Animal Welfare Bill

My opposition to the Question is probing. The Minister has, in his previous explanation, to some extent gone into the problems and ramifications of the European dimension. It would help the Committee to have a comprehensive idea of what current EU regulations were likely to be part of this operation. In fact, a suspicious mind on seeing subsection (1) might begin to wonder whether there were some imminent European obligations that we had not yet heard about. We hope that that is not so. Previously when a European regulation had to be carried under an existing UK Act, there was a clause to that effect, saying things like, ““The Secretary of State has been designated for the purposes of Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 in relation to so and so measures and so on””. Of course we have not had anything like that since we had such a provision under the waste management Bill. It seems the Minister is saying that at any point inspectors from one of the various bodies carrying out a cross-compliance exercise will be empowered with all the powers that there are under this Bill. In fact, they will not just be carrying out an inspection with regard to the normal cross-compliance issues, which really concern how much you qualify for payment or how much you deserve to have deducted; they will be the hand of Big Brother, who will be inspecting your livestock as well as everything else. That is a worrying aspect. I must admit that I have recently undergone a cross-compliance inspection. I am not sure whether Defra has had time to send anyone on such an exercise, because they have had so much to do on the single payments. Being in Scotland, I received my payment in December, and I had a cross-compliance exercise that took four days. You might say that is co-ordination, that they came along and wished to inspect this and inspect that. We are looking at the full meaning of,"““An inspector may carry out an inspection in order to check compliance with regulations under section 12 which implement a Community obligation””." I beg to move.