Animal Welfare Bill

I certainly hope so. We also need to revisit some issues from the draft Bill. The Bill may be an improvement in some ways, but in other ways it has been weakened. My main concern for the future is that the good intentions in the Bill may not be followed through because to some extent it relies on external activity. The duty of care provisions in the clauses that I mentioned, which I very much support, will rely on the RSPCA and others taking court action in particular cases to establish case law. That applies to all legislation to some extent, but to a greater extent in respect of the Bill. That pushes the responsibility for the interpretation of this central part of the Bill away from Parliament and on to the courts. The wording is therefore terribly important. At worst, we could end up passing an Act that we all think is very good, but subsequently find that it is flawed when tested in the courts, or that the secondary legislation that we expected is not introduced. We need to push the Government further to try to get a clearer picture than emerges at present. The hon. Member for East Surrey referred to the terms of the secondary legislation. It will indeed provide flexibility if we have a Bill that can be amended quickly in the light of circumstances; I entirely accept the point made by the hon. Member for Carlisle. However, there is a balance to be struck between that flexibility and some degree of certainty that the measures that we expect, and have been argued for outside, will be introduced. Sadly, we can find in enabling legislation passed under all Governments many examples whereby provisions have been put into a Bill that was subject to cross-party agreement and enacted, yet they sit there unused. I can go back to my days as a parliamentary researcher and the Environmental Protection Act 1990. It gained cross-party agreement yet some provisions have still not been effected 16 years later. Reliance on secondary legislation is reliance on the good faith of the Government—perhaps not even this Government but the next—in introducing it. It worries me that the provisions may not be effected in their entirety. Clause 62 deals with the commencement arrangements but its specifications are lax. It specifies one or two provisions that will come into force immediately but it also provides:"““The remaining provisions of this Act . . . shall come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may by order appoint””." That means that the provisions could simply sit there indefinitely. When the Government get cold feet about tail docking or circuses, they will simply say, ““This is too difficult; we won’t bother to do it.”” We therefore need some sort of assurance either from the Under-Secretary about the codes of conduct that he intends to introduce or about the commencement date for all the clauses. We need something more than the current open-ended arrangement if we are to be certain that the Bill will be as we want it.