Animal Welfare Bill

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to our debate. Mine is the last Back-Bench contribution, so the debate will conclude early, thus allowing hon. Members to return home to their pets, which will be wondering what on earth has become of them. It often strikes me that it is a misnomer to describe people as pet owners, as clearly it is the pet that owns the human. Indeed, as a young boy I was brought up by two Burmese cats which ruled the roost in my house. Our debate is ending early not because of a lack of interest among hon. Members—many of them have studied the Bill with great care and have an intense interest in the issues that it raises—but because there is significant consensus that the Bill is welcome and necessary. It is timely, it has been the subject of consultation, and it has been examined in great detail, so it will have a relatively smooth passage through the House and the other place. As a new Member, I continue to enjoy participating in our debates and seeing how the issues develop, and it is clear from today’s debate that two or three issues will be contentious, including tail docking. Having been lobbied by constituents and organisations that are interested in the issue, I have studied the subject closely in the past few weeks and months in an effort to reach a conclusive view. The Government should ask themselves three questions. First, does the current system work? It is a rigorous system, based on amendments in 1991 and 1993 to the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966, which permitted vets alone to carry out tail dockings. Anyone else who docks a dog’s tail performs an illegal act, as I pointed out to the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew). We should accept that the system works well, given the strong position of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, which opposes tail docking except where it is necessary. Secondly, if we opt for a total ban on tail docking, the Government should ask what the consequences will be. Like many unpleasant practices that we regulate or allow to be legal, we do so partly because we do not want to see the consequences when those practices are illegal. Those consequences are that the practice goes underground, is carried out by inexperienced people, and leads, possibly, to more cruelty by being carried out in an unregulated environment than in a regulated environment. At the heart of the debate on tail docking is the issue of whether it is cruel. Again, the evidence is finely balanced. I have been referred to at least three senior veterinary sources who have come to the conclusion that tail docking is not cruel because young puppies do not have the same nervous systems as grown dogs. In particular, I refer to the research of Professor Grandjean, a French professor whose name loosely translates as Big John, and therefore not a man to be trifled with, from the veterinary school of Alfor in France, who is the author and scientific co-ordinator of the ““Royal Canine Dog Encyclopaedia””. I shall carry on talking as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) is ready to spring on me. He describes the period shortly after birth as a ““vegetative phase””. The dog has few reflex actions and the nervous system is not fully developed.