Clause 11 - Prescribed animal welfare bodies
Hunting Bill
11:15 am
Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South and 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.