Mutilations (Permitted Procedures) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2008

I thank the Minister for his introduction of the regulations. It is better to get it right eventually than to allow it to remain wrong. Perhaps the focus on issues such as tail docking prevented us giving this issue proper evaluation in the 2007 regulations. We value the fact that the Government have reviewed the operation of the 2007 regulations and been prepared to revisit them to ensure that practices with long-term welfare management benefits for the animals involved will be permitted. They are later in being laid than the consultation paper intended. What does the Minister consider to be the consequences of that delay? As my honourable friend Mr Wiggin pointed out in another place, it has already resulted in a loss of income to the farm veterinary profession, which already has pressures on it and is short of recruits. The danger with this sort of legislation is that, short of constant updating, procedures become outdated as new ideas and practices developed elsewhere. The failure to recognise sheep and goats in the first permitted procedures has disadvantaged British producers. One can see from the internet that this is a fast developing area of scientific advance. It would be a disservice to our livestock sector if those advances were prevented from being incorporated into our industry by an overly restrictive regime. The Minister accepts that the consultation process held before the introduction of the 2007 regulations failed to pick up on these issues. He made it clear that he thought that the industry should have been able to present them to the Government at the time. Were the Government sufficiently practical in seeking advice on those issues? What were the Government's advisers saying on the inclusion of sheep and goats in the regulations, for example? What steps are the Government taking to ensure that when regulations of this type of consequence on primary legislation come into effect, we sweep up all the issues that are likely to be involved, so that we do not have to revisit regulations in so short a time? There is in principle a danger in relying on a regulatory regime that defines in detail permitted procedures but which, by definition, excludes all others. If the permitted procedure is not defined, it is by definition not allowed. It can mean that progress is dependent on a new regulation coming in to permit the new scientific advance. Given the high animal welfare standards in this country—I am sure that the noble Lord agrees—the regulation could be amended to reflect the current animal health and welfare requirements, while retaining the flexibility to use new and innovative techniques as they become available. In other words, is a prescriptive regulatory regime the best way of dealing with such issues? The deficiency of playing catch-up is best demonstrated by the ovum transplantation and other artificial insemination methods being extended to include sheep and goats. New techniques can be highly beneficial to animal welfare and good management. What about camelids, such as alpacas and llamas? In the US, the research into transplantation and embryo transfer is much more advanced than here and includes frozen blastocysts. That could have considerable advantages for breeders in this area of animal husbandry, particularly as artificial insemination in camelids is impracticable, the collection of semen from males is difficult and camelids are induced ovulators. Schedule 4 concerns birds. How do the Government propose to ensure that the procedures in the proposed A2 and A3 in Schedule 4 may only be carried out within 36 hours of hatching? Is there some development that happens at 36 hours that provides an obvious watershed, or is it just an arbitrary time period? We have received considerable concerns from the RSPCA on wing-tagging. I wonder what the Minister has to say about that and whether he can reassure Members of the Committee and the RSPCA on that issue. I can but welcome the regulations, but I do so feeling that there may well have been a better way of combining the needs of animal welfare and the use of modern science.