My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Fookes, although slightly surprised that she was surprised that I would be surprised that she was agreeing with me. We agree on many things, and I share her concern for animal welfare. I was reflecting that the fact that the Bill excludes people means that the Minister will not be covered by it. I am beginning to feel that this Committee is a bit of a cruel and unusual practice for a new Minister. I am not absolutely convinced that he would be reading out his departmental briefs if he had known what was going to happen during the course of this
afternoon. My advice to him is to take on board the pretty much unanimous desire in this Committee—there are people coming from every direction—to see a little more meat on the bones of this legislation.
I am grateful to find myself in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on the second amendment, about the composition of the committee. I was slightly surprised—I think he let the cat out of the bag—when my noble friend the Minister said that if the committee members did not perform, they would be replaced. I thought he was arguing that this would be an independent committee. Is it independent or not? It is certainly not independent if members are going to be replaced by Ministers. In his case, I would be very happy for him to replace people, but this piece of legislation will apply to all Ministers and all future Governments. He is here today but, while I hope he will not be gone tomorrow, Ministers come and go and policies change.
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If my noble friend the Minister is so anxious that Ministers should retain complete flexibility about this, why are we having a Bill and a statutory committee at all? It is perfectly open for him to appoint any committee, give it any brief and appoint any people he wishes to on an advisory basis. We are setting up something in statute that will apply to all future Governments. That is why, on all sides of this debate, people are asking for the kind of rigour and clarity contained in my rather modest Amendment 11. My noble friend Lady McIntosh’s amendment expands that somewhat, but they are all on the same theme—that nature, and committees of this House, abhor a vacuum.
My noble friend also said that the committee would have a secretariat. How many people will that involve? Suppose that the committee decided to look at the impact on animal welfare of HS2, for example—this is across every area of government policy. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, suggested that the resources could be up to £1 million. I was told by the previous Chairman of Committees that just the Select Committees of this House cost £250,000 a year. A committee of this kind will consume enormous resources, so it needs to be constrained in some way, and there is nothing in the Bill.
I accept the points made about merging the two committees and the degree of independence, but the purpose of that amendment was to get my noble friend to explain how it would work if there was a conflict, which was the superior committee, and the difference between advice and the ability to achieve a debate on the Floor of both Houses. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Trees. He is probably right about the amendment, but it was a probing amendment.
I think my noble friend needs to come back on Report with some substantial amendments from the Government. Otherwise, he will be in very considerable difficulty with this Bill.