Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-17
Topic: Agriculture
Janet Evelyn Fookes (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Hodgson of Abinger most warmly. She has put the case on the various amendments powerfully, with great conviction and great compassion. I share her feelings and I hope this will not be lost on my noble friends on the Front Bench I do not want to add any more to what my noble friend said on her Amendment 71, except to point out that when the original exemption was made to allow religious communities with real scruples to have animals that have not been pre-stunned, it was never intended that they should be the subject of exports. I see no reason why unscrupulous traders should benefit from this so that they can send animals away to where pre-stunning is not so common. This ought to be dealt with very quickly indeed The amendment standing in my name and supported by my noble friend is a reintroduction of an amendment I brought forward in Committee to ban the export of live animals for slaughter or for fattening. This has been a gripe and a passion of mine for many years—in fact, since I was a young MP in the House of Commons. That shows you how long ago it was, because I am no longer the spring chicken—probably some people would regard me as an old boiler I feel very strongly on this issue, but I have concerns even about my own amendment, because we have had to include a provision permitting animals going to Northern Ireland freely to go into the Republic because of the withdrawal arrangement. This worries me enormously, because, once they are there, they can then be moved freely around all countries belonging to the European Union. Although there are supposedly welfare regulations which prevent them travelling for too long, they are weak and not enforced, so you might as well say they do not exist at all, because that is the plain fact of the matter. I worry that those who still want to send animals abroad will use this provision as a loophole I became more concerned about this only very recently. I did not know that the Port of Ramsgate, through which most animals currently exported go, tried to ban animals passing through it. The exporters took the port to court and unfortunately the court found for them and not for the port. That indicates the lengths to which they will go. Therefore, I am concerned about the possibility of animals being sent to Northern Ireland and the situation being almost worse than that which we have now. That is something on which I hope the Government will reflect carefully. I hope that they will be able to tell us that they will come forward with some arrangement, beyond my ken, which deals with this situation The other amendment standing in my name, again supported by my noble friend, would ration the hours which animals can spend in transport. I accept that this is a probing amendment. I am concerned about the hours for which animals travel, which came home to me in Committee, when I was horrified to learn of the extent to which animals travel within the United Kingdom. I had not quite appreciated that, so concerned had I been about animals going abroad. I saw this as an opportunity again to take up one of the manifesto commitments on ending excessively long hours for animals in transport. I remind my noble friends of that commitment I accept that this is a slightly strange way round of doing things. Normally, if a Government were going to introduce a measure such as this, they would get hold of the "stakeholders" beforehand—I think that is still the fashionable expression; that is, those whose livelihood depends on farming and transporting and who might be affected by any changes in the rules and regulations—and experts, such as vets and key farmers, who understand all the details of what it means to transport animals and can bring their expertise to bear. It is quite likely that one would want different hours for different types of animal. We know that calves are extremely sensitive to travel and feel it much more—they are also much more closely affected by temperature fluctuations. It also depends on the vehicles carrying them: whether they are good, bad or indifferent. My proposed new clause would permit distinctions to be made, and there is also a time lag. None the less, I recognise that this is the wrong way around, and I am sure that people can pick every manner of hole in the suggestions that I have made. However, my main concern is to ensure that the Government get on with this and bring forward really good arrangements I understand that the Farm Animal Welfare Committee has done a lot of detailed work on this issue, so I hope that we can pick up on that, in addition to the point already made by my noble friend, that the British Veterinary Association has it laid down as a cardinal principle that animals should be slaughtered or fattened as near as possible to where they were born or raised. I look to the Government this evening to bring forward some real progress.