Animal Welfare Bill

My Lords, I begin by apologising to the Minister and the House for having being late. I had an internal problem that I could not ignore. This Bill addresses the important subject of the protection of animals from suffering, and the promotion of their welfare, and I am as committed to that as other noble Lords. However, it also refers, in Clause 5, to scientific research, saying that:"““Nothing in this Act applies to anything lawfully done under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986””." I wish to take this opportunity therefore to raise this very different aspect of the law as it relates to animals. I believe it to be true that the rules protecting animals—the vast majority in this instance are small rodents and fish—are tightly drawn and stringently applied. It is generally recognised that research in this area has produced infinitely valuable knowledge to advance the treatment of major diseases such as Parkinson’s, and that the research is very strictly monitored, both by research workers themselves and by successive governments, to ensure against unnecessary suffering. Research in the UK in this field is vital and is constantly addressing new threats to human life, but that research has been under constant threat for at least the last 17 years from a body of protest which goes well beyond the proper concerns of an animal-loving public, and is nothing less than ruthless overt domestic and, indeed, international terrorism. The people concerned call themselves the Animal Liberation Front; SHAC, which is aimed against Huntingdon Life Sciences; and the Animal Rights Militia; and then there is the so-called Justice Department. Their websites claim victories, boast of valiance, and utter threats daily. They terrorised a whole rural community of 500 people for six years with arson, bombs and threats, in order to close down a guinea pig farm, even taking the body of a family member from the grave three years ago. That body has never been returned, even though the farm has closed. The first arrests in this operation were made in August 2005 and, after a trial this month, those people await sentencing. In SHAC’s long-running campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences, it has terrorised the banks into refusing to handle the HLS accounts by making threats against bank directors, so that the Bank of England, thanks to the prompt and admirable intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, and the DTI had to take over. It has also so terrorised a number of firms associated with HLS that they have ceased to work with it. That has not been done through the normal, peaceful protest, however passionate, which we have seen by CND or at Aldermaston, or for many other good causes. It has been done by attacking workers and directors alike in their homes, burning their cars and sometimes their houses, threatening their children at school, and the schools themselves, carrying out sustained hate campaigns and accusing decent workers of paedophilia. These are not decent people demonstrating with passion and conviction on an issue of principle. They are evil creatures, who boast on the internet of their attacks on ordinary men and women going about their lawful business. That is not legitimate protest, but it has been chillingly effective for a number of reasons, not least that the law initially regards these actions as part of normal protest. One reason for its success has been the absence of really effective legislation. Despite the claim by the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General in 2004 that the Government would be able to use 43 specialist prosecutors—one for each criminal justice area in England and Wales—to prevent people being terrorised in this way, and despite injunctions and exclusion orders, these murderous thugs are in all but a tiny number of cases, brought to court only after long intervals, getting away with injunctions, ASBOs, community service and minute costs—and that only since 2004. Despite the Serious Organised Crime Act and the Protection from Harassment Act, which provides for limited exclusion orders, and despite the energetic efforts of NETCU—the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit—which have included the closing down of ALF and associated bank accounts where they can be identified, anyone working even remotely with animal research remains at actual and daily risk of personal attack. The punishments so far in no way fit the crime. The evil amoeba is very difficult to pin down. Although in July 2004 the Home Office pledged itself to jail those who intimidated workers in their homes and was looking at new ways to strengthen the law, the then Home Secretary would not offer a Bill on animal rights extremists because he did not believe he could win the necessary parliamentary time. I hope the CPS is pursuing the cases brought by the police with more than its usual vigour. It is a terrible irony that if the ALF—through its harassment of scientists, workers and those who breed for strictly controlled research—succeeds in forcing the work to be outsourced from the UK, that work will inevitably move to countries in Asia and China and some parts of eastern Europe where the legal protection of animals that obtains here will not exist. Authoritarian regimes will tolerate no protest, and media coverage will be very muted—if there is any at all. Outsourcing is already being initiated on a large scale in both Shanghai and Singapore. Another problem is undoubtedly the cost in time and effort for already overstretched police forces. The Staffordshire police dealing with the Darley Oaks case had to ask the Home Office for an extra £250,000 in 2003, and, no doubt, in succeeding years. Dealing with the attacks on HLS cost £1 million a year for the Cambridgeshire police, and these are official costs only, taking no account of the major cost to research and industry. One of the great problems has been the very real fear these hateful creatures inspire. Even a member of the Select Committee on Science and Technology at one time was reported as refusing to go on ““Newsnight”” to discuss the issue for fear of being targeted. Having prevented Cambridge University from creating a much-needed research centre through sheer intimidation and menaces, the terrorists have been doing their best to prevent Oxford also from building a research centre. The terrorists delayed building for a year by personally threatening the directors of the then contracting firm so that they withdrew, and are now pursuing the same tactics with the present contractors. During their many demonstrations they were, until the law intervened, photographing ordinary, decent workmen, as well as the research workers, to intimidate them from coming to work and strike fear into their families. They have issued an ultimatum to the university, proclaiming that every member, senior and junior alike, every firm serving the university and every charity supporting it—down, for instance, to the Sutton Trust—will be attacked. Many have already received threats, and several attacks have been carried out as a warning. These are not principled demonstrations, but acts of intimidations. The wonderful thing is that a boy of 16, struck by the threatening, bullying behaviour of the SPEAK protestors, organised a counter-demonstration last month. It was supported by students and faculty to defend the right to research and to demonstrate a refusal to be intimidated by violence. It is vital that that act of honourable defiance of a brutal terrorist group that has so far had things far too easy should be supported by the country and the public. The six parishes around the Darley Oaks guinea pig farm, which eventually sought an injunction to exclude the terrorists, were not supported by the law in that request, or at least only to a very limited degree. Her Majesty’s Government have been supportive of Oxford, but the law still finds difficulty in weighing the rights of protesters against the rights of those they threaten. These evil and ruthless terrorists must not be allowed to present themselves as peaceful and decent demonstrators. The body of the woman seized from the grave at Darley Oaks has not yet been returned, despite the fact that the farm operation was closed down earlier this year after six years of intimidation. That is not principled, legitimate protest—it is the act of criminals. I hope the Government, the public and the media alike will give effective support to Oxford by giving the police and NETCU adequate resources and by supporting the ordinary citizens, both town and gown, who are not prepared to be intimidated by criminals masquerading as protestors. I hope, too, that the powers available to the law will be used to limit, if not to remove, the power of the terrorists to identify and terrorise the workmen, the firms and, not least, the research workers. The university is bound in honour to protect and advance research, and the country needs it. The law must take account of that duty, and punish the wrongdoers, once convicted, with the full rigour of the law. This must be a battle to which society as a whole is committed.