Lords Sitting of 22 February 1977

Preamble
The House met at a quarter-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwell.

LORD FAULKNER OF DOWNPATRICK
The Right Honourable Arthur Brian Deane Faulkner, having been created Baron Faulkner of Downpatrick, of Downpatrick in the County of Down, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Erskine of Rerrick and the Lord Grey of Naunton.

TRIBUTES TO MR. ANTHONY CROSLAND
2.32 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, I am sure we would not wish to proceed with business without recording our deep sorrow at the untimely death of Anthony Crosland and our sympathy and support for his widow and family.
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The tributes that have been paid to his memory by leading statesmen all over the world, and not least yesterday in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and others, are a testimony to the respect, admiration and affection which this brilliant and courageous man inspired in all who knew him. I myself worked closely with him at the Department of Education and Science and at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where I was privileged to enjoy his friendship as a man and his confidence as my superior. Like others, I saw for myself how he combined intellect and integrity, qualities which he dedicated in war and in peace to the service of his country and humanity.
His public achievements are a matter of record, but like the Prime Minister I should like to emphasise his contribution to the great inquiry of our times: how to pursue constructive change through democratic means. As thinker and executive he constantly applied this high principle to his every action. My Lords, like Iain Macleod, whose memory we continue to cherish, Anthony Crosland was struck down literally in the harness of duty. But I believe he died as he lived, a happy man, surrounded by the love of a family in whom he delighted, and knowing not only that he had worked to high purpose but also that he had lived according to the higher graces of good humour, good taste and good faith.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Carrington, who is abroad at the present time, and of my noble friends on these Benches, we should like to be associated with the moving tribute which has been paid to the late Anthony Crosland by the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts. From reading his obituary it was clear that Anthony Crosland as a student was already a dedicated politician, and he never swerved from the principles which he formed at that age. His thought and beliefs were implemented throughout his life by his distinguished writings and by his political career. We on this side of the House realise that he will be a great loss not only to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and all his colleagues in the Labour Party, but also to our country. He had already earned the great admiration of his fellow Ministers in the European Council of Ministers over which he was already presiding so distinctively in such a distinguished manner from January of this year.
From this House goes a particularly warm tribute to him for his achievements. Only last Thursday from all sides of this House tribute was paid to the remarkable and distinguished speech that he had made in the European Parliament. On behalf of noble Lords on these Benches, I add our tribute to those expressed by the noble Lord, and we send our deep sorrow to his wife and his family.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, from these Benches we also wish to be associated with the tributes which have already been paid to Anthony Crosland both inside and outside Parliament. His tragic death came as a very great shock to the country as a whole, and those of us who had known him at fairly close quarters over many years sustained a special sense of shock at the loss of one who we all knew had so much still to give to international and domestic politics, in addition to the notable contribution which he had already made in his lifetime. It has been rightly said and echoed today that this is a loss to much more than the Labour Party and the Government. We all, in all quarters, feel it very deeply, and we wish to send our sincerest sympathy to his charming wife and his family.
Lord SELWYN-LLOYD: My Lords, I should like to say just a sentence or
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two from these Benches, from one who held the office of Foreign Secretary and who in fact—a daunting thought—was appointed to it over 21 years ago. Anthony Crosland had a fine mind. He was an effective Minister and debater; he upheld the standards expected of the Treasury Bench—lucidity, courtesy, moderation but firmness when necessary. He had a most attractive personality. His death is a great loss to our public life. Our sympathy goes out to his widow; they were, I know, a devoted couple. Our good wishes go to his successor.

WATERWAYS BOARD AND HORSE-DRAWN BOATS
2.39 p.m.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will try to dissuade the British Waterways Board from banning horse-drawn boats from the canals and waterways under the Board's control; and whether they agree that possible damage to tow-paths and inconvenience to other users is insufficient reason for such a ban.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I understand that the British Waterways Board have not imposed a total ban on horse-drawn boats using their navigations but that they have decided not to licence any more than the seven boats which are already operating. Licensing of boats is a matter for the Board and it would not be appropriate for the Government to seek to dissuade them from any course of action which they consider appropriate in matters of day-to-day management. Nevertheless, my right honourable friend the Minister of State has written to the chairman of the Board questioning this policy and I am sending a copy of his letter to the noble Lord.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that encouraging reply, may I ask her whether she would agree that we in this country have a great reverence for tradition, and

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that the tradition of horses on the water-ways really goes back to the start of the waterways? Further, would she not think that if no further licences are to be issued, very shortly there will not be any horses anywhere, and would this not be the greatest of pities?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I am sure the House will agree that these nostalgic links with the past ought to be retained in a few places where to do so might be feasible; but only seven boats are licensed at the moment on about 2,000 miles of waterway belonging to the Board, and I understand that they have not received any new application since 1974.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, would the Minister perhaps agree that it is not horses that harm the environment and inconvenience other canal users, but rather flat-bottomed craft fitted with outboard motors, which flagrantly exceed the statutory speed limits, thereby washing away the banks of the canals and driving away wildlife? Would she perhaps suggest to the British Waterways Board that, rather than horse-drawn boats and barges, it is this sort of behaviour that ought to be banned?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, that is another question. I will draw the attention of my right honourable friend to the comments made by the noble Lord.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, while my noble friend is drawing the problem of the canals to the attention of her right honourable friend, and since many of us concur with the supplementary question just asked, may I ask her whether she will endeavour to make her right honourable friend realise the value to Britain of these great canals, to see that they are used for transport, when some future Government with common sense works out a national transport policy which will use the canals for the benefit of Britain, as the canals are used in Europe?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I am sure my right honourable friend is aware of the views expressed by my noble friend.

CONTINENTAL SHELF EXPLORATION: ROCKALL
2.43 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a Statement on the right to extract minerals and hydro-carbons from the Continental Shelf in the vicinity of Rockall.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, areas of the United Kingdom Continental Shelf to the West of the Hebrides and surrounding the Island of Rockall were designated under the Continental Shelf Act 1964 in 1971 and 1974. Holders of exploration licences are free to exercise their exploration rights within designated areas. No production licences have yet been issued in the vicinity of Rockall.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply. I trust that the dispute that has arisen with the Irish Government can be settled amicably. Can the noble Lord give an assurance that in the mean-time there need be no delay in the exploration work relating to the blocks which have been allocated recently to BP in the area contested by the Irish Republic? And can the noble Lord confirm that in the past six years, since the British delineation of the Continental Shelf in that area, no dissent whatever was registered by the Irish Government until a few days ago?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I can confirm that there will be no unavoidable delay in allowing exploration and, where licensed, production to proceed. As to the point on arbitration, we have conveyed to the Government of the Republic of Ireland our view that the dispute should be submitted to some form of third party settlement of a judicial nature. I would wish to give attention to the third point and provide the noble Lord with a specific and precise answer.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords could the noble Lord tell the House what is the basis of the Irish claim?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, not without considerable notice. This is not only an international claim; it is also an Irish one.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, is not the basis of the British claim merely that slightly more than 10 years ago a helicopter owned by the United Kingdom landed on this rock in the middle of the Atlantic, and we then announced that it belonged to the United Kingdom? Is not that a rather artificial concept, and may not a way out of the dispute be for us and the Irish jointly to agree that the ownership of the resources in the Continental Shelf surrounding Rockall should be vested in the United Nations, as a contribution by the United Kingdom towards a solution of the problem of ownership of the deep ocean resources?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the concept might well be artificial if the facts were precisely as the noble Lord has advanced them. They are not quite as he has informed the House. It would take a little time to give a full account of the history of this island. I notice that The Times has been engaged in helping us on this matter. The noble Lord can take it that the British claim is well founded in law. The second point that he made is, of course, a very helpful one. I have said that we have conveyed to the Government of the Republic our willingness to proceed to arbitration on a judicial basis. As to the possibility of certain areas throughout the world, perhaps areas around islands of this nature, being sequestrated for international purposes, this is a continuing matter of discussion in the United Nations Law of the Sea Conference. I think the noble Lord will agree with me that so far at least the United Kingdom has proved eminently ready to consider any proposal on those lines, not confined specifically to islands, but generally.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, will the noble Lord confirm that the Irish Government's claim appears to ignore completely the islands off the West
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of our coast, together containing many thousands of population, and to be based entirely on the coastline? Will he confirm that these islands are just as much part of Scotland as the mainland, and that any proposition of this kind, if it were to be sustained, would raise a very serious issue for other countries in a similar situation, and, of course, especially for archipelagos?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. The Irish claim, at least in part, is based on precisely that: they wish to measure the distance between the mainland of the United Kingdom—that is to say, in this case the mainland of Scotland—and Rockall, from the land mass, ignoring the fact that the Western Isles and the Outer Hebrides are very much part of Scotland and of the United Kingdom.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, will the noble Lord enlarge on what he has said and tell us this simply for the information of the House? Since he now admits that this Irish claim has, at any rate, a geographical argument behind it, does it also have a geological argument and does it have an historical argument?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I would, of course, dispute that the Irish claim had valid argument on any of those three grounds, but this is surely a matter for fairly prolonged argument, especially in this connection. I would simply say that, on geographical grounds—in which the noble Earl is perhaps more interested than any of us, and certainly most competent to speak—a simple measurement would show that the island is within the sovereignty of Britain on measurable geographical grounds. As to history, I would not, as I said before, without very long notice, engage in any historical points involving myself and my cousins the Irish.
Lord LOVAT: My Lords, can the noble Lord indicate the population of Rockall?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, my Lords, with great precision—nil.

COCHRANE WORKING GROUP AND CHIROPRACTORS
2.50 p.m.
Lord FERRIER: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether or not it is intended that a doctor of chiropractic will join Professor Cochrane's Working Group to study back pain.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the Working Group on back pain has already held two meetings, and it is not proposed to add to its membership. The chairman has advised that full consideration is being given to the use of various types of manipulative therapy in the treatment of back pain. The British Chiropractors' Association has been invited to submit its views and particularly evidence of the results of research into the contribution of chiropractors to the relief of back pain.
Lord FERRIER: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. Does he recall that when Dr. David Owen—and I take this opportunity of congratulating him on his elevation to Cabinet rank—decided to create this Working Party he used the word "multidisciplinary "? Therefore, would the noble Lord not agree that if it is to be multidisciplinary, a representative of this discipline should without more ado be appointed as a member of the Group?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I take the noble Lord's point. However, one must bear in mind that in this particular field, as he rightly says, a number of disciplines operate. It is quite impossible for practitioners of manipulative therapy to be represented in any great number on the committee. The noble Lord will know that among the members of the committee are a physiotherapist and an osteopath, who is also a medical practitioner. They were selected as being representative of the largest groups of such practitioners. There is this difficulty of limiting the size of the committee and embracing all aspects.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, is it possible for other groups that are interested in this area of treatment—such as groups interested in the Alexander technique—to make representations to this Working Group?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, it is for the Working Party to decide its own procedures, but in my reply I said that the chairman of the committee had made it clear that the Chiropractors' Association is invited to submit views. I imagine that that offer would be open to any other organisation that has a contribution to make in this field.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, in view of the fact that Professor Cochrane is able to arrange his own procedures, would it not be possible to co-opt a member on to the committee without adding to the membership of the committee as such?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, whichever way it is done, one would add to the number. There is a chairman and 15 members who are drawn from a very wide field of competence, expertise and knowledge. If one co-opts one person, I am perfectly certain that three or four other organisations with a similar competence could also be asked to co-opt. I think that would be highly dangerous.
Lord FERRIER: My Lords, although appreciating the difficulties to which the noble Lord has referred, does he realise that this particular discipline has more to do with the treatment and investigation of the back than any other discipline—in fact, that is its sole concern—and that this discipline is recognised in practically half the civilised world as part of their National Health medical advance.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, it is because there is some recognition along the line that the noble Lord has suggested that the chairman has invited the association to submit views and particularly evidence of the research which it has carried out. I hope it will do so.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, as this problem is so grave and extensive, can my noble friend give any indication as to when the committee is likely to report?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am afraid that I am unable to do so. It has had only two meetings. I cannot give the House any guidance on that matter at all.

CHLORODIFLOUOROMETHANE AND CANCER
2.55 p.m.
Lord CROOK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether their attention has been called to the warning issued by reputable manufacturers (such as ICI and Du Pont) as to the necessary precautions to be observed in handling chlorodiflouoromethane; and what action, if any, has been or is being taken to investigate, in the public interest, the suggestion that the chemical is a cancer-causing agent.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the chairman of the Health and Safety Commission informs me that Imperial Chemical Industries Limited informed the Health and Safety Executive of the results of a test carried out on chlorodiflouoromethane which suggested that the chemical might be a cancer-causing agent. The results came from a screening test involving the induction of mutations in micro-organisms and cannot be taken as conclusive that the chemical would cause cancer either in experimental animals or in human beings. The Trades Union Congress medical adviser is also aware of this information. Both ICI and Du Pont have supplied the Executive with copies of the advice given to their customers outlining precautionary measures to be taken when handling this chemical. The Executive has further been informed that ICI has started a long-term study with experimental animals in order to resolve the suspicion of cancer-causing effect. Du Pont has also announced its intention to undertake similar long-term studies in the United States of America. The Executive is following closely this work and will consider the implications when the results of the studies are known.
Lord CROOK: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that excellent reply as regards general content. Is it the intention to get quick results in relation to this matter, and not slow ones, bearing in mind that I received that kind of reply when I first raised questions about asbestos and scrotal cancer as long as 20 years ago? No one thought then that anything was wrong, but look at what has happened since!
Lord ORAM: My Lords, we recognise the urgency of this matter, but, on the other hand, the kind of experiments that have to take place will necessarily take some time.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that not everyone would agree with the "ratomorphic" approach to these studies that have been outlined? It would be more reassuring if the noble Lord could have told the House of any epidemiological studies taking place among those workers who are exposed to these materials.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I do not claim to match the noble Lord in his use of scientific words. I shall examine quite closely what he has said and write to him about any such studies that have taken place.
Lord HALE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in this general field of toxic agents—and the published list contains well over 100 chemicals—there is increasing anxiety at the statements we are getting? I received one fairly recently on dioxine, which is still in use and which we are now told can produce secondary effects if the weeds on which it is used are put on a bonfire. In every case there has been a tendency to conceal from the start; in every case there has been a tendency grossly to understate the risks, and in every case more serious toxic results have followed the use of these new and untested chemicals.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I know that the whole House is impressed by the way in which my noble friend constantly calls our attention to this problem and by his justified anxiety about the matter. I shall call the attention of the chairman of the Health and Safety Commission to my noble friend's remarks.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, in view of the fact that the chemical companies themselves are in some doubt as to the effect of this chemical—otherwise they would not be giving particulars or agreeing to make further tests—would it not be in the best interests of all concerned if the chemicals were withdrawn from use until all these matters are resolved without doubt?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, according to present knowledge this substance has a very low toxicity. I am not sure that the action suggested by my noble friend would be justified in this case, but his remarks will certainly have been noted.
Lord CROOK: My Lords, would my noble friend give an assurance that we shall hear something about this question at an early and not a late date? We had to wait until there were legal actions on asbestos and on scrotal cancer before anything at all was done by the Government of the day, and we do not want this to happen in respect of people using refrigerators and freezers.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I will give my noble friend an undertaking to keep him informed of developments. If it is appropriate, we can arrange that the House as a whole should be informed as weil.

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS BILL [H.L.]
3.1 p.m.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I shall be brief because we have a long list of speakers and I shall have the opportunity of replying at the end of the debate. The Bill itself is self-explanatory. It has only one cause and effect—and I will take from the Long Title the words:
"An Act to restrict certain experiments on animals."
I am very grateful to all noble Lords who are taking part in the debate—taking up a truly Christian attitude, even to those who are going to oppose me. I should particularly like to express appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest, who has come a long way especially to make his maiden speech on this occasion.
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I am also grateful to the Research Defence Society and my friends in the cosmetics industry (I do have some) who have given me a statement of their case.
Today is animals' day. I think last Wednesday was people's day. Indeed, this is Animal Year, and I am sure that all your Lordships will recognise that people do care about animals. The recent plight of stranded cattle, the release of the beagle dogs just before Christmas, show that when people know about these situations they call for action. I have received, and continue to receive, hundreds of letters on this Bill. They are splendid letters, mainly from women but not entirely, and I would say to the cosmetics industry "Please note". In addition, I have had hundreds of thousands of signatures to a petition so weighty that I am unable to bring it into the Chamber. A letter I received today was typical. It came from the nursing staff and the members of the college of remedial gymnasts and therapy at a hospital in Wakefield. I have heard from doctors, chemists, consumers, and from all kinds of people.
The Bill originally, as your Lordships will remember, came before the House in June 1975, and bearing in mind, as befits a humble Back Bencher, the criticism of the Government spokesman at the time when he said that the Bill would not achieve the object sought, I have waited to see whether Her Majesty's Government would introduce their own legislation—as in the case of the Endangered Species Bill which noble Lords will remember was originally introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, and his own tenacity was finally rewarded. However, so far there has been no move in an area where all agree that the existing law is somewhat out of date, to say the least. Therefore, the Bill comes before the House in the same form as before. Having re-read the previous Second Reading debate in Hansard, I suspect that the arguments deployed today also will be the same.
Therefore, the starting point seems to be quite reasonably the question: Is the Bill needed? No one has denied that vast numbers of animals are used for testing. I am not going to put forward a figure, as several organisations have come up with different figures, but I think that the cosmetics industry itself suggests 50,000

