Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations 2007

Yes, it is. On the other hand, there is a good argument for keeping things as they are if there is not a problem. People understand these words when working with these regulations in other areas. I fully accept that if we can simplify and clarify things we should. In this case the one big change is about common land, which I will come to. Of course we are bound by EU directives and some of the wording is from the directives. The noble Baroness raised the subject of bees. She accepted that they are not vertebrates and they are not covered. It does not mean that there is not a problem. If memory serves me right, one day before the Recess I am down to answer a Question. I am not sure whether it is the noble Baroness’s Question. I know that there is a bee-health Question. She is right—and I do not know much about bees—the issue of opening up after the winter and finding that they are not there makes you ask whether perhaps you should have checked a bit earlier. There are some legitimate issues to be raised. I hope that I will be suitably briefed on the day of the Question. The rearing of game birds was raised. We have commissioned a study into the welfare implications of using bits and spectacles in preparation for the introduction of the code. That is currently under way and is expected to be completed by November this year. The results of the research would then be subject to peer review and will inform the members of the working group tasked with writing the code. We expect to get that ready by the summer of 2008. I fully understand that there are concerns about the use of cages. It has been raised with me a few times, even before the recent reshuffle. We have asked the Farm Animal Welfare Council to assess the system of management and report back on its findings. We think that that report will be ready by 2008. That will inform the working group. We hope to get any problems identified dealt with in the code of practice, which I hope will be satisfactory. I was asked where the figure of £7.9 million came from for farmers having to access and be familiar with welfare codes. The estimate was produced by an external consultancy during a cross-government exercise last year to identify the baseline for administrative burdens throughout Whitehall. The consultancy gathered average data from a number of farmers on the time taken, cost per hour and the numbers of people affected by the requirement. It calculated that it cost stock-keepers a total of £6.7 million a year to ensure that they have access to and are familiar with the codes, and £1.2 million a year for owners and managers to ensure that stock-keepers have had the instruction and guidance of the codes. While the provision is being maintained, the additional burdens in the codes will be examined as part of our simplification plan. That is the plan for reducing administrative burdens, which I raved about at Question Time the other day and which we published in December last year. So we are seeking to reduce the administrative burdens. Part of the reason for getting these figures across government and Whitehall is so that we could actually make a measure and then do something about reducing them. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, asked me about the enforcement. Although I came to Defra when the Bill had almost finished its parliamentary process, so I only picked up the end bit from the Lords’ point of view, I understand that the issues raised by enforcement were quite well debated. But the enforcement by local authorities will be, as directed by the Secretary of State set out in Regulation 8 of the regulations. If the first complaint goes to the RSPCA, I am not sure whether it has a duty on this or whether it can make an investigation. So far as the Animal Welfare Act is concerned, if not these regulations, the RSPCA is both an investigating and a prosecuting authority. But enforcement by local authorities will be as directed by the Secretary of State in Regulation 8. In answer to the question relating to Schedule 1(29) in respect of the phenotype or genotype, the inspection bodies will record and report any evidence of detrimental effects. There will be a full debate on this, but the inspection bodies will make a report of evidence where there are detrimental effects. This answer may not be satisfactory because I do not fully understand it myself, but it is the best I have got and no doubt if more is needed, I can come back on it. On suffering and the issue of well drained low-lying areas raised yesterday at the briefing, the offence in the regulations is to not take all reasonable steps to ensure that the conditions in which animals are kept comply with Schedule 1. Reasonable steps must be taken and common sense will have to prevail. We are not being overly prescriptive on these practical issues. It is true that the regulations are open to interpretation, but specific limits and times have not been laid down because normal, common-sense farming practice will ensure those. If the courts have to make an interpretation, they will look to custom and practice and will consider what was reasonable under the prevailing circumstances at the time of the alleged offence. That is an important aspect of the issue. As long as the farmer or keeper of the animals can show they took all reasonable steps, quite frankly, no offence will have been committed. A case will be considered in the totality of the circumstances. I want to make it absolutely clear that enforcement has got to be both reasonable and proportionate. I have not yet had an opportunity to have a chat with Ben Bradshaw, who was doing this as his day job, as it were, before the reshuffle. But I did not get the impression from the papers I saw that a massive number of cases have arisen from the operation of the existing regulations. While there do not seem to have been any disproportionate effects, it is nevertheless something I want to look at. The noble Baroness supported what I said about consumers, but took the opportunity to take a sideswipe at the Government for not doing enough on labelling and the issue of sustainability. She is quite right in a way. We are limited in what we can do on labelling, as I will make clear when responding to the Question we will have before the recess. Food labelling is a hot issue both in the department and across the food industry. I fully accept that and I think that people should be given as much information as possible, but without having a booklet to go with each product. If that happens, people will not read them. I think she agreed with the point I made, as indeed did the noble Lord. On the issue of common land, I am happy to repeat the commitment I made yesterday in private. Clearly this is new, and I fully accept that things are going to change slightly because of the Commons Act 2006, and I fully accept that this year some of the single farm payments were delayed because of issues relating to common land. We were working from handwritten registers dating back to 1965, which I saw myself, all handled by the Exeter office of the Rural Payments Agency. I know the difficulties it was dealing with. We solved most of the problems and got the payments out, so it is not a long-term problem, but I understand that farmers with commons rights might feel as though we are coming down on them; we are not. I am happy to give a commitment on behalf of the Government—not for myself because I suspect that Ministers come and go—that we will review the operation of these regulations on common land after a couple of seasons. I think that that is reasonable in the circumstances. I have answered on bees. I wonder whether I have missed something. Yes, bedding for dairy cows. Apparently, it can be interpreted widely that straw, shavings, sand, rubber mats and mattresses are all used as bedding. When I was at the Great North Meet early this year or late last year, I saw examples of rubber bedding that I had not seen before. It was far superior to other forms of bedding that the manufacturers and suppliers were making, and it was made from what was previously called waste, if I remember rightly. That is a big advantage. It was a win-win situation. The interpretation of ““bedding”” goes much beyond the traditional sense of either straw or sand, to rubber mats. I hope that that definition would not be a problem in the circumstances that the noble Duke raised. It depends what the circumstances are for those dairy cows. If I have missed anything out, I will be happy to come back on it, but as far as I can see from my notes, there is nothing else.