Clause 10 - Regulations to promote welfare
Animal Welfare Bill
2:45 pm
David Drew (Stroud, Labour)
Perhaps I will not be quite so amenable about this amendment; I may not be quite as brief as I was in speaking to the previous group. Amendment No. 197 and new clause 1 are crucial. The Government have made their intentions clear: they see the Bill as enabling legislation. To repeat the Minister’s well-used analogy, it is not a Christmas tree. I sympathise with that view, but I do not totally go along with it, and this is one of the areas where I do not go along with it.
Some of us were able to meet the Born Free Foundation and the RSPCA yesterday. For many years, the one thing they have clearly asked of us is a prohibition on the keeping of primates as pets. As far as the Bill is concerned, I go along with the Government in every regard bar tail docking and this issue. The Government have to stand up and be counted on this. In this day and age, there is no reason why someone should keep a primate as a pet. I hope that the Government will spell out their intentions as clearly as possible.
I shall listen to what the Minister says, but I hope that he will introduce such a provision on Report. I hope that it is the overwhelming view of the Committee that the keeping of primates as pets in the 21st century is totally unacceptable. We are talking about a small number of animals, between 1,500 and 3,000. Why is prohibition needed? It is not just a question of cruelty, suitability and appropriateness, but of animal diseases. We all know that the rarer a species, the more likely it is to be a carrier of complex diseases. In a sense we are trying to bring the provision into the Government’s disease control strategy.
There are many reasons why clause 10 needs to be amended. I would prefer the Government to state in the Bill—otherwise they should introduce secondary legislation as a matter of urgency—that the keeping of primates as pets is banned. That would receive overwhelming support from all but the very small number of owners who choose to keep such animals as pets for whatever reason. I accept that we must be clear about what we mean by a pet and about location, or there may be difficulties with zoos and sanctuaries, although not so much with circuses nowadays—we are eternally grateful that they seem to have moved on. The Minister would have to consider carefully how the provision would be worded in secondary legislation, but I am looking to him to do the decent thing and to make it clear in clause 10, having clearly spelt out the Government’s intention and having taken the temperature of the Committee, that it is no longer proper to keep a primate as a pet.