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animals, or 1 per cent. of the total of animals used for experiments. Speaking today on a BBC programme, a doctor from the industry said that pain was present but that it was not the same level of pain as humans experience. I am paraphrasing. I think I can reasonably ask:"How does he know"?
There are alternatives, and these will not be looked at while scientists can use animals. Dare I suggest that scientists, like most people, are fairly conservative? I notice that the Research Defence Society in no way attempts to defend all animal experiments. It says:
"The Society is entirely in favour of 'alternative means' to animal experiments being developed as widely as possible and it contributes to the cost of research in this field."
It then goes on:
"But it necessarily takes the strongest exception to unscientific intervention in this very sophisticated area."
I reject at once this arrogant concept. I think I have every right, as an unscientific individual, to intervene in this sophisticated area.
The basic purpose of experimentation is to reproduce the human condition in the animal model. Again I am quoting from those who are dealing in this sphere of research defence. The other, as in the case of lipstick, for example, is that small quantities of the product are absorbed over a substantial time. I think we all know the kind of research that can produce any known result. Any substance, if administered in large enough doses, will kill. If any of us ate enough safety pins, or swallowed pots of paint, presumably we should die. I am not quite sure what, or who, would be benefited by that piece of research.
Much has been made of the argument for safety. May I again quote the Research Defence Society:
"The present legal position of safety testing of cosmetics in Britain is not precisely defined."
Exactly. It is certainly only related, so far as I can see—and I have done my homework—to products having a therapeutic claim. I recall that on a previous occasion the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, referred to toxicity in relation to a cosmetic product. Particularly can I say to
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the women who buy the cosmetics, is it not reasonable to ask for cosmetic products which do not contain toxic ingredients, such as we already have marketed under Beauty Without Cruelty and other firms? There are scores of well-tried basic ingredients already available. Do we need more? In any case, if a cosmetic makes a therapeutic claim, then it can continue to be dealt with under the Act as at present administered. Incidentally, I have obtained a copy of the Draft Directive of the EEC in this connection. It gives a definition of cosmetic products. This was a question debated at some length last time.
May I also mention that since, I understand, VAT is chargeable on cosmetics but not on medicines, a definition must surely be available within the Treasury. It is always significant that if money is to be extracted there can be a clear line of demarcation. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, last time supplied us with a very good definition of a cosmetic, and I hope that this time we are not going to hear anything about that.
I note that reference has again been made to products sold which proved unsafe when used, and that animal tests had not been carried out. In reply to this I can only ask whether tests on animals were carried out for the talcum powder which was found to be dangerous to little children in France not very long ago. I still assert that allergies can be established only when the individual who uses the product has tried it out on himself, or herself, and luckily very few people are allergic to all products. I appreciate the point made, that even if my Bill becomes law it will still be possible for experiments to be carried out on animals for cosmetic products made in other countries (although there are some countries where alternative testing must be done), but why do the British manufacturers not appreciate that women are already asking me for the name of cosmetics for which animal testing is not carried out?
Just after Christmas I went with my two-year-old twin grandchildren to the Beatrix Potter exhibition and I listened again to the enchanting stories of Mrs.Rabbit and marvelled once again at the

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ambivalent attitude of society to animals. Poor Mrs.Rabbit! She may be lovely between the pages of Beatrix Potter—but she may be more unfortunate if she is available for testing. All human life has dignity. If we are to use the animal, it must be for a purpose for which no alternative is possible. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Baroness Phillips.)
3.11 p.m.
The Earl of HALSBURY The Earl of HALSBURY rose to move, as an Amendment to the Motion for the Second Reading, to leave out ("now") and at end to insert ("this day six months"). The noble Earl said: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, having proposed her Motion, in rising to move this Amendment, I have the unenviable task of setting about its rejection in a manner which will leave the House in no doubt that there will probably be a Division on the Motion for the Second Reading. It is a graceless business that I undertake; nobody would want to reject a proposal which obviously has its basis in goodheartedness. I have three purposes, however. First, I must do what I have just said, reject what I consider to be a wrong-headed piece of legislation, however goodhearted its intention. I want, secondly, to save your Lordships' time on the further stages of the Bill because, unless the Home Secretary has changed his mind since we last debated exactly the same Bill six months ago, we shall be told by the Government that they cannot make time available or give support or facilities for the further passage of the Bill, which means that it will not pass.
In that case, would we not do better to save whatever time we have to debate the Littlewood Report of years gone by but which has never had a proper treating in either House, or some of the anomalies latent in circumstances where the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 and the Protection of Animals Act 1911 cover the same territory in somewhat anomalous terms in such a way as to inflict injustice on the individuals concerned? My third reason is that once more I see medical science being placed between the hammer of the human and environmental protection lobby on the one hand and the anvil of the animal protection lobby on the other,
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and it is my task, as the President of the Research Defence Society, to do everything I can to extract it from that position.
I will not make the kind of set speech which I made in the last debate, well constructed on Aristotelian principles and so on; I intend to try to debate this matter by answering some of the questions that were left unanswered then. Both this debate and the previous one have a background. In the last debate the background was a large-scale propaganda campaign mounted by the anti-vivisectionist movement related to the number of animals used in cosmetic testing, and in this debate we must add a further piece of background, namely last Saturday's "Horizon" programme, which I hope as many of your Lordships as possible saw as part of the homework for this debate.
On the last occasion, as to the usage of animals for cosmetic purposes, wild figures were put forward, anything from 1 million to 3 million out of the 5-plus million that occur in the Home Office reports. Wisely, Lady Phillips, both then and now, did not tie herself down to any particular figure, although the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, quoted 1 million as a figure he had seen, but he took no responsibility for its accuracy. Since our last debate I have been doing my homework. I have to some extent mobilised the cosmetical folk to operate through their trade federation to find out how many animals they use. A first figure of 50,000 was put forward, but they have subsequently reduced it to an upper limit of 30,000, so the whole battery of this propaganda has been concentrated on either 1 per cent., if one takes the figure of 50,000 mentioned by the noble Baroness, or 30,000, the figure I am working on; about one-half of 1 per cent. of the 5 million animals used.
The "Horizon" programme was a first-class piece of television journalism—balanced and fair in all respects—but in my view it gave insufficient emphasis to three points which I would like to put before your Lordships because I believe there has been some misunderstanding about them in the past. The first is the formidable character of the Home Secretary's power to cancel a licence. For the employee in industry who had his licence withdrawn it would in effect

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involve complete loss of customary livelihood. He might get another job, but it would not be his customary one, and in a university with tenure it would involve complete blockage of promotion because a person could not go on doing research.
It is often said that there must be something "phoney" about the fact that 100 years have passed without a prosecution under this Act, but in fact there have been three: two of them resulted in an acquittal, and in the third there was a conviction on a technical point not involving an animal. The reason why the Act has not been broken is that the whole of the animal experimentation personnel are most anxious to co-operate with the Home Office; they are not prepared to run any risk of having their licences taken away, and your Lordships should be aware of that point. Secondly, I do not think sufficient emphasis was put on the way in which the economics here work in favour of minimising the number of animals used, and I shall come back to that point later.
Thirdly, I think there was some misunderstanding about the statistics they gave. I could not write them down at dictation speed because they took me by surprise, but the figures given were: for Government use, 950,000; medicine, I think 950,000, making 1,900,000, leaving a total unaccounted for, commercial, of 3,300,000, but that is partly based on a misunderstanding of what one means by "commercial". Insulin is made commercially and has to be tested by the use of animals, and 800,000 animals are used in industry which makes insulin simply for the purpose of standardising insulin, which would be a most dangerous drug if it were not properly standardised. Thus, one has to transfer 800,000 out of one category and into another, whereupon one finds that the accounted for comes to 2,700,000 and the unaccounted for comes to 2,500,000.
Then the LD 50 test. I find that whereas we took up a lot of time when we last debated this issue, it is barely used at all in the cosmetic industry; they use what is called a limit test. A limit test asks this question: what is the largest part of, let us say, cold cream which the smallest child is capable of manipulating that it could swallow at a go? What is
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that as a percentage of its body weight? One then feeds that percentage of body weight to a suitably selected batch of animals, and if they survive it and nothing happens then that drug is regarded as safe. There are a few LD 50 tests done, it is thought with an upper figure of about 200 for the industry as a whole per annum.
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY:
My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether he knows of any authenticated case of a child swallowing a pot of cold cream?
The Earl of HALSBURY: No, I think it most unlikely, my Lords. I said "let us say," but I must add—I shall come back to this later—that there is some difficulty in knowing whether lipstick is what we are talking about or a foodstuff, because lipstick can be traced through the human body and it is generally believed that the greater part of it is in fact ingested and swallowed, and children are brought into hospitals having eaten mother's lipstick and so on.
The last point left unanswered from our previous debate—it sounds rather like something from Agatha Christie—was the case of the noble Baroness's ear rings, and this is what Lady Phillips said:
"I bought some earrings, to which I was obviously allergic, but how could I claim against anybody? Could they have been put on to a little animal and tested?"—[Official Report, 27/6/75; col. 1762.]
If the suspensory part of the ear ring was made of gold or silver, I would doubt whether there was any direct connection between that and the allergy, but if, as might easily have been the case, it was a nickel containing alloy, then nickel allergies have been established because people have to work with nickel. In the context of their work, nickel allergies have been proved on animals. The reason that allergy is such an elusive thing is that it depends upon the life history of the individual and on prior exposure and sensitisation to what are called allergens. But, if the phenomenon of allergy is a little less mysterious than the noble Baroness suggested in her last speech, it is because there are animals which are much more sensitive to allergies than are human beings. Rabbits are an example. All we know about allergies is derived from experiments on animals.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, since the noble Earl has introduced this point, may I say that, when I purchased my earrings, nobody pointed out that because they were nickel and because they had a certain kind of spray on them I was liable to be allergic to them. So what was the point of the test if nobody told me when I bought the earrings?
The Earl of HALSBURY: My Lords, if we want to extend the Consumer Protection Act to saying that jewellery must be tested for allergy in animals, we can do so, but it will be a pretty lengthy business. However, I shall come back to this question of consumer protection later.
On the general point of the excessive use of animals, this must be discussed in the context of the inspectorate. I believe that there is some misunderstanding here which I want to clear up. The 14 inspectors employed by the Home Office do not have to inspect 5 million experiments one by one, each of which is of a different character; they have to inspect 600 establishments, each one of which is carrying out a relatively small number of procedures on a relatively large number of animals. But 90 per cent. of the animals involved are located in 10 per cent. of the establishments, so 90 per cent. of the inspectors' work is involved in visiting 60 establishments. The Institute of Cancer Research, of which I am the chairman, uses 130,000 animals yearly—mostly murines. That is about 2½ per cent. of the 5 million reported to the Home Office. I can vouch from my own experience of our work that those that we use are covered, effectively, by about 10 to 20 standard procedures, agreed with the Home Office in advance and never varied, because to vary them would destroy the comparability between one experiment and another.
As to the definition of cosmetics, which is what this debate is about, I do not know whether the EEC Directive provides a good definition; I do not know whether the definition of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is a good one. But the illustration I have used—that of lipstick—I think shows one of the difficulties. A hair dye is a dyestuff. If it is a hair dye, it is also a leather dye and it may be used in inks, in paints, in textiles and foods. Hair dye may be only one use
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What about the factory personnel who handle these dyes during the course of manufacture? Currently, a large number of new, so-called "permanent" hair dyes are under suspicion as bacterial mutagens; that is to say, they induct the formation of new species of bacteria. This has two dangers. First, the natural bacterial flora of the human scalp can mutate into pathogens. Secondly, mutagens are always high on the suspect list for carcinogenesis. It is not a 100 per cent. correlation, but it is about a 90 per cent. correlation and probably if, under the Consumer Protection Act, one went into a supermarket, the most dangerous things one would find on the shelves would be tobacco products, on the one hand, and hair dyes, on the other.
What is involved in testing a material for carcinogenesis? One makes a solution of it, takes a paint brush and splashes is across an appropriate portion of the skin of a mouse, and then waits for the greater part of the life cycle of the mouse to see whether a tumour develops. If it develops, one kills the mouse and does an autopsy. Do not let us fall into the trap of thinking that mice would be immortal if there were no scientists who used them for experimental purposes: they have to die, like the rest of us, sooner or later. Nobody will keep the tumour going in the mouse for longer than necessary to establish its nature.
I now come to the control of compassion by the economy of the process. A mouse costs, at the point when we have used it, on an average, £1 in direct expenditure. Add overheads and it is £1.50. With 130,000 of these animals in use, I have to find £200,000 a year to finance the utilisation of animals in cancer research. That is about 10 per cent. of our total expenditure. We have to get it out of the Medical Research Council, which is itself short of money. On a project grant, the cost of the animals is included in the grant. The Medical Research Council refers it to assessors to see whether they can suggest cheaper ways of doing it. The first thing they look at is the number of animals we use. Of course, we try to cut it down because the smaller the number of animals the better the chance of our grant getting through. The Medical Research Council tries to cut it down because the cost will be less. We would

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always use alternative methods if they were available and could be used. With the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, she is quite wrong in saying that scientists will not use alternative methods as long as they are given access to animals. At the Institute of Cancer Research, we have both types of research going on side by side. We are asked why we do not grow human breast cancer tissue—carcinoma of the breast—in tissue culture. The answer is that it will not grow; it will only grow as a graft in an immune-deprived mouse and that is why we have to do this.
Dealing with other Acts which might come into collision with this, there is the Pharmacy and Poison Act 1933, the Diseases of Animals Act 1950, the Agriculture and Poisonous Substances Act 1952, the Food and Drugs Act 1955, the Consumer Protection Act 1961, the Medicines Act 1968, and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Also, we are now subject to the EEC Directive of 27th July last, requiring us to homogenise our legislation on the safety of cosmetics and to bring the introduction of new cosmetics into line with the regulations covering the introduction of new drugs.
How can we, with any sense of responsibility, allow Bills to pass when their effect, on the one hand, will be to make it impossible for us to co-operate effectively with our partners in Europe and, on the other, will deny the courts in this country access to evidence in a civil action for tort arising out of the provisions of some of these Acts in our already existing legislation? We must not place Her Majesty's subjects in a position where what one Act enjoins another forbids. I have never questioned the good-heartedness of the noble Baroness, but this Bill expresses the wrong-headedness of the animal lobby whose spokesman she is. I beg to move.
Moved, as an Amendment to the Motion for the Second Reading, to leave out ("now") and at end to insert ("this day six months").—(The Earl of Halsbury.)
3.29 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, I rise to welcome the Bill from these Benches for three reasons. The first is that I believe that this is another attempt to re-examine the state of the law on experiments on live
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animals; the second is that it gives another opportunity to call attention to a matter which gives rise to public concern; the third is that it provides an opportunity to review some of the basic arguments. Many of your Lordships who are taking part in the debate today will feel, as I do, that there is a certain predictability about the nature of the arguments themselves because we appear to be confronted with two irreconcilables—the public need for protection against drug hazard and the use of animals for research to satisfy this need because no suitable alternative exists.
I speak as a layman rather in the same tone as the noble Baroness, though from another Bench. I am not a scientist well acquainted, as is the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, with pathogens, carcinogens and mutagens. Nevertheless, I have also taken the trouble to do my homework in, I hope, some detail, and I should like to suggest, even at this early point in the debate, that these two irreconcilables are not perhaps without a third alternative. On the last occasion when we discussed the Bill, on 27th June 1975, the question of tissue organ and cell cultures was raised, but not in any great detail. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, referred to it once in his reply, and I would further like to add to these alternatives much more sophisticated computer techniques which involve a mathematical process.
I am well aware that there are certain circumstances in which a live animal is to be preferred to either cell tissue or organ culture. Nevertheless, I return again and again to the Littlewood Report and to that very important paragraph, No. 237. I make no apology for quoting it because I believe that it is concerned with one of the basic problems here. It says this:
"As regards public acceptance of what is done, we think it right to draw attention to three major questions which were put to us by several critics of the present scale of animal experimentation:—

(1) Who can say whether, if certain biological tests were forbidden, satisfactory chemical or other methods of testing would not be developed?

(2) Who is responsible for establishing whether modern medical techniques, with their emphasis on immunology and drug therapy both of which are inseparable from animal experimentation, are developing medical practice in the right direction?

(3) Who is to take responsibility for moral or ethical judgment in the use of animals for experimental purposes as such?"

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Those are three very leading arguments, three open questions; and I do not think they have ever been answered, either in this House or in another place. It was certainly not within the capacity of the Littlewood Committee to answer them because they left them as open questions. But I feel that one of the best tests of all is the test of public opinion, and I was particularly glad when the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester referred to this. The right reverend Prelate is not here this afternoon, but his brother, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield, is to speak later, and I hope that we may have some further encouragement from that direction. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester referred, as reported at column 1732 of the Official Report, of our debate of 27th June 1975, to the "Draize" methods of testing. He said that:
"73 per cent. of the electorate disapproved of cosmetics and toilet preparations being tested on animals."
That is an expression of public opinion, and one has to bear in mind at the same time all that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, said about the very necessary protection against drug hazard. I read the noble Lord's speech over twice before coming to this Dispatch Box, and I recognise the very real dilemmas in which the Home Office is placed. But I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, was quite right when he suggested that the Advisory Committee should be more fully utilised than it is at present, and further that there are options open to the Home Secretary to cancel a licence. Here I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury; he referred to this very point this afternoon. Should the Home Secretary be able to examine this question in a little further detail, there are options at his hand which it would be possible to use. The Bill before us suggests closing one of those options, and it was the recommendation of the Little-wood Report that this option should not be taken. Nevertheless, in the way that the Committee worded their recommendation they did not totally close the option. They left it as a partially open matter.
This afternoon we will cover a very wide field, and I want to touch merely upon its periphery. I believe that there is a passive acceptance within the Home Office
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that the present system should very largely continue as it is. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will be able to give a different view. Nevertheless, we have before us a Bill, and in the back of our minds the Report of the Littlewood Committee, which was set up in 1962 by my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor. The Committee reported in 1965, and as many of your Lordships will have found, by now aspects of the Report are considerably out of date, partially because the world of experimentation has become larger and partially because some of the conclusions reached are not entirely satisfactory.
I here refer to the question of publicity, because I believe that the Littlewood Report in its comments upon the publicity aspect did not know what we know now. The noble Baroness referred to the situation as it stood within recent months: the question of experiments on beagles; the question of certain other cases which were brought to public notice. Here is a very important factor. If the public had a greater knowledge of what was being carried out, there would undoubtedly be a far greater outcry, especially in regard to the LD 50 test. We listened with interest to the noble Earl's speech in regard to the LD 50 test this afternoon, and he assured your Lordships that it was used on rare occasions. I believe that this test is repugnant to many of your Lordships and to a very much wider public outside your Lordships' House. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester referred to it—
Lord PLATT: My Lords, may I make a point? I think that when the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, referred to the LD 50 test as being very rarely used, he qualified that by saying "in the cosmetic industry".
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Platt, for saying that. Of course that is perfectly correct, and that is the context in which we are discussing the measure before us. I hope that I have not misled your Lordships in this regard, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for that advice.
I refer to the question of the Home Office returns in this field because we have seen a very substantial growth in recent

