Animal Welfare Bill

moved Amendment No. 41: Page 40, line 5, after first ““to”” insert ““the issue of”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, in speaking to this amendment I shall also speak to government Amendments Nos. 42 to 48, which are grouped with it. They are largely technical and ensure consistency with the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, which came into force in July 2005. In addition, Amendment No. 48 gives limited powers of search and seizure to inspectors who enter premises in an emergency. Amendments Nos. 41 to 47 are minor amendments—although Amendment No. 46 looks like a significant change—purely to ensure consistent drafting. They make no substantive changes. Schedule 2 extends the safeguards in Sections 15 and 16 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act to inspectors under the Bill. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act made a few changes to Sections 15 and 16, and so a few equivalent changes to Schedule 2 are necessary to take account of this. I am happy to go through other amendments in detail. Amendment No. 48 serves two purposes. The first is to ensure that where an inspector enters premises to search for an animal in distress he has the power to inspect the animal when he finds it. This is a necessary prerequisite to exercising all the emergency powers in Clause 18 and I do not think that I need dwell further on it. The second purpose is to give inspectors limited powers to gather evidence. As currently drafted, the power to remove carcasses and take photographs is limited to occasions when the inspector has entered either under warrant under Clause 22, or to conduct a routine inspection under Clauses 25 to 28. However, where an inspector has entered to search for an animal in distress he may find it has already died, or that it needs to be destroyed. In both cases he will need to remove the carcass, as a post-mortem examination will be necessary for any subsequent prosecution that may be brought. Likewise, he may need to photograph the conditions the animal has been kept in for use as evidence in any future prosecution. We recognise that if an inspector has already entered the premises using his Clause 19 powers, then to have to leave, obtain a warrant under Clause 22, and return again would not only be impractical and a waste of resources, but would also risk evidence being destroyed. These amendments are intended to ensure that he can exercise these limited evidence-gathering powers, even though he has entered primarily for the purpose of alleviating an animal’s suffering. On that basis, I beg to move. On Question, amendment agreed to.