Animal Welfare Bill

moved Amendment No. 70:"Page 9, line 23, at end insert ““, and" (c)   involves the establishment or keeping of an animal sanctuary. (   )   For the purposes of this section, a person establishes or keeps an animal sanctuary if that person regularly receives into his or her care— (a)   domestic animals or captive animals which are or appear to be unwanted or to have been lost or abandoned by their owner or which can no longer be kept by their owner, or (b)   any other animals, for the purpose of their temporary or permanent accommodation at any premises (including a private dwelling), whether with or without provision of any treatment.”” The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 70, I apologise on behalf of my noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. Unfortunately, she cannot be here today, so I am moving the amendment for her. Clause 13 refers to the licensing and registration of activities involving animals, and sets up a system, mainly in the regulations and Schedule 1, in which relevant activities involving animals will require registration. People engaging in these activities will have to be licensed or registered for the purposes of promoting the welfare of animals as they undertake those activities. Subsection (8) suggests some of the existing legislation that might be repealed and might well be replaced by registration under the clause. The amendment would bring animal sanctuaries within the scope of the clause. At present, there is no satisfactory legislative definition of what constitutes an animal sanctuary, and there are no adequate regulations to control the activities of sanctuaries in the United Kingdom. The amendment would introduce a requirement to Clause 13 for animal sanctuaries to be licensed or registered. It is supported by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which has suggested licensing with a variable fee, depending on the number and species of animals housed. This could prevent an unduly large regulatory burden for small sanctuaries, while providing the necessary minimum of supervision that would not be provided by registration alone. The definition of ““sanctuary”” is necessarily broad to guard against the problem of would-be benevolent keepers who are unable to meet welfare standards. My noble friend Lady Miller described some of these at Second Reading—for example, makeshift sanctuaries may not have such simple provisions as the physical barriers needed to prevent escape, or the facility to isolate sick animals. The RSPCA supports the principle of the amendment. It suggests that perhaps the definition of ““animal sanctuary”” should be in secondary legislation, but it needs to be in legislation. This is a probing amendment to find out whether the Government intend, under the regulations that will be laid under the clause, to include animal sanctuaries. ““Sanctuary”” implies a place of safety and asylum. The person who runs a sanctuary generally means well. Unfortunately, such people are not always able to live up to their aspirations. If the Bill is to provide watertight protection or animal welfare, it must explicitly put sanctuaries within its remit or in secondary legislation. It might be helpful if at this stage I briefly mention pet fairs. We have already debated Amendment No. 76, which is in the next group, so we will not be debating it, but today there have been significant events that warrant the Committee’s attention. Amendment No. 171, which was proposed by my noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, would remove from the Bill the repeal of the 1983 amendment to the Pet Animals Act 1951. That amendment has proved controversial because it seems to make pet fairs held in public places illegal. That provision has not been consistently applied by local authorities. The Government have stated that they will repeal the amendment for the sake of clarity and, instead, regulate pet fairs. In court, the Animal Protection Agency pursued the question of whether pet fairs could be legally licensed. Today it won its case, which would seem to clarify the legal status of the 1983 amendment and the existing legislation. I ask the Minister to consider this and to look again at his response to Amendment No. 171 before Report. I beg to move.