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years. The year which was drawn to our attention some time ago was 1972, when the total number of experiments performed under licence was 5,327,123. That was a total figure. Of those, 86 per cent. were performed without the use of an anaesthetic. I understand from the figures cautiously advanced today that that figure has now increased to well over 5½ million. We return once again to the question: Are these experiments really necessary? Again, I believe that there is a wide and growing body of opinion in this country which believes that a number of experiments are duplications and are unnecessary; they are not only duplications of the same research in separate commercial establishments but, further, duplications in batch numbers of specific goods.
My Lords, I accept the fact that the figures are to some extent misleading because we are dealing here with what is said to be 1 per cent. of the total of experimentation. Nevertheless, I believe that even if just one unnecessary experiment in this field is carried out, it is to be deplored. My Lords, I have spoken often enough on this subject, and I have addressed your Lordships many times on measures of a similar nature. I believe that this Bill deserves a Second Reading.
3.40 p.m.
Lord AMULREE: My Lords, I should like to address your Lordships extremely briefly because we have a large number of noble Lords who wish to speak today. I should like to start by saying that I entirely support the Amendment which has been moved by the noble Earl. The number of experiments performed upon animals from a purely cosmetic point of view—I am not going to muddle it up with the medical point of view—is extremely small. It is about 1 per cent. of the total. This really comes down to what we mean by an experiment. You can have a very mild, simple, innocuous experiment, which is what the bulk of those for cosmetics are, or you can have the rather terrifying ones, of which one sees photographs and examples, which are extremely uncommon, although the photographs of them may be quite common.
The Research Defence Society believes, quite properly, that any substance which
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is going to be used widely for a cosmetic must be tested, and that the need is that that test should be a decisive test. Poisoning by a non-medical substance, I am bound to say, does occur from time to time, particularly in the case of children who eat or drink things which are not intended to be devoured but which they find lying about. I think that if you are going to insist that every adult woman must be so careful of her cosmetics that no child can possibly gain access to them unnecessarily, you are really asking for more than can be expected. The number of children admitted to hospital last year suffering from some ill-effects from taking a cosmetic was about 10,000, none of which, I am pleased to say, was fatal. That shows that the testing which had been done before these drugs appeared on the market had been done to some good purpose.
Quite a number of experiments are made upon human beings, particularly as regards hair and skin. I think that if we were to make things more difficult for this limited number of experiments to be carried out in this country then more would be done in foreign countries, and I think it would be found, probably, that the standards of care required of the experimenter there would not be so high as those demanded in this country. One can see where things go wrong because, to come back to the thalidomide trouble, one wonders whether, if tests had been made on pregnant mice, pregnant guinea pigs or whatever was the animal in question, the trouble with thalidomide might have been discovered earlier and the large number of children who were born disabled would not have been so born.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, would the noble Lord forgive me? I should like to ask him a direct question. Was this drug, or was it not, tested on animals?
Lord AMULREE: My Lords, it was tested on animals but, so far as I know, it was not very thoroughly tested on pregnant animals, which is the point I was trying to make.
My Lords, I first became interested in this subject because of the terrible experiences which occurred in the United States of America during the First World War.

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It is all a very long time ago now, but it made one realise then that there was a need to be careful. A certain number of girls were employed in painting watches with luminous radioactive paint so that they could be seen at night. Because there was thought to be no danger in this paint, the girls moistened their brushes with their lips and with their tongues before they applied the paint, which I think is something we all did with normal paint when we were children. As a result of that, because there had been no prior testing of this paint, every one of those young women—and, luckily, there were not a great many of them—developed incurable, intractible, painful cancer of the mouth or tongue, or somewhere in their upper extremity, and they all died of it. It was realised, once the first few had developed this disease, that those who had not developed it quite so soon would do so in time, and they lived waiting for this terrible fate to befall them. That, I think, was one of the first things to come my way that made me see that we have to be extremely careful to make tests whereever we can, so as to be sure that things do not go wrong again.
My Lords, the final point I should like to make is this. It is said that pet dogs and cats get stolen by the experimenters for use in their experiments. This, I think, is extremely improbable, because the kind of animals which are used for experiments of the kind we are talking about have to be bred, and they come from stock. They do not come from the odd dog or the odd cat which is picked up in the streets, or from the odd mouse. So, as your Lordships will have gathered from the short speech I have made, quoting a few points which back up what the noble Earl has said, I personally shall vote for the noble Earl's Amendment.
3.47 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, as a number of speakers have pointed out, this is the second occasion in the last two years when we have had the opportunity to discuss this matter, on both occasions on Bills introduced by my noble friend Lady Phillips. We are dealing here with the balance—and it is certainly a difficult one—between the needs of medical science, on one side, and the discharge of our responsibilities
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towards animals, on the other. It is not the Government's view that this balance can ever be properly set by a single system, by an immutable set of guidelines. It needs to be constantly examined and, if changes are found to be necessary, they must certainly be made. I hope that what I have to say later in my speech will convince the House that the Government are prepared to do this. Nevertheless, I must begin by dealing with the proposals which are set out in my noble friend's Bill, and on this I must make it perfectly clear at the outset that our position has in no way changed since we last debated this issue. The Government do not believe the changes proposed in this Bill to be either necessary or desirable.
The purpose of this Bill is to make it a criminal offence to undertake certain research involving animals—research which has been lawful for a hundred years. Before we take such a step it seems to me that we require to be satisfied that there is involved a problem of such a grave character that the criminal law should be changed in this way. The Government do not believe that any such case has been made out. The case against cosmetic testing on animals—and, like my noble friend, I too listened to the programme on the radio this morning, when this matter was discussed—appears to be that animals should not be made to suffer for what is described as a frivolous purpose.
It may be argued by some that cosmetics may generally serve a frivolous purpose—although I would by no means accept such a statement without substantial reservations. But whatever our views may be on this, their testing, as opposed to their normal use, serves a serious and important purpose: the prevention of avoidable hazards to health. These hazards are not run only by the women, and men, who use cosmetic preparations of various kinds. As has been pointed out, they are run by children who may swallow them accidentally, by the staff who may administer them professionally in hairdressers and beauty salons, and also by those involved in their manufacture. I believe it is essential to establish from the outset that the safety-testing of any substance, whatever the ultimate use of that substance, is of fundamental importance.
The different situations I have described all require that substances should not be

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in use which, because they have not been adequately tested, may have potential for causing serious and unsuspected harm. The prevention of damage of this kind is the purpose of legislation in this country and abroad, the provisions of which are increasingly being strengthened by EEC Directives, one of which deals specifically with cosmetics. My noble friend mentioned this in her speech and I think it is not without importance.
The EEC Directive of 27th July 1976 makes explicit requirements about safety-testing. Article 2 of the Directive reads:
"Cosmetic products put on the market within the Community must not be liable to cause damage to human health when they are applied under normal conditions of use."
Article 3 of the same Directive reads:
"Member States shall take all necessary measures to ensure that only cosmetic products which conform to the provisions of this Directive and its Annexes may be put on the market."
That is an obligation on this country. I would accept that neither the Directive nor the Annexes to it require the use of live animals in tests; but it is the blunt truth that in some cases animals simply have to be used if safety is to be guaranteed. I believe, and I must make it clear, that if this Bill were to go on to the Statute Book, the United Kingdom would be in breach of its international obligations.
Against this, it is argued that existing cosmetics have already been tested, that there is no need for more, and that the use of animals for this purpose only helps to swell the profits of the manufacturers. I do not believe that this argument is soundly based. If we believe that no new cosmetics should be made, and are prepared to make it a criminal offence to do so, that would at least be logical. But I find it impossible to believe that Parliament would ever agree to take such action. That being so, new cosmetics will continue to appear. And if they appear they must be properly tested. In our view it is not only new substances that need testing. Existing substances continue to come under suspicion from time to time—and the noble Earl gave an example—and have to be re-tested. And a new formulation of ingredients which have themselves been tested may still need fresh examination.
It is, of course, perfectly true that most ingredients and formulations have already
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been tested, and this is why many major manufacturers are able to dispense with animal testing in this field; and this has been mentioned. The fact is that, despite exaggerated claims to the contrary, the number of animals used for cosmetic testing is relatively small. The Research Defence Society's estimate is that the annual number may be about 50,000. Although the Government certainly have no way by which they can establish a precise figure, it is our view that this assessment of the volume of cosmetic tests is substantially accurate and that therefore we are talking about a relatively small problem. However, even if the scale of what is involved is relatively small, it remains an important safeguard in this area. The safety-testing of cosmetics is indistinguishable from the safety-testing of any other substances, whether a drug, a pesticide or an industrial or a household product. The Government believe it would be fundamentally wrong to make it a criminal offence—and that is what we are talking about—to undertake the safety-testing of any product, whatever its character.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves the point of the EEC Directive—and it is important—would he give a clear example of testing that has to be done on animals? He has not yet done so. He made the point that the Directive does not require—and I have studied it—that experiments must be carried out on animals. Would he explain which of the Directives would not be fulfilled unless there were tests on animals?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, with respect, I have answered that point. I made it clear. If my noble friend looks at my speech in Hansard she will see that the very point which she has just put to me has been answered in most specific terms. I agree that there is no reference in the Directive to an absolute requirement that animals should be used—I give my noble friend that point—but I am saying that the Government do not believe that they would be able to fulfil the requirements set out in the Directive if safety testing so far as animals were concerned was barred by Statute. That is the point. I would accept at once that my noble friend has, on this occasion as on the last, been inspired by a concern

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for the animals involved and by the desire (which we share) that their suffering should be limited so far as possible.
My Lords, I think we must ask ourselves this question. What is, in fact, the nature of that suffering? Safety testing of cosmetics takes three forms: eye-irritancy tests, tests of skin-reactions and LD 50 tests. In some of these tests, certainly in the first two categories, the suffering involved may be small or non-existent. If a substance proves not to be irritant, then even its application to the eye will cause minimal inconvenience. That must be so. I am not suggesting that in other cases serious suffering is not involved. I am well aware that it is. The point I am making is that cosmetic testing, as such, is in no way coterminous with suffering. This Bill would make a criminal offence of virtually painless treatments as well as of those which are painful.
My Lords, a further point to be borne in mind is that these procedures are far from being confined to cosmetic testing. They apply to all safety-testing of substances which may affect the eyes or skin, or be ingested, at any stage in their manufacture, distribution or use. The banning of cosmetic testing would reduce by only a small fraction the total number of these tests. If the tests cause unnecessary suffering, why ban them only in relation to cosmetics? It is in this respect that the Government believe that this Bill is misconceived. The ban in relation to cosmetics would be based on no principle which has any relevance to the actual pain and suffering which may be involved.
In the Government's view this objection to the Bill is fundamental. But there are other substantial difficulties about it. Let me touch for a moment on the question of definition. It has to be recognised that we are dealing here with substances which have a number of purposes. Soap, for example, is a cleansing and an antiseptic agent. The Bill would exclude from its effect substances which are intended for a medical purpose. Leaving aside the equally difficult question of what is a medical purpose, and how the experimenter is to know that the substance he is being asked to test is intended for such a purpose, substances used for cosmetics often serve purposes other than either cosmetic or medical. In the case of a substance which may be used for a
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number of purposes, what is the position to be? Will it be lawful if there is no cosmeticapplication, or if there is a cosmetic application and also a medical application, but unlawful if, no matter what other purposes may be served, there is a cosmetic use and no medical use? My Lords, I beleve that a requirement of this sort would create a nonsensical situation.
What we are talking about here is our criminal law. This law would have to be administered; and all I am saying is that with such imprecise definition—and I recognise immediately the difficulty in this area so far as those who drafted the Bill are concerned—it seems to me to raise the gravest difficulties. Let me add one final point. In fairness, it was touched on by my noble friend when she introduced the Bill. It is one of substantial importance. If this Bill is passed it would be most unlikely to reduce the total volume of animal suffering in any way. Its most likely effect would be to drive this form of testing outside this country where the controls are often a great deal less stringent than they are in this country.
My Lords, I have set out the serious objections of the Government to the proposals in this Bill. But I fully recognise the strength of feeling which lies behind it. And certainly the Government are just as concerned to eliminate any unnecessary suffering by animals as are the supporters of this Bill. Where we differ is that the Government do not believe that improvements can be effected by a stroke of the pen of this kind, but that they require a continuing effort to bring about improvements wherever that may be possible. The Government are determined to undertake a programme of this kind. And I should like now to take the opportunity to set this out.
First, we believe that the most important requirement for reviewing and improving the administration of this subject is to obtain a better quality of information than exists at the moment. In May 1975, when replying to a debate initiated by my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby, I undertook that the Annual Return of Experiments would be reviewed so as to provide more comprehensive and comprehensible information. I am glad to be able to tell the House today that this review is making good progress. A completely new return which licensees

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will be required to complete has been prepared, and is currently being tested on a sample of licensees. Subject to any changes that that test may show are necessary, it is our intention that the new return should be introduced generally at the end of this year. The information it produces will for the first time enable us to obtain a really detailed and comprehensive picture of all aspects of experimental work. If the timetable can be maintained—and I believe it will—the Annual Return for 1977 published in the summer of next year will be a far more informative document than any of its predecessors. When that is available, we shall be able to identify the areas which call for special attention and review.
Secondly, there is the question of the Advisory Committee. As the House will be aware, my noble friend Lord Houghton has taken the initiative of making wide-ranging proposals based on an extension of the functions of the Committee. These are ambitious proposals and my right honourable friend the Home Secretary does not believe that the Advisory Committee is a practicable medium for achieving a great deal of what is proposed. But at the same time, we believe that greater use should be made of the Committee. My noble friend Lord Houghton and the noble Lord, Lord Platt, together with a number of their colleagues, saw my right honourable friend last week and had—I hope it will be agreed—a helpful discussion. I am glad to be able to inform the House that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has now decided to ask the Advisory Committee, under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cross of Chelsea, to review the use of LD 50 tests. They will do this not only in relation to cosmetic testing, but in all the fields in which they are at present used. This will be a fairly complex review, but I am sure that your Lordships will recognise the importance of this proposal, and the direct bearing which the Committee's ultimate recommendations are likely to have on the suffering occasioned to animals by this procedure. The Government's view is that it is in this way, rather than by the method proposed in the Bill, that a reduction in any suffering of animals involved in experiments can be achieved.
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My right honourable friend also made it clear to my noble friend Lord Houghton and his colleagues that there is no reason at all why the Advisory Committee should not be invited to turn its attention to other procedures which, in some quarters, give rise to concern. I understand that those who attended the meeting are now giving further thought to particular procedures to which the Committee could usefully direct its attention.
My Lords, I believe that this decision by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary represents an important step forward and that the LD 50 tests are the right place to begin. Let me say this in conclusion. There is no dispute between the Government and the supporters of this Bill over the desire to eliminate unnecessary suffering by animals. That is common ground. But we believe that the action that I have outlined today will hold out the best prospect of achieving this objective. The Bill before the House will not deal with many of the problems which cause the most serious anxiety. In our judgment, the Bill would be seriously damaging to the public interest. For that reason, the Government oppose it.
4.8 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of SHEFFIELD: My Lords, I am sure that all of us in the House are grateful to the Minister for the constructive steps which the Government have in mind and which he outlined at the end of his speech. This is a complex and highly specialised subject, and I claim no particular competence to deal with it. My speech might also be described, as one speech has already been described, as an unscientific intervention. I make no apology for that, for complex and specialised as this subject is, it is also a moral and social problem and it should not be left exclusively to the expert. Indeed, it should involve the interest and conscience of the whole community.
May I at the outset try to set out two principles from which I approach this problem. In the first place, I recognise the right to experiment on animals in the interests of medical research and human welfare generally. But, secondly, in pursuit of these objectives man has a duty to restrict the infliction of pain and suffering to an absolute minimum.

