My Lords, I am very grateful for the draft of the Bill, and particularly for the definition of “livestock” on page 3, which
“includes any creature kept for the production of … drink”.
I had to look that up on Google. I will not repeat most of what Google suggests. The most printable is seagull wine, but I had not realised that we had such industries in the UK.
My amendment would make the definition “in connection with” the farming of land rather than “in the farming of land”. I want to quiz the Government on why they have drawn the boundary in that way. It seems to me to exclude a number of common inhabitants of the farmyards I grew up on, such as dogs, pigeons, cats and, indeed, horses. I do not know how horses, even New Forest ponies, come in under the definition of livestock in the Bill and I cannot find a place for maggots, although maggot farming is still an active business in this country. Other than that, Amendment 68 seems on the prescriptive side, although it reminds me of my cousin, who was shipped out to Australia with a one-way ticket and found himself on Intercourse Island in Western Australia castrating sheep with his teeth.