My Lords, in moving Amendment 2 I will speak to Amendment 3, if it is convenient for the Committee.
The current definition of “wild animal” is unnecessary and unclear. The Bill seeks to replace a licensing regime that affords safeguards for and the protection of animals in travelling circuses with an outright ban on the use of certain species. This is not a proportionate response to interfering with a business’s right to trade.
The current definition fails to recognise that animals in travelling circuses cannot genuinely be considered “wild” on the basis of generations of captive breeding
and close, intimate contact with humans. Some of these animals can be said to be no more wild than a captive-bred working dog, yet because the current definition stipulates that a wild animal is one not commonly domesticated in Britain, they are caught by it. That goes against current wildlife law, which makes it clear that as soon as an animal, however wild in reality, becomes captive in some way, it immediately benefits from the welfare provisions accorded to domestic animals, rather than those reserved for wild animals, which are very different. This confusion is clearly undesirable.
Indeed, it also fails to recognise the domestication of some animals in countries outside the UK, some of which are clearly utilised in other entertainment and educational industries. For example, camels are considered domesticated outside the UK and yet are still offered for camel rides, polo-playing, trekking and racing in the UK—and not by travelling circuses. Llamas and alpacas would be in a similar position.
A better definition to recognise these issues and enable legitimate businesses to continue to trade using their existing animal stock is to modify and include the definition in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which principally provides for offences concerning damage to wildlife. It is a tried and tested definition; I have advanced a modified version of it in the amendment. For clarification, the modification removes any reference to “dead” animals, making it concerned only with protecting live animals.
Turning to Amendment 3, given that some existing travelling circuses may and do display exotic bird species, some of which are non-native to the UK, there is a clear need to comply with existing legislation, both domestic and European, to ensure the protection of wild birds, which is not currently the case in this rather shoddily drafted little measure. The current definition of “animal” in the Bill refers back to the Animal Welfare Act 2006. However, given the need to make sure that a balance is struck between ensuring the protection of animals and allowing travelling circuses to continue trading, my amendment is aimed at ensuring that captive-bred birds are afforded the same protection as that given to them under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981—protection afforded to them while they are still in the egg. The aim of this is to ensure that any birds hatched from eggs taken from the wild are not exempted from the prohibition in the Bill. Travelling circuses will need to ensure that any birds they display, as with any other areas of the captive wild bird trade, are born and bred in captivity. I beg to move.