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Somehow we must try to do justice to both of these principles. One of the general findings of the Littlewood Report states:
"Anyone who makes use of an animal in research incurs a moral responsibility to justify his action and a duty to limit pain."
Behind this Bill, as I see it, lies the conviction that the use of animals for testing and developing cosmetic preparations which are not intended to be used for any medical purposes involves more pain and suffering than a reasonable view of human welfare can justify.
Studying the background to this Bill and trying to get to grips with the facts as best one can, I must confess it has been a distasteful experience, and sometimes even a horrifying and shameful one. Experiments are made by the tens of thousands. A number of speakers during the debate have indicated that only a relatively small number of cases are concerned in this particular area of the problem. It does not matter how few they are: they are either right or wrong, and such a decision cannot be taken on a numerical basis. However, there are enough experiments going on to make this a matter of public concern. We believe that such experiments entail a considerable degree of pain and suffering, and it is wrong that such trivial substances as bubble bath liquids, face creams, deodorants, shampoos and other toiletries should be tested on animals.
The extension of animal experiments to such an extent and in this direction surely was not foreseen when the Cruelty to Animals Act came into force a century ago. The law has served us well but it now needs some reform. Experiments for medical purposes that may well lead to an alleviation of suffering and the conquest of disease are legitimate and good, but even such experiments must be conducted with the fullest responsibility for the victims of the experiments. In the sphere of cosmetic preparations we believe that the use of animals should be excluded, and this Bill represents a modest step in that direction. If it is wrong-headed, we must make it right-headed. In Britain, as I understand it, it is mandatory to test only those cosmetics which make therapeutic claims or which contain more than a certain level of some specified substances such as hormones. The bulk of cosmetic poison testing using animals
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is carried out voluntarily and under no specific obligation except general legal requirements to market only safe products.
Reference has been made to the public opinion poll in 1974, which was apparently mentioned by the Bishop of Manchester on the occasion of the last debate. At that time 73 per cent. of the electorate disapproved of cosmetic preparations being tested on animals. I believe that a great deal of ignorance exists among people as a whole, who are very often surprised to hear that cosmetic products are tested on animals at all; but when that fact is understood there is a volume of opposition to the use of animals for this purpose. I fully recognise—and indeed the Minister has referred to it—that there is a difficult line of demarcation. In certain instances it is almost impossible to draw a line of demarcation between the medical and cosmetic fields. Certainly the line is not easy to draw, and there are borderline cases where cosmetic and medical purposes overlap. Some discoveries in the field of cosmetic science may prove to be beneficial in the medical field, and all that is part of the complexity of the subject. However, I should like to suggest that it must not deter us in our determination to bring about the highly desirable reform that this Bill is intended to effect.
I know, and in some ways suffer from the knowledge, that the whole subject is bedevilled by sentiment. Emotionalism is all too easily aroused. Those sentimentalists who care more for their cats than for their cousins should merit our scorn and our disapproval. Support for this Bill does not suggest any lack of opposition to such misguided enthusiasts, and I am certainly not impelled here by any particular animal lobby. However, the passing of this Bill may lead to further research on the development of alternative methods of testing. Even if it did not, would we really be any worse off? Is not the world more short of compassion than of cosmetics?
In conclusion, I should like to try to sketch briefly the underlying philosophy (if that is not too portentous a phrase, at any rate on my lips), which is the basis of my approach to this subject. Mankind has a trusteeship over the rest of the animal kingdom, and now that we are more sensitive about exploiting the natural resources of the environment I believe we

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need also to be more vigilant against human exploitation of other species; in other words, more aware of our trusteeship over the rest of the animal kingdom. Some enthusiasts speak of the rights of animals. I prefer to concentrate on the duties of man and of man's responsible dominion over Nature, which includes acting responsibly towards animals. Man has a responsibility for the whole of his environment. No other creature has the capacity to transform it for better or worse. Perhaps I might remind your Lordships of the words of Alexander Pope who wrote:
"The more entirely the inferior creation is submitted to our power, the more answerable we should seem for our mismanagement of it."
My contention is that much experimentation in connection with cosmetic testing is a grave mismanagement of our responsibility of our human dominion over the rest of the animal kingdom. We are the species uniquely capable of rationality and moral choice; and precisely because of our superiority we have an obligation to treat animals with respect—yes, and with humanity. This Bill is a modest step towards fulfilling that obligation.
As a non-scientist, I confess I have a starry-eyed veneration for research scientists and especially for those scientists whose work lies in the medical field. Their objectivity and dedication are utterly praiseworthy. Nor are they lacking in compassion. One of the findings of the Littlewood Committee, which is one great source of encouragement, declared:
"There is no foundation for any general suspicion of the concern of the licensees for their animals."
However, in a violent and cruel age, such as ours—an age marked by an alarming increase in torture—I believe we need to be specially vigilant to outlaw any unnecessary cruelty. Some experiments which this Bill seeks to prohibit must surely tend to blunt the sensibilities of those who conduct them. This Bill therefore will be a protection for those very scientists who themselves deplore experiments that involve the infliction of unnecessary pain and suffering upon dumb animals. There was a certain 19th century Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, Dr, Lloyd, who was himself a scientist, of whom it was said by Caroline Fox, the Quaker diarist,
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"He looks at Science with the ardour of a lover and the reverence of a child."
What a splendid description of the scientific spirit and outlook! I believe that this Bill will help to preserve the integrity of the genuine scientist, the scientist whose work is directed not towards satisfying vanity but to promoting the true welfare of mankind.
4.19 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I find it distasteful to be in the position of opposing a Bill that has been introduced with such sensitivity and customary lucidity by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, but I should like to say right away that I am sure we are all concerned to prevent unjustifiable and avoidable suffering to animals. I entirely agree with the right reverend Prelate who has just sat down that, in his words, we should be specially vigilant to eliminate unnatural cruelty.
Many people would ban all experiments on animals, even though designed to avoid suffering by people. Some are motivated by religious conviction, not only in other countries; some by horror at the thought of causing innocent creatures to suffer. This Bill, however, implicitly recognises that animal experiments are in some cases justified, if they are genuinely needed to point the way to medical treatment of human beings, or to avoid the risk of harmful side-effects resulting from treatment. But this Bill would ban such experiments related to cosmetics and, as has been said, these are a very small proportion of the total number of experiments on animals. I agree entirely with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield, that that is no excuse if there is no justification for having such experiments at all. No unnecessary suffering should be caused.
I suppose that one should always try to reduce a Bill to its intellectual basis, and perhaps I might be permitted to do that in this way: Animal experiments for purposes that are inessential are unjustified; cosmetics—at least, new cosmetics—are inessential and, therefore, animal experiments for cosmetics, or at least new cosmetics, are not justified. That seems to be the basis for this Bill.
That animal experiments in relation to cosmetic preparations are in all cases not

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justified may well be doubted, and I am bound to say that I found what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, had to say on this matter convincing. For example, the use of cosmetics to conceal scars which embarrass the person affected, and also shock people who see them, seems desirable. That they should be safe is equally desirable. That the world should be satisfied at a given point in time with the cosmetics then available is a proposition that I find it difficult to sustain, if only because it may not always be possible to continue to produce cosmetics which have already been tested and adjudged safe. Established products need new formulations from time to time, and testing of them is also necessary.
The fact is that for centuries people have used cosmetics, that the present, more affluent, generation probably uses them more than ever before, and that, in all probability, generations to come will constantly be seeking new ways of beautifying themselves. But users rightly expect—nowadays more than ever—that they can do so safely. The law requires that cosmetic preparations, no less than other products offered to the public, should be safe to use and, so far as possible, safe when misused in ways most likely to happen; for example, by children. Even if this country were minded to apply the old doctrine of caveat emptor in the case of cosmetics, as a member of the EEC it would be prevented from doing so, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has indicated.
How then do we ensure that cosmetics are safe? If that could be done satisfactorily in all cases by laboratory tests, whether of the microbiological character or otherwise, a Government would be rightly condemned if they continued to issue individual licences for the carrying out of tests on animals. But such tests are not yet accepted as convincing proof that the products are safe—not in all cases, at any rate. Some think that progress towards discovering forms of testing that would be accepted by the authorities as satisfactory alternatives to animal testing, would be hastened if, in the case of cosmetics, a ban were put on animal testing. But what would happen in the meantime? Presumably, practical testing would then have to be confined to experiments on human volunteers, unless, of course, they too were banned. Surely
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it is sensible to try out the product on animals first, lest it cause serious injury to human volunteers when used normally.
There was a case in the United States, that is often quoted, of shampoos which caused blindness in, I believe, the 1930s. That was a case which would probably not have arisen had animal testing then been carried out on the scale of today. Further, it seems reasonable to ensure that a product would do little or no harm if accidentally misused or swallowed. Experiments to indicate the appropriate treatment or remedy, when foreseeable accidents occur, also seem justifiable.
I entirely sumpathise with the noble Baroness in her contention that cruelty to animals should not be allowed. As I understand, it is the duty of those who grant licences for animal tests to satisfy themselves that there is no satisfactory alternative to animal testing, and that the testing will be carried out as humanely as possible. I very much welcome, as did the right reverend Prelate, the advances which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has announced today. Before he spoke, I was going on to say that there will always be a minority who abuse licences. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Harris, will be able to tell us what is the incidence of abuses that are found in the course of Home Office inspections at the present time. There can be no doubt that, so far as the methods employed are concerned, the proposed changes in the annual report will be most helpful.
But I believe that licences are issued only to individuals who are qualified, and one must assume that both by disposition and by training they carry out their experiments as humanely and responsibly as anyone in this House would wish. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield said that there is here a moral and social problem which should not be left to the experts. But, inevitably, it is left to the experts, and has to be, subject always of course to the closest supervision of the Government which licence the experts. In this respect, I suggest that the Government are the keepers of the public conscience, although they are in turn supervised by Parliament.
If there is one thing that the British are known for it is surely kindness to animals. We are undoubtedly far more kindly disposed than folk in other

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countries, where experiments on animals are not only permitted but required. It would seem paradoxical, to say the least, if by passing this Bill we were to drive the practice of animal testing out of this country and into places where those carrying out the tests may well be less scrupulous and less humane. It is right to hope that, in the long run, science will advance sufficiently to enable experiments on animals to be dispensed with altogether. But I am bound to say that, from what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has told us today, I have come to the conclusion that that time has not yet come.
4.29 p.m.
Lord BROCK: My Lords, this is a small, brief Bill, but it is one that can have great and unfortunate consequences. On first thought, it would seem acceptable to limit the use of animal experimentation to observations for medical purposes, but study of the problem shows that that is just not possible. I say again—and I repeat it forcefully and sincerely—that if it were possible to do away with animal observations on cosmetics, then most people would support such a move. But the matter is not as simple as that. Cosmetics are an ancient fact of life, and it is stated that in the United States 60,000 injuries a year and many deaths are caused by them. To combat this, a Bill is now before the United States Senate making it compulsory to submit each new cosmetic product to 19 separate tests on animals.
It is very unsatisfactory to allow unscientific intervention into such a complex situation. Without wishing to be disparaging or in any way offensive to good intentions, I suggest we could quite fairly describe these attempts at interference in complex and scientific matters as amateurish. The difficulties that this Bill can give rise to are not or do not seem to be appreciated by its sponsors. They do not give any impression that they are aware that the arguments against the Bill are many and real. These arguments emerge at once from an unprejudiced and systematic consideration of the whole subject.
Such an approach is essential to any proposal that existing legislation should be basically altered, especially when the
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altered legislation would have significant effects on the standards and practices that our new European partners are seeking to set up. It must be unwise at this very time to initiate legislation that would be unacceptable to our European partners and would set up a whole new series of difficulties as detailed by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. We come at once upon a matter that affects the European Community at large, but let us consider the intrinsic difficulties and drawbacks of the Bill.
It has been claimed that about 5 million experiments are done each year and it is implied that many of these could be prevented. This statement has gone unchallenged, but an accurate assessment of the number of animals used to test cosmetics in fact is from 30,000 to 50,000—less than one-tenth of the annual total of all experiments. One important firm, during 1975, used 3,000 animals for experimental observations, but also used 12,000 humans; so the animals were outnumbered four to one. In any case, observations could not be made on humans until the substances had been tested out on animals. It is a matter of common law by which manufacturers must not negligently injure the consumer.
Manufacturers would be negligent if they did not take appropriate steps to inform themselves on the safety of their products. Such action requires the use of animals. The animal testing involves no more discomfort than does vaccination against smallpox. Even the effects of the highly emotive eye test have been exaggerated. Only one eye is used and the material applied is not of full strength. In fact, it is so dilute that it causes no pain or suffering. Its chief effect is to produce a little redness of the eye.
If a child, misusing its mother's shampoo or other preparations, gets it into its eye the parents can be told, as things now are, with confidence that although the result may be painful and unpleasant there will be no danger at all to vision and no permanent effect.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord will forgive me, but is he giving scientific facts?
Several noble Lords: Order, order!
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should like an answer to my question. As a nonscientific person I am asking the noble Lord whether he is saying that no matter how much shampoo a child puts in its eye, it could not damage it.
Lord BROCK: My Lords, there is no evidence at all, and no experience, that the eye can be permanently damaged by the introduction of shampoo. This Bill specifically forbids the making of any test in the course of development of a cosmetic preparation. In other words, it forbids any testing to find out whether a substance may be harmful or, for instance, cause blindness or permanent damage to vision. It is difficult to understand how such a proposal can be made seriously and, indeed, now a second time, the first being in 1975. I repeat, it is a first requirement to a basic legal protection of the user that, if he buys something, it should not be a dangerous substance and that he should know that it has been tested for safety.
A special problem exists in the dangers to children. Any cosmetic preparation should ordinarily be used by a sensible adult, but a child may be attracted by a substance that its mother uses and applies it to its skin, to its face, gets it into its eyes, or eats quantities of it. The National Poisons Information Service is fully informed of this problem and, since its inception in 1963, some 20,000 cases of poisoning have been dealt with, 800 of which involved children who had become involved with cosmetics. If a child swallows an ointment or a toothpaste, the parents are inevitably anxious and demand from the doctor what the effect may be. The doctor can provide an answer at once from the National Poisons Information Service, as it now is, but could no longer do so if no tests had been made on cosmetics to study the harmful effects.
As soon as the testing of cosmetic substances is prevented, the doors would be opened wide to all sorts of uncertainties and dangers. These will extend to food additives and to pesticides from which great harm could come, especially in the case of children. In any case, the sale of such untested substances would not be permitted in countries abroad, and firms wishing to market their products would have to satisfy the laws of the countries concerned, a fact that has already been
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emphasised by several speakers. It may be that the protection of animals from suffering would not be so effectively controlled as in Britain—another point that has been emphasised.
In effect, therefore, although at first sight this Bill appears to be acceptable and deserving of support, the true situation is very different. It would be a danger to health and even to life and it should not receive support. Furthermore, when it was introduced in 1975 the Government, via the Home Office, stated categorically that they would be "unable to assist in any way with further progress on the Bill", and the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has repeated that intention. Reasons have been given by the Government for this, and I think that we should accept this decision.
4.37 p.m.
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, it is sad for me to find myself opposing a Bill that has been moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, for whom I have the highest regard. I am also somewhat distressed to find that I agree entirely with the Government view, as expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. However, it is a great pleasure to be able to support the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury.
I can be very brief because the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has said all that needs to be said about the Bill. What he has not said has been said by my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn, but there are one or two points that I might be able to underline because they cannot be repeated too often. First, it seems to me that the 1876 Act is remarkably good and that our forebears of one hundred years ago did a wonderfully good job. This has been borne out by the relatively controlled and not too harmful use of animals for testing in this country over the intervening years. In these days of non-discrimination, all that one can criticise the Act for is for giving a special place to dogs, cats, horses, asses and mules. One would have thought that there might be a Guinea-pig Self-discrimination Act which would put that at rest. Be that as it may, if this Act were properly implemented—and there has been a suggestion that perhaps the Home Office might be more energetic in this respect—it could provide all that is

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needed. From what the Minister said, I gained the impression that the Home Office is taking what might be called corrective action, or that it is planning to do so; so even that point is taken care of.
The point about the Bill is, I should have thought, that it is not consistent with the 1876 Act, in that it singles out a particular end product. I should have thought that that was not particularly sound law. The Act is comprehensive and covers all testing; it gets one around the problem of definitions, upon which the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, touched, and the fact that certain products may be used in certain ways at different times. That in its turn makes difficult the application of the law.
I should have thought the Bill was basically defective; but my first thought was to give it a run, give it a Second Reading and kill it after we had talked about it. But it seems to me that it is so fundamentally wrong that it would not be right even to give it a Second Reading. That is why I am behind the noble Earl and convinced by his arguments.
As to the question of the frivolity of cosmetics, my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn made the point and it seems to me to be beating against the wind in a most extraordinary fashion. However frivolously, people will always use cosmetics. The ancient tribes—our ancestors—put on woad; a large number of the primitive tribes of Central Africa use some sort of self-adornment and in the Western world there has been adornment, principally of women, since the beginning of recorded history. It seems to me to be a false try—if this is what is intended—to attempt to persuade people that cosmetics are wicked and therefore no special protection is required for them. Whatever we do, there will be girls who will use them; and we then come to the point that if they are going to use them they must be protected from the harmful results which have arisen—and which have been touched on by my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn and other speakers—in other countries such as the United States of America, where great harm has been done to people who have used preparations, whether cosmetically or otherwise, which have not been properly tested. Therefore it seems
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to me that the argument is incontrovertible that it is irresponsible to try to pass into law a Bill of this kind. Therefore, if the noble Earl sees fit to take us into the Lobbies, I shall happily go with him.
4.42 p.m.
Lord JACOBSON: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to be able to speak—and I shall be very brief—in support of this Bill. Much of what I was planning to say has already been said by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield—an unusual position for me to find myself in—and by other speakers, so I wish to make only a few points. I was not in your Lordships' House when this matter was last debated about 18 months ago, but I have read the report of that debate in Hansard carefully and I was struck then, and I have been struck again today, by the calm and totally none-motive way in which my noble friend Lady Phillips introduced her Bill on each occasion. Of course that is absolutely right. There is no need for us to be harrowed; we have enough material on both sides. But I agree that while we should be non-emotive, we should not lose sight of the fact, as the right reverend Prelate said, that at heart this is not a debate about science; it is a debate about moral and social principles.
The issue seems to me to be whether we, as a society, should continue to allow animals to suffer for commerical profit derived from the adornment of a society that they did not help to create and in which their only protection must come from human compassion. That seems to me to be the core of the matter. If our answer to this question is that we should not allow this to continue, then figures really cease to have much relevance, whether it is 1 percent. of 1 million or 1 per cent. of 30,000 or 1 per cent. of 50,000. Such figures do not matter very much. We must give a clear answer to that question.
The cosmetic industry is huge, highly competitive and very prolific. It has been said that 100 new products come on to the market every week. Sometimes they are backed by very massive advertising indeed. Some of the advertising seems to me to be of a rather undesirable kind, and I sometimes think that when Ministers and others speak of the need

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to protect the consumer in the context of this Bill they should perhaps consider some of the more startling claims made in those advertisements. In any case, although it has been rightly said that people have always adorned themselves and will want to go on adorning themselves, there are surely enough safe lipsticks, powders, creams, scents, soaps, shampoos, after-shave lotions and pre-shave lotions to satisfy every taste, no matter how exotic.
Is it right to experiment on animals in order to test and then produce an even greater flood—a duplication? Surely the time has come to say to this industry that if they cannot test new cosmetics without experiments on animals they should be content with what they already have and go on marketing that, or else that they should apply their scientific and technical resources, which are vast, to other and perhaps more socially beneficial ends. I believe there is little doubt that if that was said it would give a notable impetus to the development of alternative methods of testing such as have already been mentioned here today, including tissue culture, computer testing and so on.
I am sure that the House will be grateful to my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich for the concessions he has outlined today and particularly in regard to LD 50. When criticisms are made that this Bill is undesirable, that it is ill-drafted and it is piecemeal legislation, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, would have produced evidence of the advances that he has produced today without the impetus of my noble friend's Bill.
I would make one final point. I believe that we are at last beginning to show some real concern for the environment and some real understanding of the relationship and the interdependence of the resources of nature and of all living creatures. If that is so, then the basis and starting point must be respect for all life. That is the moral basis on which I believe this Bill rests, and I earnestly hope that your Lordships will further its progress.
4.47 p.m.
Lord AIREDALE: My Lords, I have the greatest sympathy for the speech just delivered by the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson. I am instinctively always on the
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side of the animals in cases of this kind, and particularly on this occasion. We are always being told that experiments performed on animals for medical purposes advance medical science which is available not only to doctors but to veterinary surgeons as well, and that through the vets the animal kingdom benefits from the experiments just as much as the human population. But in the field that we are discussing today, we are speaking of benefits for the human population alone and not for the animal kingdom. Therefore, I should have thought that in this connection the animals need rather special protection.
I should like to deal with a point which was raised first by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, then by the Minister, and, I think, was touched upon just now by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone. They ask: what happens when you have a substance which is sometimes used for cosmetic purposes, although not always? I think the noble Earl referred to a hair-dye which may also be used for dying leather or for other non-cosmetic purposes. They seem to think that this raises a difficulty, but from my reading of the Bill no difficulty arises at all. The Bill refers to experiments performed solely for the purpose of testing a cosmetic preparation, and if you are testing something which is not solely for a cosmetic preparation then you are dealing with something that is outside the scope of the Bill. I believe, respectfully, that those three noble Lords have erected in front of them a fence which in practice they do not have to jump at all.
At this stage of the debate, I am in very much the same position as the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson. There are points which I might have made which have been well made already and I will just boil down my notes and state as briefly as I can the very essence of the argument as I see it. I think the matter resolves itself into three questions. First, is real scientific advance in prospect in the experiment on animals which is contemplated? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, that so many cosmetics are already available that the prospect of real scientific advance in this field, although one cannot rule it out entirely, is going to be pretty rare. The second question is: Are means of testing, other than testing upon animals, available?

