(REGULATIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE WELFARE OF LIVESTOCK.) (Hansard, 21 February 1968)

§ Mr. James Davidson (Aberdeenshire, West)
I beg to move Amendment No. 45, in page 2, line 25, after ' food ', insert implant or injection '.

§ Mr. Speaker
With this Amendment we are taking Amendment No. 46, in line 26, after food ', insert implant or injection '.

§ Mr. Davidson
I apologise to the Minister for the lateness with which the Amendment was submitted, but I was trying to ascertain whether the point in question had been raised in Committee. I understand that it was not. The Clause gives powers to Ministers to introduce regulations to prevent suffering to animals due to either constricted accommodation, improper diet or mutilation of any sort. An outstanding omission from the powers which the Clause gives to Ministers appears to be that of prohibiting or regulating the introduction into an animal by means of implantation or injection of substances which might cause suffering or have other side effects. The Amendment seeks to remedy that omission.
In addition, I had in mind the human aspect of the problem. As the Minister well knows, substances are used by implantation for capernising fowls for later consumption. Substances such as hexaestrol are implanted behind the ears of. fattening livestock to make them grow faster and fatter, and various preparations are introduced by means of injection—iron injections in pigs, for example—to which additives could be added. A whole variety of vitamin and antibiotic preparations is used for injection into various livestock.
I do not say that those substances are necessarily dangerous or cause suffering to the animal, but while the opportunity exists it should be taken of giving the Ministers additional powers to prohibit or regulate the use of certain substances, if necessary, if it is considered that they might cause suffering to livestock or have undesirable side effects on human beings who later consume the carcases or products of the livestock which have had implantations or injections.
454 If it is not out of order to say so, the whole thalidomide incident and the results from it should be a warning to the nation of what can happen if substances are used in any way without having been properly tested by research and other means. I do not believe that people yet fully understand the possible side effects or outcome of these growth elements which are implanted into livestock to make the meat more tender or to make them grow more rapidly.
I urge the Government to use this opportunity not only to take extra powers to protect animals against possible suffering due to injection or implantation of undesirable substances, but also to ensure control in safeguarding the rights of the public. The Minister will be well aware that there are many among the public who are extremely worried about the type of substance which is now used to aid the farmer—and being a farmer myself, I should, perhaps, declare an interest—in getting his fatstock more quickly to market.

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie)
Being a farmer, I suppose that I should declare my interest in this subject. The House will appreciate that the generality of regulation-making powers which we seek in subsection (1) would enable us to deal with the welfare implications, if any. I ask the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson) to realise that there is no proof that any welfare issue is attached to implanting or injecting. I have been trying to think particularly of injections which could involve a welfare consideration other than the welfare of the animal in a veterinary sense. It would be difficult to argue that implanting was in any way cruel to the animal.
The hon. Member mentioned that we had particularised three points in the Clause. This part of the Bill arose out of the Brambell Report and we have particularised the three points which that Report particularly put forward. If any welfare consideration is attached to implanting or injections, it can be dealt with by the generality of the power to make regulations. We will, of course, keep an eye on all practices which are adopted in the rearing and keeping of farm animals and we shall deal with welfare aspects as they arise. That is 455 why we have sought the wide powers under the Clause as a whole.
The hon. Member made a point of the human aspect. This really has nothing to do with animal welfare. In any event, it is dealt with under the Food and Drugs Act and that position is not altered under the new Medicines Bill which is now in course of passage through the House. For these reasons, the Amendments would be entirely unnecessary additions to the Bill and I must ask the House to reject them.

§ Mr. Godber
I listened with interest to the points made by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson) in moving the Amendment. We in the Conservative Party have viewed the Clause in a rather different light. Our view was that the Government were taking unduly wide and general powers. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary will recall that in Committee we had a considerable debate on this aspect. We said that the Clause went too wide and covered too great a generality of matters and gave the Minister powers which we did not feel had been justified.
In resisting the Amendment, the hon. Gentleman rests his case on that generality of powers which the Clause contains. He is almost putting it forward as a virtue of the Bill. It is extraordinary how Ministers can become, as it were, corrupted by their own power in this way and in seeking these enormously wide powers.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary said to the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West, "Don't worry, old boy. If it does not come by the use of your words, subsection (1) is so wide in phrasing that we can get in practically anything we want." It is deplorable that such legislation should be brought forward. That was why we were critical of the Clause in Committee. We believe that it is too widely drawn.
I would not be opposed to the proposals made by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West, because he seeks, in a sense, to make the Clause more specific. The whole Clause needs redrafting, however, to make it narrower and in such a form that Ministers do not have the wide, sweeping powers in which the Joint Parliamentary Secretary so clearly revels.
456 Therefore, while I am in no sense hostile to the Amendment, I regret to say that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary is right in saying that he has these wide powers. I do not think that he should have them, and we resisted them in Committee. Having dealt with the matter at some length upstairs, however, Mr. Speaker, I know that you would not wish me to follow it further here. I merely wanted to make clear our position in regard to the Amendment.

