Clause 4 - Unnecessary suffering
Animal Welfare Bill
12:15 pm
David Drew (Stroud, Labour)
This will be a very rapid speech, because as I have already made clear, I have to be next door. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood will listen carefully to what I am saying and will fill in more detail. Will the Minister say why the clause has been changed from the draft Bill? I have conflicting evidence from animal welfare charities about the implications of this clause. At one extreme, there is a view that it drives a coach and horses through what we are trying to do in clarifying what may be prosecuted as an offence of cruelty, and at the other end, what may transpire as a defence of cruelty if we set the hurdle too low. Somebody might be able to argue that they were carrying out their normal role of training an animal and were not being cruel. I want the Minister to explain why the Bill has been changed. The draft Bill was clear that cruelty is definable and that in practical terms it can be the subject of prosecution. Why have we now given what seems to be a defence to people who, as part of their so-called training of an animal, wish to indulge in what to most of us is a cruel act?