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Thirdly, is the intensity of the suffering foreseeable justifiable judged by the value of the experiment to be conducted?
My Lords, it is always easy to pose the questions. It is not always so easy to find the answers. Who is to find the answers to these questions? I would hope that it would be the new enlarged advisory committee which is advocated in that excellent paper which was circulated, I think last summer, to which the noble Lord, Lord Platt, and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, were signatories.
At this point I am not proposing to trespass upon the speeches which we look forward to hearing from both those noble Lords, but I hope that they will underline and urge the setting up of this stronger advisory committee. I wish them luck in persuading the Home Office to go further along the road than the noble Lord, Lord Harris, indicated this afternoon it was prepared to go—further along the road towards setting up this new advisory committee, which I believe could administer this Bill which the noble Baroness is proposing, could make it work, and make for a better world for laboratory animals.
4.52 p.m.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, I believe there is a wish in nearly all of us to polarise issues; we like them black or white, right or wrong. This attitude is well shown in the political field, when people like to talk about Communists or Fascists, Right or Left, and so on. The truth, of course, is that most choices are not black or white, and decisions lie, or perhaps I ought to say should rightly lie, in the grey area. This is inconvenient because people like to apply their yardsticks, often in the form of principles, which are frequently derived only from emotional prejudice, in order to give a yes or no answer.
This difficulty is the one which faces us with the use of animals for research and testing for the safety of drugs and other products. Most people would, under pressure, accept that some use of animals for these purposes must be accepted, but they are not happy about it and do not want to know if they can avoid doing so. Periodically this tension manifests itself, as it did with the emotional reaction to the doomed monkey on one
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of the early Sputniks. My own view, and I would think that of many others, is that we must accept animal experiments, but limit the numbers used, and the painful experiments or testing, to the minimum.
We shall hear, and have heard today, that the old 1876 Act and our surveillance assures us that all is well. This simply is not—I repeat not—true. The very fact that most people do not want to know about the subject ensures that there is no adequate independent check. This is a necessity in any closed tightly-knit enterprise, however highly principled and respected may be its operatives. Many of the animal tests with cosmetics are very unpleasant and painful, and, if such preparations were used solely for beauty purposes, hardly morally justified. However, as was pointed out in a previous debate on a similar Bill, and again today, there are great difficulties and objections to legislative action as proposed.
To my mind, the real merit of the Bill, if it were passed, is its psychological effect. It would focus the attention of average people, not the extremists, on this difficult subject of animal experiments, and help to limit them to a greater extent than is now the case. It follows that I am not impressed by the argument that if the Bill were passed it would simply have the effect of transferring the testing abroad and in no way decrease the total amount carried out. I must however admit that, balancing the arguments on both sides, I come to the conclusion that I would not be happy if this Bill were passed into law. Nevertheless, I do not believe it is inconsistent with this view to give the Bill a Second Reading, as we have done with some other measures which we know will never survive subsequent stages. I feel it is important that, by giving this Bill a Second Reading, we should stress that we do consider this an important subject and that more should be done. I am very pleased to hear from the Minister that in fact some new measures are on the way. I believe that, as in so many other matters, it is constant pressure by the average person, and not by the extremists, which is what we need. I will, therefore, vote against the Amendment and for the Second Reading of the Bill.
4.57 p.m.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, about 25 years ago I had to answer a

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debate on behalf of the Home Office raised by my old Commander-in-Chief, Lord Dowding, on a much wider basis of vivisection than the present debate. I contented myself with stating the position at law and the practice which was followed in the Home Office. Certain considerations came to my mind at that time. First, I would agree broadly with the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, that in many ways the Act of 1876 is surprisingly enlightened, considering the time at which it was passed. I was disturbed, however, at the ration which the Home Office makes of one inspector for about 500,000 experiments. I know the arguments about this, that there is much in the way of standard types of work. I saw the inspectors and talked to them myself. I was impressed that they had a very real sense of duty; they recognised the nature of their work and the care with which they should execute it. But one inspector for 1,000 licensees—it is somewhere of that order—did strike me as being pretty thin. Indeed, the Littlewood Report somewhat endorsed the views I had at that time.
I do think it is peculiar that there has been no prosecution for a century. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, said that one technical prosecution had taken place. You may put a very good interpretation on that, or a very bad one. My own guess is that, like most of these things, the situation is somewhere between the two. I think also that the complete exclusion of non-experimental work is something which the Home Office should take up as well. I was quite certain at that time that an examination should be carried out, and I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Brooke that this has now been done. I am sure—and the report that was made makes it clear—that legislation is required.
The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, said that the scientists in this field were between the hammer and the anvil. I think the anvil must be made of sorbo rubber. I do not really think the scientists have suffered very much. Since the time I speak of the number of experiments has increased four-fold. I should like to look into the future. In 25 years, will the figure be up to 20, 30, 40 million experiments a year? Is that the direction in which we are going? There is a great deal of talk about children eating things. Of course children do eat things, and most of us have in our houses items marked,"Not for internal
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consumption". We look at these very carefully and if we ate enough of them we should become very ill indeed. I remember a young man saying to me, "Does it matter if I eat a ha'penny?" I tried not to frighten him but I said that it was a very bad thing to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, was perhaps incautious enough to mention thalidomide. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, knows much more about that than I, but I am given to understand that every conceivable experiment was carried out to ensure that this drug was safe before it was used. In addition, experiments were carried out afterwards, virtually without success, to discover whether it could reproduce in animals the desperate results which came from human contact. These drugs are not by any means wholly reliable, even in cosmetics.
The last half-a-century has seen the most terrifying advance in science. We who never go inside laboratories sometimes do not realise just what is happening. I should like to quote what I call a "throw-away line" from a letter which I received from a relative working in an advanced aerospace research centre in America. He said:
"Quite exciting here. Our scheme for getting into space cheaply may actually be real. I am beginning to believe in it."
Twenty years ago we had not even sent a sputnik into space. This is the pace at which things are going, and it is a pace which looks likely to increase even faster. What will the Home Office do to meet this developing situation? Is it a road that may be paved with crucified animals? The situation is, without doubt, accelerating. I was singularly unimpressed with the argument advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, who said that we are creating a criminal offence. There is nothing in the Bill about a criminal offence. What would normally happen is that the licence would be taken away.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, would not want inadvertently to mislead the House. I said that there would be a fine of £50 on the first offence and £100 or one month's imprisonment on subsequent offences. That is why I mentioned the criminal law.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, to me it is redundant to tell anyone representing the Home Office that if one breaks the law one runs into trouble—of course one does. However, in this case the man's licence would be rescinded. The criminal law is the last thing that would be invoked. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, then said that we were bound by the EEC rules. Shall we maintain our standards of animal conduct in line with other European countries? Shall we be bound by any rules which the EEC passes? If so, this matter should go to the Scrutiny Committee for its views. We must maintain our own standards, in which we are far ahead of almost any country in the world.
This is a very narrow Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, said, it deals solely with experiments for one purpose. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, said that it is difficult to discriminate. At paragraph 427 the Littlewood Report said:
"The inspector could question the purpose and design of the project."
That did not present any difficulty to Littlewood, and I am sure that it would not present any other difficulty as regards any other purpose. I agree entirely with the remarks made by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth. If we turn the Bill down without giving it a Second Reading it means that we are simply saying that we are completely content with the status quo. Whether the Bill can be amended in Committee is something we can find out. If we are wholly content with the status quo, we should vote for the Amendment. If we are not content—and I am not—we should give the Bill a Second Reading.
5.5 p.m.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, I should have been in entire agreement with the remarks made by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, a week or two ago—that is, that if no progress had been made we should give the Bill a Second Reading, even if that only brings the subject a little more to the notice of the public and leads to more discussion and perhaps eventually culminates in a final urge to the Home Office to do something about it. However, I believe that the situation has completely changed. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, who knows more about this matter will be speaking on it. A week
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ago today a group of us—largely inspired by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton—of which I am pleased to be a member and which has been trying to push the Home Office into action for a very long time, met the Home Secretary and obtained a number of concessions on which the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has touched. He did not go fully into the various matters which the Home Secretary at least seemed quite willing to consider and probably put into operation.
I hope that there is no need to tell the House that I am deeply concerned about the welfare of experimental animals. I believe that many cruel and unnecessary experiments are carried out and that much misery is caused. The Act of 1876 constantly refers to pain. Pain is difficult to judge, but anyone knows when an animal is dying or miserable as a result, for instance, of an LD 50 test. Indeed, I have done a good deal of work on this, to such an extent that, from time to time, I may have incurred the disapproval of the entrenched positions of the medical scientists and of the Research Defence Society, of which I was once a member. They do very useful and important work, but there are times when their case can be somewhat overstated.
Foremost among the reforms which I believe are necessary—and I am sure that the group is entirely in agreement with this—is a reconstitution of the Advisory Committee to the Home Office, together with a new look at its functions. I was a member of the Advisory Committee to the Home Office on Experiments on Animals for 11 years. We met only five times and we considered only 24 experiments. The only matters that we ever considered were those which were referred to us through the Inspectorate—for which I have a very high regard—experiments which seemed to be out of the normal range and which the inspector thought it doubtful whether a particular scientist's certificate covered him to carry out. That is all, so far as I am aware, that that Advisory Committee has done for the last 100 years.
We thought that there should be a reconstituted committee; that it should contain more of a lay element, although it must also be a strong scientific advisory committee, and that it should not only consider matters referred to it from the Home Secretary through the Inspectorate,

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but have power to initiate its own discussions. We believe that from time to time the Home Secretary should refer to this strengthened committee, which would meet more regularly, various topics for consideration—not merely isolated experiments. The former Home Secretary went a little way towards doing this when he referred the matter of the smoking beagles to a committee to which he had added some extra lay members. However, as I understood the meeting of a week ago, the present Home Secretary is prepared to go quite a lot further, saying that he would take up the other topics. It has already been decided that the first topic will be the use of the LD50 test and whether it is now relevant to the purposes for which it is used, and so on. It is perhaps not going too far to say that we were invited to give views and possibly submit a list of suggestions which from time to time might be considered. It was made clear to us that there could not be a large increase in expense and secretariat, and that things would have to move somewhat slowly.
In view of that—and I do not intend to say anything else of any moment—I think that this Bill fails. It is subject to all the objections which the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has put before us, and some which other noble Lords have put before us. I do not think it would work out in practice. It would be another piece of bad legislation. This is no criticism of the noble Baroness, because I am sure that she does not want bad legislation, but I am afraid that it may turn out that way. We in this House know that we have had our fill of bad legislation, I will not say for how many years. For those reasons, and reluctantly—because I know how strongly the noble Baroness feels about this and to a large extent I am on her side—I shall in this case have to vote for the Amendment.
5.12 p.m.
Lord HUNT of FAWLEY: My Lords, all of us, I am certain, must feel considerable sympathy with the humane efforts of the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, to relieve the suffering of the animals which she has described. I have myself always been fond of animals. I was brought up as a boy with one or two dogs always in the house. For 40 years I have remembered the poet Cowper's four lines:
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"I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm".
But in spite of all my sympathy with animals, as a family doctor I am even more interested in, and fond of, human beings, and concerned with their health and welfare.
When we doctors have patients with blemishes on their skins or external imperfections of other kinds, we do our best to overcome or diminish their anxiety, depression, or inferiority complexes about these troubles which may sometimes really spoil their lives. It is our duty to help these people medically and cosmetically to adjust themselves as happily as possible to their disabilities which are usually no fault whatever of their own. For instance, a young woman of 29 with prematurely grey hair may really need a good hair dye for genuine medico-psychological reasons; another with excessive body odour may urgently require a deodorant; another in a desperate plight with excessive hair on her face—which is a superficial cosmetic disability from a deep-seated hormonal inbalance—may need special medical treatment; another may want a scar cream to hide an ugly scar; and a sensitive schoolgirl with disfiguring spots on her face (often due to another type of hormone inbalance) may ask for some cosmetic preparation from her doctor to cover these. The borderline between cosmetics and medical preparations and treatment is ill-defined, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, said; and to suggest, as this Bill does, that no cosmetics are intended to be used for medical purposes is quite unrealistic.
We know that beauty preparations can give rise to untoward, unpleasant, and occasionally serious side effects through absorption from the skin, inhalation or swallowing. Scar tissue is particularly susceptible to carcinogens, which are substances liable to stimulate cancer. Even those cosmetics which the medical profession does not normally prescribe, for example mascara, eye shadow, face powders, and lipstick (part of which patients sometimes swallow when they eat or lick their lips) may at times cause allergic reactions which doctors have to treat or prevent.

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We are told that a type of mascara called "LashLure" caused permanent blindness in several American women in the 1940s before it was withdrawn from the market. Hair sprays and other aerosols not uncommonly cause bronchial distress, and irritation of the eyes and nose. These sides effects may be brought about by the cosmetic substance itself, the vehicle in which it is dissolved, or by the propellant which expels it from the aerosol or atomiser. Some of us remember the asthma-spray deaths of 1966–68; and recently we have been told, on good authority, of possible dangerous effects on women and their unborn children of semipermanent hair dyes, some of which may possibly cause cancer.
Most of these tests are on rabbits, guinea pigs, mice and rats. We must remember that the great majority of these tests are negative, when no real harm is done to the animals. Those which are positive draw urgent and important attention to the potential danger and suffering to human beings which the use of such cosmetic preparations may possibly cause; quite apart from needless time off work, reduction in efficiency in carrying out their daily tasks in the home, and unnecessary costs in time and money to the hard-pressed National Health Service.
Many of us would be more than distressed if one of our own children, or other relations, a friend, or (in the case of a doctor) one of our patients became disfigured or seriously ill with a generalised allergic dermatitis or eczema, a blood dyscrasia, liver or kidney damage, a malignant growth, or the birth of a deformed child, just because a cosmetic preparation had not been properly tested before being put on the market.
Let us ask ourselves for a moment how else can they be tested except on animals? Some alternatives to animal testing of proven reliability are already used. They are cheaper and therefore preferred. But tissue cultures and other in-vitro, test-tube methods are not suitable for general application yet. Human volunteers come forward now in considerable numbers but, very wisely, not for the initial testing of potentially damaging or dangerous preparations. Are human volunteers to be used more? If they suffer permanent harm, such as loss of sight, how could this
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possibly be justified? How will they be compensated and by whom? Their employers may be under considerable risk by law, because we must remember that firms which make cosmetics have a duty (under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1971) to ensure that operatives involved in manufacturing processes are not subject to undue risks.
In America a Bill is now before the United States Senate to amend the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Acts and make it compulsory to submit each new cosmetic product to 19 separate tests on animals. What will be the legal position with the general public in Britain, in future, of a firm putting on the market a cosmetic preparation which has not been adequately tested and later proves to be dangerous? The experience of the Distillers Company after the thalidomide tragedy gives us some indication of this.
We are told now, on good authority, that the thalidomide disaster was due to inadequate animal testing of a new drug before it was put on the market. Who could possibly have guessed that a pill used as a sedative to reduce the sickness of pregnancy would cause babies to be born with grossly deformed arms or legs, or perhaps without one or more limbs at all? In future, who will be able to tell for certain, without animal tests, for what troubles new cosmetics may be responsible?
No compassionate person in his senses would want to cause unnecessary pain or discomfort to any animal through an objectionable or frivolous experiment. We must always do our best to make sure that that does not happen by following strictly the rules already laid down in our Statute Book about these tests. "Unnecessary" is the key word here. Some people have said to me recently: "Is there a real need, now, for more new cosmetics; cannot we make do with the many well tried ones we already have?" I do not think so. The human race with its vanities has wanted new cosmetics for thousands of years, back to ancient Egypt and far beyond, when the most primitive peoples painted their faces and their bodies. It is very unlikely, I think, that our modern world could do without new ones now; but we must ensure that these are as safe as it is possible to make them.
May I say that how your Lordships divide at the end of this debate should

