Clause 10 - Regulations to promote welfare
Animal Welfare Bill
2:30 pm
Ben Bradshaw (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Exeter, Labour)
I am not saying that we would want to legislate without the support of scientific advice, but that is not the only criterion that would need to be taken into account. Indeed, we have had discussions about where we draw the line in the definition of “animal”. It is the nature of life that science is sometimes uncertain; there are grey areas and there are boundaries. A future Government may wish to take a decision based on good practice where there is no hard and fast scientific advice available.
Amendment No. 76 suffers from a similar defect. We do not think that it would be sensible to restrict a body established under clause 10 to advising only on scientific matters. Although a large proportion of any such advice may well be of a scientific nature, we do not see any benefit in restricting the role of the bodies in such a way. An appropriate national authority may at some time want a body to advise on the social or other aspects of animal welfare and it would not be clear under the amendment that it would be able to do that.
The Government do not consider amendment No. 75 to be necessary. In deciding to establish organisations to offer advice on animal welfare, the relevant national authority would wish to consider the relevant expertise of the organisation concerned, so I do not believe that it is necessary to include such a reference in subsection (2). As long as a body possesses the relevant expertise and has the resources to carry out the work, I am not convinced that it necessarily needs to be independent, although obviously that is sometimes essential.
However, the need to ensure absolute independence of a body from Government, animal keeping, or any other animal interest, may unnecessarily restrict the relevant national authority’s ability to appoint an appropriate body to carry out that work. Furthermore, consultation, pre-legislative scrutiny where appropriate, and parliamentary debate as part of the affirmative procedure set out in clause 55 would ensure that any proposals from the Secretary of State are fully debated in an open and transparent fashion. This will also help to ensure that inappropriate or unnecessary regulations would not be introduced. On that basis I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.