Amendment 23

Part of Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] - Report (Continued) – in the House of Lords at 9:30 pm on 6th December 2021.

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Photo of Lord Benyon Lord Benyon The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 9:30 pm, 6th December 2021

My Lords, it has been a fascinating debate. I do not want to detain the House, but I was very entertained by my noble friend Lord Moylan’s trips down the gradations of sentience that might exist across the animal kingdom. I was trying to work out whether he was a follower of Aristotle—who believed that animals lacked rational souls and therefore were outside the sphere of justice—or whether he was Descartian or Rousseauan in his view. I do not want to go into a philosophical—