Animal Welfare Bill

moved Amendment No. 107:"Page 16, line 37, at end insert—" ““(2) Prosecution of offences defined under this Act shall not commence except by or with the consent of the Crown Prosecution Service or the legal department of a local authority.”” The noble Baroness said: This amendment deals with prosecutions. This was fully debated in another place and moved by my honourable friend Jim Paice. We are not the only ones concerned about this issue. We have been lobbied by many outside bodies, including charities and interest groups. We all want to define the precise role of the animal inspectors, who they will be, what their motivation will be and how much power they will have over individual pet owners. I turn to the substantive point of the amendment. The background to the power for inspectors to bring proceedings against individuals rests on the established principle in English law known as ““common informers’ status””, which preserves the right of any private individual or organisation to bring forward prosecutions. My honourable friend in another place pointed out in Committee that there should rightly be some checks and balances to ensure there is no vexatious litigation for any purposes. It is my understanding that in Scotland prosecutions for offences relating to animal welfare are taken through the procurator fiscal, bypassing the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. That means there can be an effective check on the prosecutions to ensure that they are robust, and time and money are not wasted pursuing non-genuine cases. On a point of law, Amendment No. 107 would bring English law into line with Scottish practice. I noticed the mumble across the Chamber earlier of, ““Vive la difference””, but I think sometimes we can learn from each other—something the Government may consider worth while with regard to this Bill, such as in the abandonment clause, but I shall come back to that at another stage. The Bill provides for extensive powers of entry and animal welfare offences. In the light of that, it is important that there is some oversight and safeguards regarding prosecutions. It is well established in English law that such extensive powers should be accompanied by a limit on who can bring proceedings, without interfering with the rights of private individuals to do so. For that reason we have suggested that the Crown Prosecution Service or the legal department of a local authority should filter prosecution applications, as is now practised in Scotland. I was concerned to read in the Official Report of another place, and to hear when we debated this Bill at Second Reading, that the RSPCA is being considered to take this job on as paid inspectors. At Second Reading one of my noble friends was very alarmed by the idea that the RSPCA would be doing this sort of work. The Minister at the time, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, stated:"““Individual RSPCA inspectors could be appointed by national or local authorities as inspectors under the Bill””." He went on to say:"““they would exercise those powers in their capacity as local or national authority employees, and I emphasise that they would not exercise them in their capacity as RSPCA employees””.—[Official Report, 18/4/06; col. 1011.]" That made us wonder. There is nothing to prevent an RSPCA officer who is also an inspector from bringing forward his own private prosecution. Simply because the RSPCA is, to quote the Minister in another place, the ““most conspicuous example”” of an animal inspection body, it does not mean it is necessarily the best option. There is still a degree of uncertainty outside this place and in another place about the real role of the inspector. Someone was indicating that that RSPCA inspector could in fact still be a paid employee of the RSPCA at the same time as working for the local authority. My understanding is that that is not so, but I seek clarification from the Minister. It seems odd that an inspector would be allowed to have a foot in both camps. Would his position be compromised? There is already a massive burden on RSPCA inspectors in the way that they currently work. This Bill, with its additional burdens, will impose extra responsibilities on them. The EFRA Select Committee stated that the assessment of potential legal costs by the regulatory impact assessment was ““simplistic in the extreme””, and that the effect of the extended prosecuting powers had not been adequately costed. I agree with that, and fear that if we have an increase in the volume of cases there could well be extra burdens to be borne. We believe it is not sufficient to leave the identification of these costs to secondary legislation. Once the common informer status has been conferred with no oversight mechanism, the Government will find themselves locked into an increase in prosecutions, along with associated escalating costs and the damaging results of vexatious prosecutions. When this was debated in another place, the Minister, Ben Bradshaw, perhaps did not really take on board that, with the changes that are taking place within this Bill, it is likely that more prosecutions will be brought, and therefore that greater burdens will be carried by the local authorities and the inspectors, whoever they are. In moving this amendment, we are trying to seek clarification of who does what, and where these responsibilities actually lie. I beg to move.