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depend on how each of us answers one very important, simple but fundamental question, which is this: "If we continue to develop new cosmetics, and if there is the slightest risk of cancer or any other serious trouble arising from their use, would you wish for this to appear first in one of your daughters, another relative or in a friend, rather than in a rabbit, guinea pig, mouse, or in a rat?". Public opinion has been mentioned. There is very little doubt, I believe, how most people in this country would answer that question.
I am sure that we fully appreciate the kindly motives which stimulated the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, to propose this Bill. But it remains true, at present, that really practical alternatives to many animal tests are not yet available, in spite of more than £500,000 which has been spent recently in trying to find them. That is the main reason why I and many other doctors, the Research Defence Society (with all the important medical, veterinary, biological, pharmacological, pharmaceutical and other scientific and research bodies connected with it) and a great many other people, are so very unhappy about this Bill and fervently hope that your Lordships will follow the Government's lead in opposing it and will accept Lord Halsbury's Amendment, so that it will go no further just now. Let us consider this subject again, later on, if and when a really suitable alternative to all animal testing has been found.
5.23 p.m.
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY: My Lords, I wish at the outset to break lance with the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, who I am glad to see is in his place. The main point of his brief speech appeared to be to unveil a testimonial to the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 which, he said, was a remarkably good measure, and he then complimented our forbears because he thought they had legislated better than they knew. In fact, the reason why the 1876 Act has worked well, as so many say, is that dozens, if not hundreds, of laboratories have been walking freely through it for years and years.
Any Act in such wide and general terms as are drawn in the 1876 Act presents obvious opportunity of evasion and loophole and even direct contravention, especially when there is no opportunity of
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going to the courts for a remedy and no opportunity of going to the courts for a construction of the meaning of the words of the Act, except by consent of the Home Secretary; and that is really the mischief of the 1876 Act. I wonder for how much longer the Home Secretary's obstruction to an approach to the courts will prevent the wording of the 1876 Act from being closely examined in a court of law.
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, as the noble Lord has made a direct attack on me he will, I hope, forgive me for asking him, first, whether there are not other Acts of Parliament about which the same sort of argument could be put forward and, secondly, whether he does not remember that I suggested that perhaps the Act needed looking at and needed implementing more fully? I got the impression that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, said that that would be done. Perhaps it is a little unreasonable to pick out a particular Act and tear it to shreds around the shroud in which I find myself covered.
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that intervention, my Lords. But I want to emphasise that in most Acts there is a remedy for any person who feels aggrieved by its administration or application and anybody who questions the construction of an Act has access to a court of law, but in the case of the 1876 Act, no citizen can go there unless the Home Secretary gives his consent. This is the point we were on with the Post Office industrial dispute recently in connection with South African communications; it is the same issue. For how long are Ministers going to be able to stand between the public and the courts on a matter of public interest and the construction of a Public Act which is there in the public interest? That is the issue. We have not been able to find any opportunity of testing the construction of the 1876 Act in the courts. I mention that because it explains why there is this constant feeling of approval—that it must have worked well because there has been so little trouble about it—whereas, as I say, it is wide open; that is why there has been so little trouble about it.
I am very glad indeed that the Home Secretary is going to look more closely

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than he has done for many years at the conditions of the granting of licences and at the conditions of issuing certificates under those licences for the performance of particular experiments in laboratories, but I will come to that later.
A word about the BBC programme in the "Horizon" series on this subject last Friday. I thought it was a bold first step into a difficult and controversial field and I hope the BBC will be bolder still in future programmes and more persistent in its intention to show more of the truth to the public. I know the difficulty here. I have met many people since Friday and I have asked them, "Did you see the 'Horizon' programme?" to which many of them have replied, "No, I couldn't look at it. I didn't want to see it". As the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said, people do not want to know. I submit that they should be made to know; they should be compelled, by frequent debate and illustration of what all this means, to give their attention to a matter of great public interest.
After all, public opinion is really the foundation of all legislation. It is the foundation of the administration of all Acts of Parliament. If we do not have public opinion we have nothing but the experts and the disputations between those of us who take one point of view and those who take another, neither of whom may necessarily represent public opinion, and so there is a duty on the public to form an opinion based on more information and more debate.
In coming to the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, one must remember that he is the representative of the establishment, the Research Defence Society. I sometimes wonder about that: defence against whom? The Research Defence Society is the name, but against whom are they defending research—the public, whose interest they are supposed to be serving?
The Earl of HALSBURY: Inter alia, my Lords, against the people who are going about burning down laboratories and animal suppliers' establishments.
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY: No, my Lords. The Research Defence Society was not set up to deal with
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vandalism, the burning down of laboratories and the freeing of beagle dogs; it was set up donkeys' years ago because those concerned feared public opinion. I think the stock in trade of the Research Defence Society is a pot of cold cream. We heard this afternoon about this famous pot of cold cream that some hypothetical child is supposed one day to have swallowed and, in consequence, got a tummy-ache. We not only heard it from the noble Earl but also from another member of the Research Defence Society, the professor in the programme last Friday. So this pot of cold cream is the stock in trade of the Research Defence Society. I think that they ought to get rid of it or find the kid who swilled the pot of cold cream and let us know what were the consequences. Is cold cream so appetising that kids want to eat it by the potful and, if so, cannot the cosmetic industry put a nasty taste into it so that kids will not want a spoonful of it, much less a potful? We must ask for a little serious debate in this matter.
Coming back to the programme, I understand the dilemma of the BBC. They say, "If, in a programme of this kind, we show some of the real horrors of experiments on animals, the television sets will be turned off by the million and our programme will have lost its impact."So there is a balance to be kept here, and I think that it was pretty well kept in the first programme, though I thought that, since the programme was called "The Law and the Guinea Pigs", the law might perhaps have been gone into more deeply, especially the point about the inability of the public to test the construction of the 1876 Act in the courts.
Why are the doctors and researchers and the Research Defence Society always so heavily on the defensive? Why do they leave it to others to suggest the course and direction of reform? After all, these are the people in the business. They know what is happening. They are doing it every day. They know what is wrong with it and they ought to be able to tell us how some changes could be made. But no! We never hear any of these suggestions from those who are constantly engaged in the field of research. I do not want to fix particularly on the Research Defence Society. I am very fond of their president and I do not want to lose his affection, so I shall transfer my

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criticism from him to the doctors, who frequently say that if there were not all this research going on in the background they would not be able to treat the coughs and colds of patients as effectively as they do now.
Let us concede that a great deal has been done by the use of animals in discovering remedies and the causes of human ailments. But in this Bill we are dealing with non-medical substances. Here, I believe that the Bill is defective because it is too narrowly drawn. I think also that in present circumstances noble Lords would be unwise to give the Bill a Second Reading in circumstances where the Home Secretary has made substantial advances. I did not feel that my noble friend Lord Harris had done the Home Secretary's case the justice that it deserved this afternoon. I know that there are Ministerial difficulties, but my noble friend was not present at the inteview with the Home Secretary a week ago and he suffered that disadvantage. He was given a brief as to what happened. All I can say is that, if I had been writing a brief describing what happened at the interview with the Home Secretary a week ago, it would have been much more enthusiastic and I would have spelt it out more fully and should have recommended it to the House with confidence. Instead of that, my noble friend spent most of his speech on the traditional lines, defending the moral and ethical position and frightening us out of our wits by saying that if we stop doing experiments people in other countries will do more and all the rest of it.
Why did he not concentrate on the practical issues with which I believe the House should be concerned now? I shall deal with them very briefly. First, much has happened since June, 1975. The noble Lord, Lord Platt, I myself and the animal societies got together to form a reasonable and representative group to try to get something out of this situation. We thought that the best way of getting something out of this situation was to do all we could to get results from the Advisory Committee and the Administration without pressing for fresh legislation.
Let us make progress by using the resources that are available. The first is the Advisory Committee. The Advisory
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Committee has been suffering from underemployment. It can only act on a reference from the Home Secretary, and the Home Secretary has made very few references to it in the last few years, as the noble Lord, Lord Platt, said. The score of meetings of the Advisory Committee in the last ten years is exactly seven, and three of those were in 1975. There was a nil score in 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971 and 1973. Nil in all those years! The noble and learned Lord, Lord Cross, is chairman and he is not suffering from overwork. He has probably sometimes forgotten that he is the chairman because the Committee never meets. He must wonder sometimes what he is doing there. I really wonder that he has not complained at being the head of such an idle, useless Advisory Committee to the Home Secretary and has not reproached him for not giving the Committee more work to do.
We want the Advisory Committee to do more. The LSD test has now been referred to it. That is an important first step. The Home Secretary has said that he is willing to consider the next recruits for the attention of the Advisory Committee when it has disposed of the first reference to it. That is an important step too. So we are now beginning to line up references for the Committee to keep it more fully occupied with investigation into areas that give rise to most public concern.
With regard to the composition of the Advisory Committee, there are too many doctors on it. There are eight doctors out of the 14 members. There is one veterinary surgeon, and four lay members, two of whom are politicians. One is a Member of Parliament and the other is a former Member of Parliament. We want the Advisory Committee enlarged to become more representative of the lay point of view and of the animal welfare point of view so that the Committee is not so heavily laden with so-called "expert opinion".
Another point that we must insist upon is that no member of the Advisory Committee shall have any interest in commercial establishments that are connected with animal breeding or commercial research institutions. Members must be clear of any suggestion that they have a finger in the commercial pie. I believe that this must be properly looked into before further appointments are made to

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the Committee. I believe that another thing that my noble friend Lord Harris could have said is that the Home Secretary would have gone much further along the road outlined by my noble friend Lord Platt in a further widening of the field of investigation and a fuller use of the capacity for investigation of an enlarged, properly serviced Advisory Committee; he would have been willing to go into that with some degree of approval had he not been suffering under cuts in public expenditure, which he more than once complained had hit his Department very severely. However, we will hope that when those restraints are removed, we can get more research and investigation done and can have the reports published so that the public may form its own opinion about what is going on.
It is not until the windows and doors are opened and informed public opinion can be brought to bear that we shall have the satisfaction of relying on a public point of view. After all, the real remedy for all this cosmetic business is for the women of Britain to reject cosmetics. Since when has lipstick become an essential part of medicine, of toilet, or of anything else? When I was young the only people who used lipstick were tarts and actresses, but now it is universal. We disapproved of lipstick. We knew that a woman was an immoral woman if she wore lipstick, but now all the virgins in Britain put on lipstick. I would ask: Why has this vogue become such an essential part of the vanity of women?
That is a lighthearted diversion, but surely the women should know what cosmetics are tested on animals. Here the commercial interest is so much involved. Now the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is in his place. He has been the custodian of the standards of the advertising industry for quite a long time. He knows as well as I do that this insidious persuasion is going on; we see it on television, in the colour supplements, in the newspapers every day of the week. People are told that they must look more beautiful, that they must get more emotion out of life, that they must go in for more romantic love. They are told that the ways to do this are to beautify oneself, and to smoke cigarettes, and do all the things that are associated with a wonderful sexual life. This is the image that is
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presented through the advertising media. No wonder that all the women fall for it. But I think that the whole of this industry could be turned further away from the use of animals if more publicity were given to the situation.
I am not going to take more than a minute more, my Lords. I want to say to my noble friend that the Home Secretary is to be congratulated upon having, I think with resolve and speed, determined to make a start on changes and reforms in the administration of the 1876 Act. He is determined to use the Advisory Committee more. We want to encourage him to do that. We have enlarged the representativeness of the group that is in association with it. We want to co-operate with it. I am not prepared to join with any noble Lords this afternoon in delivering a rebuff to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, because I think that he has done enough to justify approval, rather than the vote of no confidence which I think giving the Bill a Second Reading might imply.
I disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, on this point. I think that the situation has changed; I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Platt. Let us say to the Home Secretary: We have heard what you are prepared to do. We encourage you to do it. We ask you to do more. We shall take stock again a little later on, but meantime we will not give a Second Reading to a Bill that you might think is a vote of censure upon you. I believe that it would be most unfortunate if we were to divide on the Amendment to the Motion for the Second Reading. That would be to reject it. I do not know what might come out of it. But I say with great respect that I think it would be far better if the House were to take note of what the Home Secretary is doing, to approve of it, to move on, and then come back on another occasion to see how much has been done.
5.43 p.m.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, I find myself in a most difficult position having to address your Lordships after the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, as I do not have the skill with words which he can produce. I am not sure that I go the whole way with him, but I think it is rather peculiar that it has to take two presentations of a Bill like

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this—in addition to the pressure which the noble Lord has been applying—to get the Home Secretary to move. I trust that in future when something needs to be done we shall have people like the noble Baroness who are prepared to put down Bills. Perhaps that would stimulate various Home Secretaries from time to time. It was pleasant to hear the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, for whom I have the greatest respect, as most of the opposition to the Bill sounded to me rather like a piece of music being played by five different orchestras with a number of different conductors. The theme was always the same, but the tone was slightly different.
What appeared to me to be difficult, is that the noble Baroness is posing a question as to how far can one justify the use of animals in experiments, and she has endeavoured to draw a line as to where this experimentation should cease. While I must confess that I do not like the idea of animals being used in experiments, I am not denying—and I should be the last to deny—that in certain circumstances it is necessary to use animals. There are certain areas of medicine in which I consider it is probably absolutely essential to use them. But I do not include the kind of self-inflicted wounds such as smoking as constituting a justifiable use of animals in order to cure anybody. It is difficult to know where to stop. In the Bill, the noble Baroness says that one should stop at cosmetics. People who oppose the Bill might consider that we are trying to insert the thin edge of the wedge in order to stop all experiments on animals. I personally should be most upset if that were thought to be so, and if anybody attributed that to me I should deny it most strongly.
It has been said that cosmetics have been proved to be dangerous and have caused all kinds of difficulties in the past in the way of injuries and similar troubles. Cosmetics have been in use for some considerable time. What I think people are trying to say is not that cosmetics as such are dangerous, but that people want to put new drugs and new materials into cosmetics and they are not quite sure what effect such cosmetics would have. I cannot see how much further one can go in enlarging the range of cosmetics. Having looked around this world for a number of years, I do not see that very
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much improvement can be made. I am very strongly against the use of animals for improving cosmetics any further.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, carefully asked whether the public knew what was being done in all these experiments. My Lords, I am quite convinced that the public do not know, and I feel that if they did know there would be a tremendous reaction against many of the cosmetics which are now being produced. It would be interesting to see what would happen if manufacturers were required by law to state on cosmetic containers what animals had been used in the manufacture of the cosmetics and various other preparations. For instance, in regard to face cream it might be stated that the manufacturers had used 50 rabbits, 20 monkeys, 13 dogs and 14 cats. If that information had to be stated on a container, I wonder how many people, when they read that, would be prepared to buy the cosmetics?
One always has the feeling that the basis for all these experiments is highly commercialised. It is done only in order to increase the profits in cosmetic firms, and I personally do not like animals to be used in this way. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Fawley, mentioned certain fearful things about allergies. He referred to what has to be done when people get allergies from cosmetics and said that you have to use animals to stop it. My Lords, you get allergies from quite different things. Penicillin is one of those things. Nobody testing penicillin on animals could have said that somebody like myself would come out in the most appalling sores as a result of its use. I am afraid that, to me, Lord Hunt's arguments have small bearing. Personally, I welcome the Bill. The noble Baroness has been told that it is defective. There is never a Private Bill which is produced which some Government Department does not say is defective, but no doubt that could be sorted out in Committee. Personally, I support the noble Baroness.
5.50 p.m.
Lord HILL of LUTON: My Lords, as in the case of other noble Lords, the carefully prepared speech which I brought with me is going home in my pocket undelivered, no doubt gaining in brilliance all the time, for there is very little more to

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be said. I felt there was little more to be said after the forthright speech of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. I will, if I may, concentiate on one point which I find both disturbing and puzzling—the noble Lord dealt with it, at least by implication—and it is this. One can understand the anti-vivisectionist who, on moral grounds, is wholly against the use of animals in experimentation. I do not accept that, but I can understand it. What I cannot understand is the selection of cosmetics for this particular exercise. I suspect that the reason is that it is regarded as an unnecessary activity, even a frivolous activity. It is no good the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, thinking that an old gentleman like him can get up and tell the women of this country what they should put on their faces or other places.
I believe it has been selected because it is thought to be superfluous and unnecessary, and even improper, no doubt—and I believe that to be a substantial weakness. Thirty million people use cosmetics, and it is not only lipstick and powder—those particular items which years ago taught the noble Lord the difference between one girl and another. There is a wide range of products—soaps, lotions, creams, deodorants—which are used by people for one purpose or another, from the improvement of appearance to the sweetening of some part of the human body. I believe that to be the main weakness of this Bill.
We ought not to say to people, "If this is a substance you use of your own free will just to freshen yourself and to beautify yourself—unnecessary exercises—then you do it at your own risk". That seems to me to go right to the heart of the whole consumer protection business, in which the noble Baroness has taken so active a part. If women (and men, for that matter; but I will stick to the subject raised by the noble Lord) decide that these things are what they want, despite the pleas of elderly gentlemen, then they are entitled to have their safety guaranteed so far as can be, and that seems to me to be the main question to be asked and answered. Are we entitled to expect that forms of action or activity which are not essential, or articles which are not essential, are safe? For if we once depart from the present position, we shall be in grave trouble.
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Toys are not necessary or essential, but parents are entitled to know that they are safe. There are all sorts of activities and articles which are not essential, but we are entitled to know that they are safe. I really rather regret the selection of cosmetics as an area from which experiment should be excluded, because I suspect it is being done for the reason that the noble Lord all too readily revealed in that temporary appeal to the women of this country.
So I would say that people are entitled to safety, and that therefore the question which arises is: Is animal experimentation necessary for that purpose? I do not presume to answer that question in strict terms. The weight of scientific opinion is that animal experimentation is necessary, despite the growing use of human experimentation—and I suspect that there will be many cases in which there will need to be animal experimentation before human experimentation can take place. So I believe that this Bill is misguided. As the noble Lord points out, it has had an unexpected dividend or an extra dividend in the form of the subsequent statement of the noble Lord. But on the basic issue of something that people do, or use or wear on their skins, sensibly or not, wisely or not, enthusiastically or not, they are entitled to know that it is safe. If we are to pursue the line of selecting such a group of articles as this and of denying animal experimentation on the grounds that it is an unnecessary activity, that seems to me to be a very dangerous doctrine. I hope the House will support the Amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and will bring an end to what is a most undesirable movement, contrary to a much more important movement—the movement for increasing the safety of the environment, whether it in fact relates to necessary or unnecessary, to serious or to frivolous, activities.
5.58 p.m.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on bringing forward this Bill. In my opinion, the noble Baroness had rather a rough ride on the last Bill she brought forward. The noble Lord on the Front Bench, Lord Harris of Greenwich, rather interested me when he said that the 1876 Cruelty to Animals Act must be quite all right because there have

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been (I think he said) no prosecutions, or hardly any prosecutions, under it. That is really a very poor argument, I think, because we must remember that this Act was introduced to protect a mere handful of extremely high-grade scientists who were experimenting with only 200 or 300 animals, whereas we now have these vast commercial firms who are experimenting with millions of animals. This is a trade, I understand, worth £200 million a year and, as we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hill, it supplies 20 million to 30 million people. That is not to say that the 5 million experiments apply only to this trade, because the 5 million figure applies to non-medical experiments and to medical experiments. But this is a vast commercial business, and to say that the Act has worked well because there has not been any prosecution is a very poor argument. I should like to see a completely new Act. I think we should have a 1977 or 1978 Act to provide far more stringent protection for animals.
My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, said that in the last debate I mentioned a figure of 1 million animals used in experiments for cosmetics. I did not mean toiletry. I took my figures from the Sunday Mirror of the 24th February 1974. The Sunday Mirror stated that 1 million animals died annually in cosmetic testing. They are referring to both medical and non-medical and not to non-medical alone. In previous debates, we have always been told by the Government, and by other noble Lords, that it is quite impossible to separate the medical from the non-medical in cosmetics. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, I think, told us that there were only 30,000 animals used in non-medical cosmetics. If the noble Earl knows that, he must have made a definition and a distinction between medical and non-medical.
The Earl of HALSBURY: My Lords, may I intervene? What I said was that the trade federation of the cosmetics manufacturers circulated their members for information and turned up 30,000. I did not say that they were medical or non-medical; just cosmetical.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, I am surprised there were so few; because the information I have had is that they were very much
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greater. I was pleased to hear what Lord Harris of Greenwich—not that I am going to throw him any bouquets—told us about LD50; but I am rather of the opinion that if the Government had not had pressure put on them by these debates, we should not have had that welcome news about the LD50 tests. I know two young people who left laboratories that were doing that work because they were so disgusted. I do not want to go into further detail than we have had in the debate this afternoon, but the LD50 test does seem, in the majority of cases, to be quite unnecessary and extremely cruel: often to force-feed animals until their guts are broken and ruptured. Surely, it serves no purpose to take an animal which is perhaps one-hundredth or one two-hundredth the weight of a man and to test a substance on it by inflicting a far greater dose than any man would ever have to take. It seems completely illogical and absurd.
I should like to take up something which was said by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, and others in regard to thalidomide. I understand that thalidomide was tested on various animals, and that on rats it had no effect at all. But it was found that if a rabbit received 30 times the normal dose for a woman, it produced slight abnormalities in the foetus. What I am pointing out is that tests on animals often have been proved to be completely unreliable as applied to human beings. For instance, as was mentioned in the last debate, insulin and cortisone cause abnormalities in animals but no abnormalities in humans. Let us take the case of penicillin. We might never have had penicillin if it had been discovered today; because if you give penicillin to guinea pigs it poisons them. In the days when penicillin was discovered, they did not, as a routine, go into the screening and laboratory tests that are carried out today with animals. Therefore it might never have reached clinical trials; we would not have had it; and man would have lost a great deal. They would have tried it on animals; it would have poisoned them; and we would not have got it. I am not a doctor, but one must go by the evidence. I do not think you can really say (as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said, if I understood him correctly) that substances must always be tested on animals. He gave the impression that it was infallible.

