COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 22 November 1954)

EARL ST. ALDWYN
My Lords, the first three of these Amendments all serve the same purpose, and I think it would be convenient if, with your Lordships' permission, I were to deal with all three now. Your Lordships will remember that when this Bill was first introduced into this House it provided that a person should be guilty of an offence if, after a date, not earlier than the end of July, 1958, to be appointed by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, he used, sold or possessed for an unlawful purpose a spring trap that had not been approved by the Minister. The spring trap which everyone had most in mind was, of course, the gin, and some noble Lords felt that the Bill as drafted did not set a sufficiently definite and early date for the banning of the gin. The point was pressed to a Division and 1750 the House decided that the Bill should remain as drafted.
Since then it has become plain that feeling against the gin trap has hardened and there has been a growing public demand for the Government to impose an earlier ban. Consequently, on May 27 last my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries announced in another place that he proposed, with the approval of Parliament, to fix July 31, 1958, as the date after which the use in England and Wales of spring traps other than approved traps should be prohibited. He also said that the Secretary of State for Scotland and he were setting up a small committee to speed and help the improvement, testing and development, of alternative traps and to advise generally on the approval of humane traps under the provisions of the Bill. This committee held their first meeting on July 21 this year and they appear to have made a very good start on their work, but it would be unrealistic to expect immediate results.
In accordance with his undertaking, my right honourable friend moved these Amendments, which fix July 31, 1958, as the date after which it will be an offence to use, sell or possess unapproved traps. That date can be postponed by order subject to Affirmative Resolution. The order can postpone the date only by one year at a time and it must be laid before Parliament in draft two years before the existing appointed date. That is to say, if no draft order is laid by July 31, 1956, then July 31, 1958, becomes an absolutely fixed date and cannot be changed.
There is one other provision to which I should draw your Lordships' attention. However unlikely it may be, it would be a pity if there were some striking development arising out of the work of the Humane Traps Advisory Committee over the next six months and we were debarred from applying the ban at an earlier date. These Amendments, therefore, provide that an order can be laid to fix a date earlier than July, 1958, but it must be introduced at least two years before the earlier date which it proposes to fix. For example, a draft order fixing the appointed date at July 31, 1957, would have to be introduced before July 31, 1955. An order of this kind would be irrevocable.
1751 That is the purpose of these Amendments. They seem to me to go a very long way to meet the views which the noble Lords, Lord Elton and Lord Merthyr, put forward so forcefully when the Bill was before your Lordships, and I hope they will feel able to support them. We are setting the Humane Traps Advisory Committee a difficult task and they will be working to a very tight timetable, but I hope I have made it clear that the Government are taking vigorous steps to see, so far as it is possible, that the banning of the gin, when it comes, will not leave the farmers without adequate traps, where these are needed, to keep down the rabbit pest. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.

LORD SALTOUN
My Lords, I think that Her Majesty's Government have made a great mistake, and they have made this mistake upon a falsely understood ground of humanity. There are certain areas where the gin trap is the only method of exterminating rabbits at present known. This step is being taken on an outcry about the inhumanity of the gin trap. Every trap, of almost any kind, entails suffering, but the gin trap, in proper hands, possibly entails far less suffering than any other of the common forms of killing rabbits. The only effect of the trap is to numb, like a great bruise, the leg of the animal, and my observation is that rabbits are generally very quiet when trapped. They do not move much. Of course, they are trapped and they suffer, but they suffer probably much less than in any other case. Anybody who has seen a rabbit in a snare, as I have seen a great many, and knows how long and how agonising is their suffering, would realise that a snare is far, far worse than any gin trap; but no Government will venture to do away with the snare, because if they did, it would offend so many of their political supporters who use them. Experience has shown that in certain areas if people wish to exterminate rabbits they can use only the gin trap, so far as our knowledge at present goes. For that reason I think this is a contradictory provision to put into the Bill, and I regret that the Government have seen fit to put it in.