§ Mr. James Davidson
I listened with interest to the view expressed by the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber). I appreciate that sweeping powers are taken in the Clause, but at this stage in the progress of a Bill there is no opportunity to undo any damage which may have been done by the Government in seeking to take wide and sweeping powers.
My point, which I hope I got across, is that if the Government are taking those wide and sweeping powers, they have made an omission in them in that there is nothing which I can read into the Clause to cover the possible suffering which might be caused to livestock by injection or implantation. I realise that the Brambell Report is behind this part of the Bill, but surely that does not preclude the introduction of other principles into the Bill. By my Amendment, I seek to work in a little bit of consumer protection and perhaps, in the broadest sense, I am treating human beings as livestock, but I should have thought that that was permissible under the Bill. If the Minister insists that that is so—and I should like him to answer this point—I will naturally bow to his judgment and accept his assurance that his point can be dealt with in regulations. I seek to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Mr. George Willis (Edinburgh, East)
On a point of order. I understood that the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson) was withdrawing his Amendment. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The hon. Gentleman was speaking for a second time which, I understand, is out of order on Report.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher)
On Report, an hon. Member who moves an Amendment has a right to reply. I understood the hon. Member 457 for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson) to say that if the Minister gave a certain assurance he would ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. That is why I looked to the Minister to see wheter he will give that assurance. As the Minister did not rise, and as the Amendment has not been formally withdrawn, I called the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths).

§ Mr. Eldon Griffiths
I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary how he will define a "balanced diet". Apparently he will consult such persons appearing to represent the interests concerned. Is he proposing to lay down precisely what kind of balanced diet my constituents should have in their piggeries and livestock units at any stage of the breeding or fattening cycle? If he is, I suggest, as many of my hon. Friends did in Committee, that he is taking far too much power. The farmer is likely to know a good deal more about this matter than the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he will say precisely how he will define a "balanced diet" and whether he proposes to go into enormous detail in the regulations which emanate from his Ministry.

§ Mr. John Mackie
With permission, I should like to give the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson) the assurance that his point is covered under the clause and in the Food and Drugs Act. The point about a balanced diet has absolutely nothing to do with the Amendment. However, if the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) cares to join me in a cup of coffee, I will tell him how to balance a diet.

§ Mr. Peter Mills
I can understand what the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson) is trying to achieve. He is trying to protect the consumer. But there is another side to this matter, and this is why I am not happy about the Amendment.
It is important that we should be allowed to use all the modern methods in agriculture. As I said many times in Committee, the consumer cannot have it both ways. If people want good food at a reasonable price, the farmers must be allowed to use the most modern methods, which include implants and injections.
458 To give a practical example, suppose that pigs are suffering because they are doing badly. An injection of iron, or aureomycin in their feed, can alter the whole picture. The difference in the health and growth of the pigs after they have had these injections is remarkable. They no longer suffer, and a healthy carcase for the consumer results. If people want food at a reasonable price, farmers must be allowed to use the most modern methods.

§ Mr. F. A. Burden (Gillingham)
I should like to ask the Minister whether he would have power—and I presume that this would be one of the powers which would be given if the Amendment were accepted—to stop the injection of something into a calf which created anaemia. Anaemia has been deliberately created by means of an unbalanced diet to make veal white. I have seen these animals in Holland. As the Minister probably knows, the President of the British Veterinary Association and I wrote a paper on this matter.
If as a result of the Brambell Report the Minister is given power to ensure a balanced diet and that an injection can be substituted for the iron which is provided by a balanced diet, it will destroy any action which the Minister may take and create the very conditions which I am sure he and all of us who have any care for animals are anxious to avoid.

§ Mr. John Mackie
Before the hon. Gentleman came into the Chamber, I made it clear that we have the very wide powers which he would like us to have but which the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) would not like us to have.

§ Mr. James Davidson
I believe that the remarks of the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) were irrelevant to the Amendment. If he cares to visit my farm in West Aberdeenshire, he will find that we employ not only modern but humane methods of husbandry.
In view of the Minister's assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Mr. Peart
I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 45, at end insert: (3) No regulations shall be made under this section unless a draft of the regulations has been approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament. I should like to deal at the same time with Amendment No. 39, in page 39, line 23, after 23(1)(b) ', insert: ' and regulations under section 2 '. Amendment No. 1 fulfils an undertaking which we gave in Committee. It means that Ministers will have to secure an affirmative Resolution in both Houses of Parliament before any regulations made under Clause 2 can take effect. Amendment No. 39 is purely consequential. I am sure that the Amendments will meet with the approval of the House.

§ Mr. Godber
We are grateful to the Minister for the Amendment. We welcome it. We said from the start that we felt that there was a need for affirmative Resolutions to be passed. We are glad that the Government have accepted our view. The Amendment will give the opportunity of putting the sweeping powers of the Clause before the House for affirmative Resolution.
Without wishing to be churlish, may I, as a student of Parliamentary procedure, ask a simple question? In Committee, we put forward an Amendment the wording of which was very similar to the wording of this Amendment. It proposed that No regulations made under this section shall come into force until they have been approved by … each House of Parliament. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary, in indicating that he had some sympathy with our proposal, said: … I assure him "— that is, me— that, on Report, we will seek to insert words to cover the point, but in a better way".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 30th November, 1967; c. 63.] I should like to know in what sense the words of the Government's Amendment are better than the words we proposed. It would be nice if that could be explained to us.

§ Mr. Peart
I know that the right hon. Gentleman is not being churlish, but I would chide him by saying that I thought we had conceded a major point to him, 460 and in view of that I hope we can meet it by being allowed this Amendment.