Clause 55 - Orders and regulations
Animal Welfare Bill
1:00 pm
Ben Bradshaw (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Exeter, Labour)
We have already discussed whether codes should be made by affirmative or negative procedure. Amendment No. 49 would require the codes to be exercisable by statutory instrument. We believe that that is excessive because the codes are not legislation and therefore not capable of being statutory instruments within the meaning given to them by the 1946 Act. Amendment No. 50 would appear to result in two procedures for the approval of codes of practice—both the affirmative and negative. I assume that the intention was to make the code subject exclusively to the affirmative procedure. Amendment No. 51 would require that all delegated powers in the Bill be subject to affirmative resolution. That would include the issuing of codes, as well as the minor power under clause 49(6) to extend the power of detention or some modified form of it to hovercraft.
The Bill requires the Secretary of State to publish a draft or revised code, on which there must be full consultation, every time he or she proposes to issue a code. The draft will then be laid before Parliament, and either House may resolve not to approve it within 40 days, in which case it cannot proceed. Therefore, the procedure gives Parliament the final say as to whether codes should be adopted, but it is not as onerous or time consuming as a full affirmative procedure.
We believe that the procedure allows for the right level of scrutiny. As failure to comply with a code will not of itself constitute an offence, we believe that a higher form of scrutiny is not necessary. As I said the other day, we expect to introduce a large number of codes to cover the different species of animal covered by the Bill, and they may be revised as science and society develop. If we bind ourselves to an affirmative procedure, that could create undue delay and possibly even prevent important changes to codes taking place quickly in the light of scientific evidence. Parliament will always be able to scrutinise a code if it wishes to do so, but it may not need to debate every code if it does not consider it appropriate.
On that basis I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.