Fur Farming (Prohibition) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Motion S1M-2830, in the name of Ross Finnie, seeks agreement that the Fur Farming (Prohibition) (Scotland) Bill be passed. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons. I call on Ross Finnie to speak to and move the motion. You have a theoretical three minutes, minister, but I think that I can be quite relaxed if you have more to say.
As I re-entered the chamber just a moment ago, I was overwhelmed by the palpable sense of excitement at the thought of the day's climax—the debate on the Fur Farming (Prohibition) (Scotland) Bill. I am sure that the Presiding Officer shared that excitement. I could see him tingling with excitement as he turned to the final item of business. I am grateful for the invitation to take more than three minutes, but I assure members that I do not intend to take up the Presiding Officer's generous offer.
To be serious, I want to put on record my genuine thanks to the committee members who examined the bill carefully, particularly the members of the Rural Development Committee, which was the lead committee. I also want to express my thanks to my officials on the bill team and acknowledge the work of the draftsmen. This bill is probably the first to go through Parliament without amendment. The draftsmen might want that fact to be recorded.
I am pleased to move the motion to pass the bill, because it is important in a civilised society to recognise that there should be sufficient justification for breeding animals. That is not the case, on balance, for fur farming.
The bill's policy objective is clear: to ban the keeping of animals solely or primarily for the commercial value of their fur. Scottish ministers and others in Scotland took the view that there was a moral argument against farming animals solely or primarily for their fur. By introducing this ban in Scotland, we will prevent fur farmers from relocating their businesses to Scotland following the introduction of a similar ban in England and Wales on 1 January 2003.
Will the minister give way?
No. Let me make my second point.
The Rural Development Committee considered the issues that surround the bill. The committee's debate covered not only the moral argument, which was the Executive's justification for introducing the bill, but animal welfare considerations, the environmental impacts of escaped mink, and opportunities for rural diversification. I commend the Rural Development Committee on its thoroughness. The committee concluded that the moral argument was insufficiently cogent to justify the bill, but it nevertheless supported the bill's introduction, and the committee's overall conclusions supported the bill's general principles.
Fur farming has been a contentious form of farming in the United Kingdom. There are no known fur farms in Scotland, but the bill will ensure beyond doubt that there will be no such farms in the future. I commend the bill to Parliament.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees that the Fur Farming (Prohibition) (Scotland) Bill be passed.
I share the minister's delight at having so much time to speak on the bill. However, I welcome the fact that the debate is timetabled for 15 minutes, in contrast to the one and a half hours that we spent on the stage 1 debate. The people of Scotland are not shouting from the rooftops for this bill. That contrasts with the importance and urgency of the Sexual Offences (Procedure and Evidence) (Scotland) Bill, which we have just debated.
It does not usually take much to excite MSPs, but no MSP was excited enough by the bill to lodge an amendment or speak to the sections at stage 2. We cannot even congratulate the clerks, as is customary at this stage, as no demands were placed on them in connection with this bill.
I therefore take this opportunity to urge the Government to introduce more imaginative and ambitious proposals in future. We could have used this time to discuss a ban on tobacco advertising or to introduce overdue legislation on wildlife crime, which has been promised time and again.
Given that we are debating a bill that has not changed one iota since stage 1, I have little more to add. The SNP agrees with the principle that we should keep Scotland fur-farm free, given that fur farming is a tasteless and unnecessarily cruel activity. We therefore support the bill.
Presiding Officer, please accept my apologies for the discourtesy that I displayed in not being here at the start of the debate. I extend that apology to the whole chamber.
Like other members, I have little to say at this stage as nothing has changed since the stage 1 debate. This will therefore be the shortest speech I have ever made in this chamber. [Members: "Hear, hear."]
As at stage 1, the Executive has not made a good case on welfare grounds. From that point of view, I am unhappy about the bill. As I said before, if there were one fur farm in Scotland, I would vote against the bill. However, as there are no fur farms—and as the Conservatives will have a free vote on the subject—I will abstain.
