Environment and Rural Development Committee, 07 Dec 2005

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 7, 2005

Official Report 291KB pdf

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Animal Welfare Bill

Agenda item 5 is the Animal Welfare Bill, which is UK legislation. The minister has advised the committee that the Executive intends to seek the Parliament's consent to the UK Parliament legislating on certain devolved matters through the Animal Welfare Bill. That bill is currently before the Westminster Parliament and it makes provisions on animal welfare that are similar to those in part 2 of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill. The Sewel convention requires the Parliament to consent to the UK Parliament legislating in this way and the committee has agreed to take evidence from the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development before considering our report to the Parliament. Colleagues will note that a revised memorandum has been issued by the minister. It was circulated to members on Monday.

I therefore welcome Rhona Brankin and her officials. I invite the minister to introduce her officials and to make a short opening statement. We will then go to colleagues for questions.

My officials are Claire Tosh, John Paterson, Heather Holmes and Ian Strachan, all from the Scottish Executive.

Is there anything that you wish to say as a short opening statement?

Yes, thank you.

The Sewel motion seeks the Scottish Parliament's approval for the Animal Welfare Bill, which is currently going through Westminster, to contain provisions that would enable a disqualification order made by a court in England or Wales, prohibiting a person from owning or keeping animals, to be effective throughout Great Britain.

Once we have passed the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill, which was introduced on 5 October, an order will be sought under section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998 that will ensure that a disqualification order made by a Scottish court will also be effective in England and Wales. That will achieve the position on reciprocal recognition of decrees that pertains under the current law and that we want to maintain.

Disqualification orders are normally made only in the most severe cases of animal cruelty and abuse and it would clearly be wrong for a convicted person who was disqualified from keeping animals in one part of Great Britain to be able to move to another part and thereby continue to keep animals or to run an animal business.

The Sewel motion has received the full support of the SSPCA and other animal welfare organisations. It will not give Westminster the power to decide animal welfare legislation for Scotland. Members will be aware that we have introduced the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill to Parliament for that purpose. The Sewel motion seeks only to enable reciprocal recognition of disqualification orders. I consider that this is a positive and beneficial use of the Sewel convention and, in combination with the section 104 order, it will ensure that, while the legislation for the protection of animals in Scotland and south of the border is strengthened, we will maintain the reciprocity of effect that exists in current legislation.

No one will argue with the principle that disqualification orders should be recognised on both sides of the border. However, there are concerns about the Sewel motion in this context. Sewel motions are controversial at the best of times, but on this occasion we seem to have a situation where there are animal health and welfare bills going through the Parliaments north and south of the border, so ministers had the opportunity to amend the Scottish bill.

I understand that the original motivation for the Sewel motion was that there might have been a gap between the introduction of the bills. It turns out that there was only one week between the introduction of each bill. The minister's most recent correspondence seems to show that the goalposts have been moved, because she is now saying that the real reason for the Sewel motion was the time that it will take for the bills to go through their respective Parliaments. Why do we have a Sewel motion when our Scottish legislation is going through Parliament at the same time as the mirror legislation south of the border? No one is against the principle of cross-border arrangements for animal welfare, but surely a Sewel motion is the lazy, easy option.

Absolutely not. We regard the Sewel motion as the best option, regardless of constitutional positions. The DEFRA Animal Welfare Bill has only been introduced to Parliament and it is not yet clear what will happen during its passage. The bill's provisions could change, which could mean that references to it in the Scottish bill might be rendered meaningless, inaccurate or redundant. Therefore, to counter the separate provision, an order would have to be made under the Scottish bill to amend references.

The fact that the Animal Welfare Bill is proceeding through Westminster at around the same time as our bill is proceeding does not remove possible inherent complications in meeting what is, in effect, a moving target—I refer, for example, to the numbering of clauses, the insertion of different provisions or changes to the substance of the provisions. Obviously, we have carefully considered the matter and we think that the complications will be avoided by using a Sewel motion. The Sewel mechanism is designed for exactly that purpose. We think that its use will be a most effective way of ensuring that there is a coherent mechanism for dealing with breaches of disqualification orders, irrespective of where they were made. The purpose of the Sewel is to allow a good thing to happen.