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When we come to some of these eye tests on rabbits and other animals, I think they are really cruel. There is plenty of evidence to prove that where you hold animals in a clamp keep their eyes open and pour into the eyes these shampoos and other astringents, this is very cruel. But what it really boils down to is the moral issue. The moral issue varies with the individual; it depends on an individual's attitude to how far he separates animal life from human life, from the human animal. I am nowhere told that we have a soul—and, as the right reverend Prelate is in his place, I am not going to enter into a theological argument—but I am sure we have a soul. We also have far greater powers of reasoning and greater inventiveness and greater imagination than animals. I do not think animals have much imagination. We have greater mental powers than animals; but do we differ greatly physically? Of course, the trouble is that it is very difficult to know how much pain an animal feels because he cannot speak our language.
Might I quote very shortly from two reports? The official report of the Committee on Cruelty to Wild Animals concluded that on behavioural, anatomical and survival grounds, animals suffer pain in the same way as human beings. This was followed by the Littlewood Report of 1965 which, on page 65, stated:
"There is scientific evidence that all mammals have the physical structures which seem to be involved in the production of sensations of pain and these appear to work in the same way as in man."
There you have the opinion of two very learned committees. From my practical experience, I know where animals do suffer acute pain, stress and misery. The average person's ignorance about animals is quite extraordinary. I suppose that is because we are an urban nation. Might I point out the acute senses that animals have? The average animal has a far better sense of smell than we have; it has better eyesight and better hearing. This is not always the case but I am speaking of the average. For example, a dog with his far more acute hearing going through a hayfield in summer time must be completely deafened by the noise of insects. When I worked sheepdogs I
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had a whistle which, when blown could be heard by the dog a long way away. The human ear could not hear it. Animals on the whole have more perception than we have and a far greater homing instinct.
My Lords, if we consider whales, the blue whale can communicate for 400 miles with another whale. If it were not for all the disturbances in the oceans, such as those caused by ships, it could probably communicate for 4,000 miles. We are inclined to say that they are just animals, as if they are inanimate objects. If they have these senses, they must feel acute pain, misery and distress. If you are riding a highly-bred horse—and horses are not intelligent—its reactions are amazingly quick; they are quicker than those of a human being. If anything stirs in a hedge the horse will immediately shy. We must conclude that animals feel pain to the same degree that we do.
My Lords, I have spoken for too long. I would say to appease the scientists that I agree that legislating on biology is very difficult; but if the survival of a government depended at the polls on making a definition between a medical and non-medical cosmetic, I bet you anything they would soon make it! I do not think that the excuse that a definition cannot be made is good enough. We pride ourselves on being the highest and most civilised form of life; we must behave as such in our treatment of fellow mammals of less intelligence. If we do not, we debase ourselves and civilisation. It is the custom in this House to give Bills a Second Reading. A Bill can always be amended at Committee stage. I hope this Bill receives a Second Reading, and I support it.
6.13 p.m.
Lord DOUGLAS of BARLOCH: My Lords, this has been a very wide-ranging debate and I venture to think that some of it has had very little reference to the Bill. One noble Lord referred to a case of the girls who were employed painting watch dials and who developed cancer. They developed cancer 25 or 30 years later. Animal testing I am afraid would not have saved them. Somebody else referred to insulin and the need for testing. Nobody pays any attention to the fact that the population of this country is eating far too much sugar and that is why there is

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the development of diabetes. These issues are outside the scope of this Bill, which is devoted solely to one particular purpose: to make it clear that testing cosmetics should not fall within the definition which is contained in the Act of 1876.
Let us look at what this Act said. It was for the purpose of regulating and indeed for prohibiting, with exceptions, experiments upon animals. The experiments which were to be permitted were for making new discoveries of physiological knowledge or knowledge which would be useful for saving or prolonging life or alleviating suffering. I do not think testing cosmetics has anything to do with alleviating suffering or prolonging life and I do not see what it has to do with extending new knowledge and physiology. It is not directed to that at all. If our predecessors, who 101 years ago passed the Cruelty to Animals Act, had been told that it was going to permit all the experimentation which takes place today they would have been horrified.
It is said that this Bill is highly undesirable because people must be protected by the testing of products. This is what my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich has said and what the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, and others, have said. But what are these products against which people are to be protected? They are produced by people who are manufacturing cosmetics for the purpose of their private profit. Why should we help them to do this? Why should we say: "You can put them on the market if you like; it does not matter because if this Bill is passed you need not test them"? Is this really the law of this country, that anybody who likes to put a product on the market, recklessly and without knowing the effects it will have, is entitled to do so? I feel extremely surprised at this doctrine. If that is the state of the law of this country it wants fundamental re-examination. Whether or not this Bill should be passed, I do not know; but I have a feeling that it will be salutary if it has a Second Reading because this subject wants examination. My noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby referred to the Advisory Committee and perhaps that may be a useful method of dealing with the matter. I wonder whether the Advisory Committee ever considers whether the experiments which are being permitted fall within
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the definition in the Act of 1876 of what is permissible.
My noble friend Lord Harris said that this Bill was objectionable because it was going to create a new crime. But the Act of 1876 creates a crime. Under it nobody is entitled to conduct experiments on animals unless they are for the purposes which I have mentioned, for providing new physiological knowledge. Surely, testing cosmetics is not providing new knowledge about the physiology of human beings, nor is it making a contribution to medical science for the saving or prolonging of life. I suggest that, if nothing else is done, somebody should begin to think about whether this is the kind of situation which this Act of Parliament is intended to permit.
6.19 p.m.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, I will not attempt to reply to all your Lordships who have taken part in this debate. I feel rather punch drunk at the moment. I may say to my noble friend Lord Houghton that the amount of lipstick that I have used in the past few years since I have been in your Lordships' House has not produced for me any sexual experiences; but perhaps I should still be hopeful! I in fact use bath salts, but no white knight in shining armour has come up the garden. Perhaps I should sue under the Trade Descriptions Act!
Some interesting arguments have been advanced against my poor little Bill. I learned that it was a dangerous doctrine. The noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, seemed to think that anything should be safe, whatever you are going to do. I do not want to debate with him, but I wonder how far he would extend that to the realm of tobacco. We were told, notably by the doctors, of course, that they frequently recommend makeup. It is very interesting news to me that a lady who goes for treatment for depression is told to use a little more face cream. If it is therapeutic to cover up burnt skin, that would not be purely cosmetic. I thought I had tried to make that point at the beginning of the debate.
I thought the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, made a very powerful speech, but I am sorry that I cannot say the same for the Minister. He thundered on and reiterated

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at least three times that it was "criminal law". But, my Lords, what is every Act of Parliament that we have dealt with in this House? Nearly all Bills create crimes about which I, as a magistrate, have to listen, and which carry a penalty. I could not follow why this Bill was different in any particular from any other Bill or Act that is dealt with in this House. Certainly there are some civil actions which flow from certain matters but, generally speaking, we are concerned with the implementation of Acts of Parliament which make criminal law.
The noble Lord then went on to unfold the "goodies", as did the noble Lord, Lord Houghton—in other words, that the Home Office are going to decide either to resuscitate the Advisory Committee or to put more people on it, but at any rate I gather I was supposed to fall about and say, "Marvellous!" I say quite seriously to the Minister that it would have been a little more courteous if he, on behalf of the Government, and possibly also the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, and the noble Lord, Lord Platt, had told me of these discussions before today. I will put it no higher than that, but if they were going to suggest that, on the strength of that, I withdrew my Bill—though they did not put it quite so forcefully as that—I think I might have been a little forewarned.
I am sorry that the Advisory Committee does not cause me to wish to withdraw the Bill and, for the life of me, I cannot see how the Government could take that as an act of censure. We are always told about these committees. When we debated quite recently a very small clause to be put in a Bill concerning handicapped children, what was I told from the Front Bench?—"Wait for the Warnock Committee". We are always waiting for something or for some committee, and I would say that this Bill does not in any way stop the Advisory Committee going about their business. In fact, it is very interesting that they have selected the specific LD50 test. Since the noble Earl informed us earlier that it was hardly ever used, why should they bother to investigate it?
We were also told that the number of animals involved was so small; and, incidentally, several people set up in
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order to knock down Aunt Sallies that I had not raised. I very carefully did not raise the 5 million figure; so why people bothered to "reply" to it I do not know, except that perhaps they had their speeches written first and could not be flexible about them. Even if the number of animals is small, I would say to the noble Earl that surely that does not matter so much. You cannot have it both ways. If you are not doing the tests you have nothing to worry about, even if the Advisory Committee look at it. If the number of animals is only small then, all right, this is only a small piece of legislation.
I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Hill, that I stand on a moral base and I do not wish to be unctuous about it. I take the point that was made by the right reverend Prelate, and I care far more for my cousins than my cats. I care for people, just as all your Lordships do; but it is of little use to make a protestation of sympathy and to say, for instance, that you, like me, are sorry for the animals, if you still persist in saying that these experiments shall go on. I believe, with St. Francis, that we do have a trusteeship over the lower animals, and equally I believe it is unnecessary to carry out these experiments in our day and age. Where are our scientists, if they cannot devise some tests which need not involve experiments being made on animals?
My Lords, I am sorry that I remain unconvinced either by the scientific arguments or the frightening arguments that have been advanced. I am unconvinced by the worst and most insiduous argument of all, that if I do this I shall in some way be committing an act of censure on the Government. I shall risk that, my Lords, because I prefer to be on the side of the animals.
6.25 p.m.
The Earl of HALSBURY: My Lords, we have had a very interesting and wideranging debate on the Bill and on my Amendment, which have been debated together; and honours are even. We have had 10 speeches in favour of the Bill and 10 speeches in favour of the Amendment. In those circumstances, I do not think one can ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her Bill and I do not think I can be asked to withdraw my Amendment.

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Quite frankly, opinions are equally divided and we should go into the Division Lobby at the end of my remarks.
I was not entirely happy about the introduction of the noble Baroness, when she said "This is Animal Day and it is very appropriate in relation to Animal Year, and so to celebrate that let us have a new law." I realise that she was speaking only light-heartedly, but straws show which way the wind blows and I think there has been a very deliberate effort to get something done in Animal Welfare Year, 1976, because it is the anniversary of 1876. However, I do not believe that that is really the right attitude to take in respect of a matter such as this.
There is one item which comes through sometimes as a logical flaw in the argument and sometimes as a misunderstanding. The noble Lord, Lord Sandys, referred to the Draize test. You do not do that test with sulphuric acid on the eye of a rabbit in order to prove that sulphuric acid will injure the eye, because you know it will. You only do a Draize test on something which you have good reason to suppose is safe. When I was young, we did not have shampoos and I had the trauma of having my hair washed with soap, and it always got into my eyes and stung. The sting passed, of course, and no-long term damage was done. It is quite understandable that an animal's eye might smart for a moment if something were put into it: so would mine. But as the law stands, and working under a Home Office licence, if, as a consequence, the animal was in permanent severe pain you could either kill the animal then and there or alternatively you could anaesthetise it then and there and see whether the pain was still there when it recovered consciousness. But, as the law stands, you would not be allowed to keep the animal in pain for that purpose.
As I said, there sometimes occurs a logical flaw in the argument and this applies to some extent to what was said by the noble Lords, Lord Houghton and Lord de Clifford—put a label on the bottle saying, "This has been tested on animals". If the conclusion of the test on animals was that it did not do them any harm and therefore was safe for human beings to use, what was the harm in that? I think if you tried to bias people's choice by telling them that a preparation was
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perfectly safe because it had been tested on an animal, they would see through the argument and say, "What does that matter?"
I am a little concerned about the idea that you ought to give something a Second Reading to mark the importance of the subject-matter. I think that is a rather dangerous doctrine. We have done that once already, and I said that one of my purposes was to save your Lordships going through the business of Committee and Report stages. All you could do in Committee with regard to so simple a Bill would be to put in a wrecking Amendment—so why not test the matter at the Second Reading?
I was very glad to recruit the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, to our half of the team, as it were, though not necessarily for the reasons that I would have wished to recruit him, and to have his support. We have been crossing swords across the Floor of this House on this topic for long enough to have a family joke and, with regard to the famous pot of cold cream, I must tell him that I appear to have coined this as an aside in reply to a speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, when I said that I quite agreed with the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene, about the unnecessary provision of the LD50s on things such as cold cream and so on. It was my coining; not the noble Viscount's. This got into the minds of the people who read Hansard, but I assure your Lordships that a pot of cold cream is not the crest of the Research Defence Society.
I do not want to talk about thalidomide. I was involved in that tragedy. The full story has never been told, save only that at that time the state of medical knowledge was such that non-toxic substances were not tested for teratogenic action. It was then believed that all teratogens were toxic. Thalidomide was the exception, and now non-toxic substances are regularly tested for that.
I very much welcome the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, to have this new scheme of reporting. I am involved in one of his pilot studies for it. I do not know whether he has read the fine print in some of these documents, but, curiously enough, one of the categories which you are not asked to report

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on is whether you are doing experiments on cosmetics. In view of all the "curfuffle" in Parliament about this, I find that rather surprising and perhaps the noble Lord would be willing to look into it.
The fact that the 1876 Act is 100 years old does not mean that it is inoperative or out of date. Magna Charta is 762 years old but we still have it, or something like it, on the Statute Book. I am not a lawyer, so I do not know whether that is the right way to talk about it. But times have changed since the 1876 Act and I am aware that there is considerable public anxiety about this question. More tests are being done, and for different purposes than when the 1876 Act was passed, and I think it is desirable that there should be a public reassurance. What I hope for is that, in the light of the new information with which the noble
Lord, Lord Harris, will provide us, we might consider the problem of legislation when the facts are known. I think that it would be the height of unwisdom to legislate first, and find out the facts second. Therefore, my Lords, I press my Amendment.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-jones): My Lords, the original Question was that this Bill be now read a second time, since when an Amendment has been moved to leave out "now" and at end to insert "this day six months". The Question therefore is that this Amendment be agreed to.
6.33 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 96; Not-Contents, 39.

CONTENTS

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Allerton, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Murray of Gravesend, L.

Amulree, L.

Exeter, M.

Northchurch, B.

Atholl, D.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Ogmore, L.

Auckland, L.

Gisborough, L.

Oram, L.

Bacon, B.

Glasgow, E.

Platt, L.

Balerno, L.

Gridley, L.

Popplewell, L.

Banks, L.

Hacking, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Belstead, L.

Halsbury, E.

Ridley, V.

Birdwood, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Blyton, L.

Harvington, L.

Romney, E.

Boothby, L.

Hill of Luton, L.

St. Davids, V.

Bridgeman, V.

Hives, L.

St. Just, L.

Brock, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Sharples, B.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Stamp, L.

Burton, L.

Hunt, L. [Teller.]

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Stedman, B.

Cathcart, E.

Jacques, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Cawley, L.

Killearn, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Champion, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Sudeley, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Swansea, L.

Cobham, V.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Thorneycroft, L.

Congleton, L.

Lyell, L.

Thurlow, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Thurso, V.

Cranbrook, E.

MacLeod of Fuinary, L.

Vernon, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Vickers, B.

Daventry, V.

Mansfield, E.

Vivian, L.

De L'Isle, V.

Margadale, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Denham, L.

Mersey, V.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Drumalbyn, L. [Teller.]

Monck, V.

White, B.

Dulverton, L.

Mottistone, L.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Dundonald, E.

Mountgarret, V.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Greenway, L.

Northfield, L.

Ardwick, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Phillips, B. [Teller.]

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hale, L.

Rusholme, L.

Berkeley, B.

Hanworth, V.

Sandys, L.

Brockway, L.

Jacobson, L. [Teller.]

