COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 22 November 1954)

§ LORD CARRINGTON

My Lords, this Amendment and the next one which follows immediately on the Paper are about the same subject. The object of these Amendments is to ensure that the Ministers will be fully empowered to make regulations requiring the sterilisation of meat used for feeding animals, as such meat may be diseased and a danger. I think it has happened that somebody, coming home from work when his wife was out of the house, has taken a piece of meat from the kitchen table and cooked it for his evening supper when it was, in fact, the dog's dinner. As a result people may become ill—at any rate there is a danger there. It may be proposed under this Amendment to make regulations requiring sterilisation. As the clause stood, it would have been necessary to word the regulations in such a way that the enforcing authority would have to prove that the meat sold for cat or dog food was unfit for human consumption before they could take proceedings for failure to sterilise such meat, a procedure which would not have been convenient or easy. These two Amendments have therefore been inserted. I beg to move that the House doth agree with the Commons in the first Amendment.