§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL
My Lords, let me first apologise to the noble Earl for not having been present during his speech. He was good enough to tell me in advance that he intended to make his arguments on this clause on the first Amendment, and I should like to follow his example. I think these Amendments are an improvement on the Bill: indeed, they will give what many noble Lords asked for when the Bill was before your Lordships on a previous occasion. At that time, as noble Lords will remember, the Government refused a request that was made from both sides of the House to put a fixed date in the Bill for the prohibition of the gin. I am extremely glad that they have had second thoughts about this matter. It is not the first occasion when pressure of opinion in another place has been more effective than the pressure of opinion here.
What we wanted, and what we now obtain, is the fixing of a date in the Bill after which the use of the gin will be prohibited. The date when this ban will come into force, as is proposed in these Amendments, will be July 31, 1958, a date that cannot be altered, I think very rightly, without the express consent of Parliament. This new proposal is highly satisfactory to those of us—and I think this represents moderate opinion in all quarters—who are anxious for the gin trap to be banned so far as this can be done without depriving farmers of a legitimate and effective weapon against rabbits. The clause as it stands leaves the fixing of the date to the discretion of the Minister, provided—and this limits his discretion—that it is not fixed before July 31, 1958. It must be fixed for a date after that date, if the Minister chooses to use the discretion given to him by Parliament. This makes the future of the gin trap a matter of profound doubt and uncertainty. These Amendments, however, will remove that uncertainty. They will show that Parliament has decided to prohibit the gin trap at the earliest practicable moment, whereas if the decision had been left to the discretion of the Minister, as the Bill intended, he might have used his discretion to postpone it indefinitely.
One tremendous advantage of putting the date in the Bill is that it will oblige everyone concerned with gin traps to look for alternative methods of destroying rabbits. I do not believe that that 1753 Would have happened so long as the use of the trap might have continues for many years to come. I have put the humanitarian point of view repeatedly in this House, but I have always agreed with the Government (and in this respect I differ from some noble Lords opposite) that the prohibition of this trap must depend upon the availability and general use of a humane trap of roughly equal efficiency. I wish I thought that all other ways of catching rabbits—I do not altogether agree with the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, that all ways are equally disagreeable to the rabbit—were equally effective but—and here I do agree with the noble Lord—I very much doubt, even if myxomatosis greatly reduces the number of rabbits in the country, whether farmers will be able to dispense with some sort of trap altogether. Therefore, the really essential thing is to find a humane equivalent of the gin.
I do not think anyone has accused the present Minister of not doing his best to this end, and I certainly cannot suggest anything further that he can do to expedite the production of a suitable alternative type of humane trap. The Minister now has his advisory committee to do the experimental work; and also he has—as I was glad to notice not long ago—offered a money reward to a successful inventor. Nothing has been said about the amount of the reward, and I imagine that it would not be desirable. I do not suggest that we should go into that now, but I hope it will be a substantial reward, because I feel that it should be a reward worth having. A humane trap may not decide the fate of nations but, unlike some new lethal weapons or some improvement on an old weapon of destruction, it can be used only to lessen suffering and to ease the consciences of those who are obliged to inflict it. I feel that anyone who invents this type of trap will be a real public benefactor.
I do not regard the two provisos in the new subsection (6) as being in the least unreasonable. I think the Minister should have the power, with the consent of Parliament, to advance or, if necessary, to postpone the date. I, for my part, hope—and I am sure most of your 1754 Lordships will share my opinion—that it may prove possible to advance the date. I realise that the testing and production of a new trap will take considerable time; but if the Minister is luckier than he appears to expect to be in hitting on the right design during this trial period, I trust that he will not hesitate to ask Parliament to advance the date, even if it can he brought forward by only a few months. I am certain that if the Minister proposed action of that kind, he would find a warm welcome for his proposal in Parliament. I support this Amendment and the following Amendment to Clause 8, and I strongly commend them to your Lordships.