Clause 20 - Entry and search under warrant in connection with offences
Animal Welfare Bill
12:45 pm
Norman Baker (Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Lewes, Liberal Democrat)
I entirely agree. I thought that the hon. Gentleman’s contribution in the debate this morning was very helpful. The uncertainties around the 1951 Act have not led to many prosecutions. Local authorities are naturally reluctant to go down that road. That suggests that there may be a problem with local authority enforcement regimes generally in terms of their ability to deal with these issues. That will be made worse if they are to become even more common than at present.
If the Minister wants to avoid the consequences that I have outlined—an increase in the trading of captive and endangered species, an increase in impulse buying, an increase in the possibility of disease transmission and an increase in welfare problems that come from some of this trade, although not all of it as I am happy to accept the points made in Mr. Catchpole’s letter—he should come up with something better than a licensing regime.
If I read the temperature of the Committee correctly, we want to look at arrangements that allow the sort of trade referred to by the hon. Members for Kettering and Stroud to carry on and outlaw the sort of trade that others described, involving hawkers going around with the primary purpose of making money. The Minister should reflect on that and come back with an amendment or a new clause that does that, rather than simply relying rather complacently on a licensing regime that will not work.