Will the member give way?
I am in my last few seconds, but of course I will.
Does the member accept that there is a danger that fur farmers from south of the border might come north following the Westminster ban? If they were planning to do so, they would certainly not broadcast that intention to committees of this Parliament.
I believe that what Mr Morgan says is true, but I am not absolutely convinced of the case for the abolition of fur farming. However, as there are no fur farms in Scotland at the moment, I am not prepared to oppose the bill. If there were any, I would oppose it.
I have nothing further to add and will abstain in the vote.
I congratulate Alex Fergusson on his best speech in the chamber to date. I will make a similarly short and relevant contribution. The minister has thanked all those who deserve applause, and there is no need to retrace his steps.
The bill is short and succinct. It fulfils a pledge that was laid out in the Labour party's 1997 manifesto. The pledge was based on the view that animals should not be destroyed or bred for destruction in the absence of sufficient justification in relation to public benefit.
As the minister said, the bill to ban fur farming in England and Wales has completed its stages in Westminster and is due to take full effect in early 2003, following a winding-down period.
Richard Lochhead bemoaned the fact that we used one and a half hours on the stage 1 debate, but he omitted to tell the chamber that the nationalists refused to use the Sewel motion procedure to deal with this important piece of legislation more quickly.
Escaped mink can do considerable damage. As I know from my constituency, they damage indigenous wildlife and internationally renowned bird sanctuaries and reservations. If it were not for the mink eradication scheme that the Executive is paying for, those reservations would be completely destroyed.
The point of the bill is to close a loophole that would allow fur farmers to evade a ban in England and Wales by relocating in Scotland, thus resurrecting the industry north of the border. The bill is eminently sensible and is worthy of our support.
I reject the ridiculous moral argument that has been put forward against the operation of fur farming. The Rural Development Committee as a whole felt that that was a somewhat ridiculous argument. I also reject the suggestion that, just because something provides no public benefit, it should be banned. We should only ban things that cause harm. I support the bill because there is clear evidence that fur farming causes environmental damage to various parts of rural Scotland. I want to place that point on the record.
I believe strongly that the bill should never have been discussed in the Parliament. It bans something that does not exist and seeks to compensate those who might lose non-existent jobs.
As far as I am concerned, the one factor that relates to previous fur farms in Scotland and the one legacy that is left over from them is the number of feral mink that are destroying Scottish fisheries and threatening rare breeds of ground-nesting birds. To help clear the mink in the Hebrides, £1.6 million has been set aside. I urge the Parliament to support the efforts that are being made to do that, but mark my words: those who are clearing mink will require dogs to help them.
Minister, do you wish to respond to the debate?
I could not possibly resist. I will make just two quick points. It is as though the debate is in aspic: absolutely nothing has changed since stage 1. Richard Lochhead's position has not changed: he is still complaining about his business managers not accepting a Sewel motion. I really do not understand where he is coming from. Alex Fergusson's position has not changed: he sat through all the stage 1 committee proceedings and knows that the committee's recommendation was to accept the principles of the bill. There is not a single dissenting note in the committee's long and voluminous report, so why, at such a late stage, should he wish to tender that he is a sort of lodged objector to it?
Mike Rumbles ought to read his committee's report, which does not say that the moral argument is ridiculous. He misquotes his own report. It suggests that the position is not cogent enough, but that that does not necessarily mean that it is ridiculous.
As for Jamie McGrigor—well, if those Conservative people want him, they can have him.
On the issue of there being no fur farms in Scotland, it is surely rare for a Government to anticipate a problem. The bill deals with a problem that has not yet arisen. It is a bit churlish of Opposition members not to acknowledge at least that we have anticipated a problem and taken appropriate action.
On those grounds, I commend the bill to members.
The question will be put at decision time. There being no Parliamentary Bureau motions, I suspend the meeting until 5 o'clock.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—