton, Conservative)

On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. We seem to be going down the same road again.

Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

Yes. I caution the hon. Gentleman to help me out by remembering what I said earlier.

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

Of course; I hear what you say, Mr. Stevenson. Having seen Opposition Members' reactions when they made their allegation, it is interesting to see their defensiveness when the counterpoint is put to the Committee. Nevertheless, my point is on the record, which is important.

When the Minister responds to the debate, I hope that he will take up the questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. If he is saying to the Committee that we are asking animal welfare bodies to do a necessary job and it is therefore reasonable to have a permissive power to allow them some funding, I do not necessarily have a problem. Given that it is obvious that such payments should be paid, however, does the power have to be in the Bill? In those circumstances, could the Department not make such payments? I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to those points while bearing in mind that the transparency of the people who undertake such work is key.

It struck me that what we heard this morning, which had allegedly been trailed in The Daily Telegraph, concerned Stanley Johnson, who is better known as the father of the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson).

Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

Order. I have had to intervene on five occasions, which would test the patience of anyone in the Chair. I try to be a patient fellow, but will the hon. Gentleman please get back to the amendment and the clause?

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

I shall simply finish on this point, Mr. Stevenson. The Minister needs to respond to the question of why the power has to be in the Bill. He also needs to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West's questions. If he can do that, we will be able to support him because we would know why the power had to be in the Bill and why the Department could not simply make payments.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

It is always very difficult when one does not have a specific intention to use a permissive power in a particular way or to give a particular type of grant or payment to head off the type of speculation that we have heard during this morning's discussion. This is the best way in which I can put it; the type of tribunal in the Bill does not concern an argument between two sides. It is not a contest between two people who are arguing over a piece of property and it does not concern an individual being prosecuted with a prosecution and a defence ranged against each other. It is a situation in which the registrar and tribunal have to consider, as objectively as is humanly possible and

in accordance with the high standards of our tribunal system, an application and decide whether registration should be affected.

In making that decision, there is not another side to the argument, but it is in the public interest that the process should take due account—

It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.