If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that amendments to the Scottish bill could be rendered meaningless by the UK bill. Why can the UK bill not take into account the Scottish bill and ensure that amendments are not rendered meaningless? Why must we follow Westminster's lead? Why can Westminster not ensure that its bill is compatible with the Scottish bill?

That is exactly what the Sewel motion will allow.

Exactly.

People should speak one at a time. Mr Paterson, please continue.

The Sewel motion will allow those provisions of the Westminster bill that will apply in Scotland to be followed through in order that the best fit is achieved with respect to the parts of the bill that relate to the creation of disqualification orders in England and Wales. If we want those provisions to be cleanly followed through, the best place for them is the Animal Welfare Bill. The draftsman can then follow his changes to one part of the bill in another part of the bill, as can the Parliament.

On the law relating to Scotland, a disqualification order that is made by a court in Scotland under the enacted Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill will have a reciprocal effect in England by virtue of an order under section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998, which will be made after our bill is enacted. I hope that that clarifies matters.

It does. I accept that there are two ways of legislating on such issues—Scotland can legislate or a Sewel motion can be used to allow Westminster to legislate—but my point is that, in the light of the coincidence of two bills on animal welfare, surely the preferred option is to allow Scotland to legislate. The minister's correspondence says that that would be perfectly legitimate, but that she has chosen to go down the alternative route of allowing Westminster to legislate. Should precedence not always be given to legislating in Scotland where that is possible?

The bottom line is that preference is given to the best way of making the legislation. We need to ensure that we enable the proposed legislation to proceed without referring to constitutional issues—that is the best way of ensuring that the legislation is enacted on both sides of the border. I assure Richard Lochhead that we considered the matter carefully.

We should be perfectly clear that the meaningless points that have been made in the past few minutes have absolutely nothing to do with animal welfare or competent legislation. Exactly why the mechanism in question is being applied and why the route in question has been proposed has been ably explained by the minister and reinforced by her official. All that we have heard from the Scottish National Party in the past 10 minutes is the same old typical, dreary nationalistic dirge that it plays whenever the words "UK", "Great Britain" and "Westminster" are mentioned. We should short-circuit this meaningless discussion on a constitutional matter because it is irrelevant to the committee.

In the previous evidence session we heard about banning animal sales on the internet in England and Wales. Some of the NGOs were concerned that if there is such a ban south of the border, people who sell animals on the internet may move to Scotland to do it. To avoid anomalies, have you considered mirroring that power in the Scottish bill or even considered it as part of a Sewel motion to allow that provision to apply north and south of the border?

I am being told that that will be in secondary legislation; it will not be on the face of the bill. Would you like to say something, Ian?

Certainly. The UK Animal Welfare Bill does not have anything about the sale of animals on its face, despite recent press reports. The sale of animals will be covered in secondary legislation at Westminster and in Scotland. That secondary legislation will be introduced only after full consultation and with the committee's approval.

Great, that has clarified things.

That is helpful. That point was raised earlier.

Where is a disqualification order made? Are other member states in the European Union notified about people who are subject to them? The free movement of labour potentially means that somebody who held animals here could go to another country in the European Union. What mechanism do you envisage in the Animal Welfare (Scotland) Bill to deal with that?

The courts will make a disqualification order that will be recorded in a database for the United Kingdom. We have to set up that database and I have given no thought to expanding it to the European Union. As you suggest, we must think about that. However, there will at least be a database for the UK, which we do not have at the moment.

Do you think that you should look at that seriously? I can think of people who have been disqualified and are perhaps in jail at the moment, but who could possibly go to another country and do the same thing.

That will be looked at, and I am happy to do so.

The only thing that I would say is that I would have thought that ensuring the applicability of disqualification orders and so forth outside of Great Britain would be a matter for the European Commission. The UK could feed into that process, but we obviously would not be in a position to direct other countries as to how they treat the orders.

We are happy to come back to the committee to deal specifically with this matter.

The point about people leaving Scotland or the UK with a disqualification order is interesting. If there is similar animal welfare legislation in other European Union countries, people who have a very bad track record, or who have been successfully prosecuted in another country, could potentially come into Scotland. It raises a whole agenda beyond what we were initially thinking about in this bill.

We will come back to you on that.

As no one has any further points, I thank the minister and her officials very much for answering our questions.

As we agreed earlier, we move into private session.

Meeting continued in private until 12:46.