Selkirk, E.

Caradon, L.

Kaldor, L.

Sheffield, Bp.

Cornwallis, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Southwark, Bp.

de Clifford, L.

Listowel, E.

Spens, L.

Dormer, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Stone, L.

Evans of Hungershall, L.

Molson, L.

Strang, L.

Foot, L.

Monson, L.

Tranmire, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

Morris, L.

Wigoder, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.

COVENT GARDEN MARKET (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) BILL
Brought from the Commons endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911; read 1a, and to be printed.

DEER BILL [H.L.]
6.42 p.m.
Lord NORTHFIELD: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time. I am very conscious that in this debate I cannot for a moment match the knowledge and experience of many Members of your Lordships' House in their study of deer, the problem of their management and the knowledge of their habits. Already I am very grateful to many noble Lords for their friendly counsel and advice and, as I have gone about your Lordships' House, for the offers which have been made to me many times to meet me after the Second Reading of the Bill, if a Second Reading is given to it today, to try to get an agreed Bill at Committee stage. I wish to emphasise from the very beginning that an agreed Bill is my aim and the aim of many Members of your Lordships' House who support its Second Reading.
This is a Bill for England and Wales. It re-enacts, amends and strengthens the Deer Act 1963. I want to make it clear from the very beginning that the Bill should in no sense be interpreted as an attack on stag hunting, which still takes place in certain parts of the country. I
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understand that no attempt will be made during the passage of the Bill to raise the issue of stag hunting and get it written into the Bill. It would be a foolhardy exercise to try to do so. If there were such an attempt, perhaps in another place, I am sure, from testing the water in this House, that the Amendment would be rejected here and that the whole Bill would be lost. As I say, it would be a rather stupid exercise because, judging from the comments which have been made to me, I believe that most Members of your Lordships' House want the principal provisions of the Bill to become law.
Therefore the Bill is not an attack on stag hunting; nor is it unduly restrictive about what is done, with the authority of the owner, on private land. The Bill helps, not hinders, the process of management and the proper culling of deer. It is not a sentimental Bill, designed to claim that deer are a threatened species which need very special legislation in order to save them. It is none of those things. Its purpose is to prevent poaching and the intensely cruel killing of deer by poachers. This activity has now escalated into big business in this country and has increased the cruelty of poaching because of the value of the carcases which are being taken, and it is leading to open lawlessness by gangs who threaten the safety of people who go about the lawful job of trying to safeguard and manage deer. The central purpose of the Bill is to prevent poaching.
May I make one preliminary point about the detailed provisions of the Bill. I understand, and I shall be very interested to listen to comments about it, that there are doubts about Clause 4 which deals with creating an offence of trespass in pursuit of deer. Also, I understand that there are some doubts, although I should not

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like to say how great they are, about Part III of the Bill, which sets up a system for the control of sales of venison through the existing system of licensed game dealers. I shall deal with those two matters in a preliminary way.
May I say right away that I hope that the critics of these two cardinal features of the Bill will reflect upon the fact that these provisions are already part of the law of Scotland. They are not new, untried provisions which are being introduced into the corporate law of this country. The provisions are similar, but they are not totally identical. However, the principle contained in these two provisions exists in Scottish law, in the Deer (Scotland) Act and in the Sale of Venison (Scotland) Act. Therefore I hope that any criticism will be tempered by the fact that these provisions are working in another part of the United Kingdom.
Secondly, I hope that anybody who criticises these two provisions of the Bill will look at the extent to which our present law concerning these matters is way behind that of other European countries. If one takes the offences of night shooting, the close season, venison regulations, the firearms regulations and police game keeper powers, my researches lead me to believe that we are far behind Norway, Sweden, Denmark, West Germany, Holland, Belgium and Austria but that perhaps we are less far behind France and Switzerland. As the law exists at the moment, we have no good record to call on.
I come now to the Bill and the consultations which preceded it. First, at least 30 separate bodies have been consulted on the drafting of the Bill, which has taken place over several years. It is not new, hastily thought up drafting. I pay my particular tribute to Mr. Hotchkis, the Parliamentary activist, if I may so describe him, of the British Deer Society who has helped in every way with the drafting of this Bill—although it is not, of course, a British Deer Society Bill. The Home Office has been fully consulted at every stage; so also have other Government Departments, including the Ministry of Defence relating to lands owned by them. The Forestry Commission and the British Field Sports Society have been consulted. The police have been particularly questioned on the proposal to
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prohibit the use of shotguns. The RSPCA, the League against Cruel Sports and the Country Landowners' Association have been consulted. The National Farmers' Union who, I know, have written to many Members of your Lord ships' House, have been consulted, but they make it clear at the very beginning of their circular that they are in favour of the principles underlying the Bill. The Game Conservancy have also been consulted, and so have other bodies. The list is very long indeed. There has been consistent support for improving the Deer Act 1963 in journals such as Country Life, The Field, and so on. If I may say so to your Lordships, I think it has a very respectable pedigree even before we come to discuss its details.
Then what is the particular need for the Bill? The changes in the situation since 1963 form the need for the Bill. Deer have spread. There are at least something like 70,000, at a very rough estimate, in England. The legitimate annual cull of deer is about 17,000 but the best estimate that can be made of the illegal cull is about 5,000, although it is probably far more. In addition of course there are many legitimately killed by farmers who find them marauding crops, and a number are killed on the roads by cars. But if we look at the trade in illegal venison we shall find that it is becoming very big business indeed. That, then, is the first reason for the Bill—the change in the numbers of deer and the change in the amount of killing by poaching.
Secondly, since 1963 the habits of deer have been more clearly understood. Management is now known to be essential. Local deer societies in their culling work actually give the carcases to landowners—they are not trying to get a monopoly of shooting and keeping the carcases. These societies have grown, the trained stalkers have grown in numbers; the whole possibility of managing in a proper way has grown. Thirdly, national appreciation of deer as part of our natural environment has grown since 1963 and we can no longer allow indiscriminate killing of what is now regarded as an animal which is at least to some extent to be protected as part of our natural environment.
The fourth reason is the precise point which I made at the beginning—the

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alarming increase in poaching, the threats to keepers by highly organised gangs who maraud nightly in many parts of this country on highly skilled operations to poach deer and sell them at anything from £50 to perhaps £150 per carcase. This is big business. For example, I see that the chief constable of Dorset has said that he regards them now as being highly organised in his part of the country. I understand that in one police area they have set up a special office to deal with complaints about this continuous poaching.
The methods vary, but the one that is the most grisly, disgusting and needing to be eliminated is the use by poachers of cars—they arrive in gangs in Land-Rovers, they use intensive light to dazzle the deer, they then pepper what they can find with shotguns, causing much indiscriminate cruelty to deer which escape to die in misery somewhere, and then make off with the carcases. Of course there are other things going on that we know about. Some poachers are now using specially trained lurcher dogs to catch deer. I have no wish to interfere with legitimate sport, but a great deal of what is done by these lurcher dogs goes quite beyond reason and they are used for indiscriminate poaching. For example, one sees advertisements for lurcher dogs to do this work, presumably mainly for poaching. These advertisements are now openly carried in the newspapers. The Exchange and Mart has an advertisement reading:
"Lurcher dogs, catch deer, rabbit; excellent with lamp. £50."
That is a clear indication of the way in which gangs are using lamps with lurcher dogs to do their poaching. Another advertisement says:
"A lurcher bitch: gets well stuck into roe deer."
The Newcastle Evening Chronicle of the 20th February this year was advertising them. They may be used quite legitimately for some reason, but we know that a great many of them are used illegally for poaching. On the 20th August last year a man caught as a result of investigations in connection with burglary—he could not be caught very easily under the present Deer Act—turned out to be what the Evening Standard called "A super poacher" who in four years got 100 deer valued at £12,000, mainly from the Woburn Abbey estate. Part of his statement read:
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"One day I went to the park. My dog pulled a buck down; I pulled it to the side of the road, cut its throat, but it kicked me, so I ran the car over its head to finish it off."
We know that this sort of thing is going on by highly organised gangs to complete their poaching activities. I thought the climax of this—if I may be slightly lighthearted about what is rather a grisly subject—was a notice reported in one newspaper at Market Drayton: a poacher openly advertising in local shops that he had increased his prices for venison because of what he called "increased overheads", which happened to be fines for poaching of over £300. As I understand it, he was doing a large-scale trade with hotels.
I do not think I need dwell unduly on these methods, except to add, of course, that I have not been exhaustive in my list. Many other illegal practices go on: snares, the use of other missiles of cruel kinds, even down to arrows and all kinds of bludgeoning instruments. Many examples exist, quoted from all over the country, of deer found dying in misery through the use of disgusting types of snare in the countryside. That is the first point. There is a great deal of illegal poaching of a most grisly and cruel kind, now highly organised and highly profitable. But the case does not rest simply on that. It is now the case that this is leading to the beginning of real lawlessness and the possibility of crimes against the person on a much greater scale.
These gangs are openly threatening gamekeepers and other people lawfully trying to intercept them and to stop the poaching. Furthermore, there are re corded examples of people injured, people beaten up, people just avoiding being run down by the Land-Rovers. I see that one Blackdown farmer reported: "They told me that if I informed the police my property would not be worth looking at. By that I presume they meant fire ". I am told that one magistrate—and the noble Lord, Lord Burton, knows this case better than I do—who did not in fact sit to adjudicate on a case but withdrew from the Bench nevertheless (quite coincidentally perhaps) found that his farm buildings were burnt down a few nights later. This is the way that the trade is now growing and the extent of the cruelty is well known.
The kind of practice is well documented in an article in the Sunday Times in

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December 1974. It reads something as follows:
"Guns are too noisy for the real professional These are the hoodlum gangs who go about their business with a cold-blooded nastiness that A1 Capone would have admired. Their favourite method of slaughtering deer is messy but devastatingly effective."
Then it describes how these poachers drive the deer to feed and then dazzle them with light, let loose the dogs and then finish them off. It continues:
"Deer finished off in this way may be considered lucky. All too often, especially when a shotgun gang is at work, the end is as bloody as the climax of a Sam Peckinpah movie. The animals are simply strafed with buckshot blasted into the herd at random. Those which are not killed outright often manage to escape, perhaps hobbling away on shattered stumps or with their jaw so badly smashed that they are unable to feed and slowly die of starvation. Places where access is easy are hardest hit by these deer slayers. At the New Forest, the head forester, Fred Courtier, has assembled a grisly museum of barbarous trophies—snares, crossbow bolts, traps, broken deer skulls; a grim legacy of the poacher's art."
Then it goes on to describe some of the worst examples. I have looked at 135 Press cuttings of court cases in 1974/1975 trying to catch people of this kind. I have seen county by county reports, which I have here—I could not possibly read them all to your Lordships in a speech of reasonable length—showing what is happening county by county as these practices spread and attempts are made to catch the poachers.
My Lords, I come penultimately to the Bill itself. May I go through it very briefly. Clause 1 provides for close seasons, mainly re-enacting the Deer Act 1963. Clause 2 provides for nightly close times. I would imagine that there is universal agreement in your Lordships' House on those two provisions. Part II of the Bill deals with illegal methods of taking, snaring, killing, the use of lamps and the grisly weapons of the poacher's art, in an attempt to tighten and strengthen the law prohibiting them. Clause 4, to which I have already referred at the opening of my remarks, deals with the prohibition of trespass but only in search of deer; it is based on the Deer (Scotland) Act, and it is, of course, needed in order to give the police a chance to catch the offenders effectively by seeing them emerging from the land or catching them on the land actually doing their
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work. Clause 5 deals with the arrest of such people and is based very much again on previous legislation, on the Night Poaching Acts, on the Badger Act and other pieces of similar legislation dealing with animals.
We come to Part III, which is absolutely essential to the Bill. Clauses 6 to 12 regulate the sale of venision through licensed game dealers. This is very important indeed in order that the outlet for deer should be so clear that the police have a chance of catching those selling deer illegally. I would say to my noble friend who is to reply for the Government, that if there is any dispute with the Home Office about Part III, we must fight this through to the end. It is a very important Part of the whole Bill on which I am not prepared to give way, although, of course, if it can be amended and made simpler, I should be glad to listen to suggestions. I would say to him, as I have said already—and I am repeating myself at the risk of boring your Lordships—that the same principle as is in Part III is in Scottish legislation already. I cannot think why there is resistance to bringing it into effect in this country, given the scale of poaching and cruelty.
We come to Part IV. Clauses 13 and 14 deal with enforcement. Clause 15 deals with forfeiture. Here I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, who I know is going to raise a point about forfeiture of lurcher dogs, that if it would help him I would certainly agree to a suggestion which I think has already been made; that is, that the words that the court can "order the destruction of any dog" could certainly be amended to read "order the disposal of any dog". I hope that that would meet a point that I know he is very anxious about—an example, if I may say so, of the extent to which I am already having negotiations to try to get an agreed Bill.
Clause 16 deals with fines. I will have a word to say about that in a moment. Clauses 17, 18 and 19 broadly deal with exceptions to the general rules of the Bill. They cover such matters as mercy killing. They cover farmers to a very large extent. If I may put it in a nutshell—I will say it slowly, because I think it is very important—under the Bill as drafted, a farmer on his own land, able to plead damage to his crops, will be able to shoot deer, even

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inside the close season—inside and outside the close season he will be able to shoot deer doing damage to his crops—with a shotgun of a certain size, for five years, before he should begin to use a rifle instead of the shotgun which is creating so much misery and cruelty. I would only say that one Amendment that I would not wish at any point to accept is to allow shotguns to be used on red deer, which are very large animals and which, once peppered with these shotguns, undergo a great deal of suffering.
Clauses 17, 18 and 19 also, incidentally, allow the use of a sawn-off shotgun for slaughtering. Of course, that is important as I understand it, to stag hunting. I hope farmers will accept that as a gesture from me and from those behind the Bill. It is an attempt to meet some of their legitimate points, that they need to use this weapon in the pursuit of their sport on some occasions.
My Lords, I come finally, because I have spoken quite long enough, to possible changes in the Bill. I have mentioned one small point to the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford. I would say that we might well simplify, if necessary, Part III. I would quite accept that there may be difficulties about Clause 22, which applies the Bill to the Crown, although I would point out that this is in fact already in the Scottish Acts; it is a little hard to understand why this should not apply to the Crown in England when it already applies in Scotland. Anyway, I shall be very happy to listen to what my noble friend has to say in advice on behalf of the Government. I would say that we would be quite happy to understand that the clause on penalties needs to be revised, so as to categorise penalties more clearly, lessening doubt about small offences against larger offences under the Bill.
My Lords, I say this finally. I hope that if the Bill is given a Second Reading we will in Committee—and I hope for many consultations before that; I hope that if necessary we would postpone the Committee stage for some time in order to get agreement—try to get all the points of view carefully taken care of. But I would plead very humbly with noble Lords not to ask us to compromise unduly on Clause 4, which is the offence of trespass in pursuit of deer; on Part III, which is the sale of venison, and the steady
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—and I repeat steady—elimination of the smaller type of shotgun which is causing so much cruelty to deer in the rural areas.
I end with one personal remark that perhaps will help your Lordships to understand my own position on this Bill. Some years ago, I think it was 1965 or 1966, I began preparations, which were publicly announced, to introduce a Bill in the House of Commons to protect the badger. As is normal in such a case, I consulted with the Home Office. The Home Office talked me out of the Badger Bill: "There are difficulties; you are making departures in the law; it is all going to be so difficult". My Lords, perhaps I was a coward; I do not know. I stupidly gave in, only to find two or three years later that somebody with more courage than I had had introduced a Badgers Bill which became a Badgers Act. I felt foolish, humiliated. I learned that day never to give in unduly to the Home Office, which is not the most progressive of our Government Departments in relation to cruelty and the regulation of these matters in our country side. All I will say to your Lordships, therefore, in conclusion, is this. After my own first unhappy experience, after now learning of the need for the principles of this Bill, I hope nobody will expect me to do otherwise than fight very hard indeed to safeguard the principles of the Bill, which I think are very necessary and should be carried, if necessary, in the teeth of the opposition of the Home Office, if they drive us that far. I hope it will not go that far. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Northfield)
7.10 p.m.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords would like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, on introducing the Bill for our consideration and, generally speaking, for the moderate manner in which he introduced it. If our blood has been made to run cold by overuse of the word "grisly", I am sure that we shall all forgive him.
As the noble Lord said, the purpose of the Bill may be said to be twofold. First, it could be said to be for the proper conservation of deer of a number of

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species and to prevent poaching. Secondly, the Bill seeks to prevent cruelty in relation to the control of deer and to protect them from indiscriminate slaughter by unsuitable weapons. Both those aims are thoroughly meritorious and I have no doubt that none of your Lordships would seek to quarrel with them. For that reason undoubtedly the Bill will be welcomed in all parts of the House.
I say "all parts of the House" advisedly having regard to the thoroughly inept leading article in last week's issue of The Field, dated 17th February. I do not believe that there is any Party issue on this matter and, indeed, it is deplorable to suggest that because the Bill has been introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, who occupies the geographical position in the Chamber that he does, there are Party political considerations. Nor do I believe that there is anything sinister about the fact that Mr. Jasper More tabled three Bills on the same subject at approximately the same time as the noble Lord, Lord Northfield.
Such an article shows a distinct lack of knowledge of our Parliamentary institutions and how they work. However, in the same way, if some of us have reservations about certain parts of the Bill, I hope it will not be thought that we have these reservations because of what I might term "Party considerations". Such certainly will not be the case so far as I am concerned. Indeed, I wish to disclaim any interest in the Bill, partly because I live in Scotland and partly because I am not particularly interested in anything in England except as it applies to a Home Office matter and relates to this Bill.
My Lords, any consideration of deer will rapidly show that, however delightful they may be as animals and however much we wish to protect them from undue harm or cruelty and, still more, from methods of poaching, which we would all deplore, they certainly have the most prolific breeding habits given the right environment. There comes a time when, for their own good, they have to be culled. In addition, it must be faced that owning, perhaps in large measure, to the activities of the Forestry Commission, the habitat in which deer breed has become steadily larger, until now in several parts of the country deer prove a considerable menace
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to both argicultural and forestry interests. Therefore, one should not minimise the fact that already there are and will increasingly be in the future, people who are concerned with perfectly laudable agricultural activities, such as farming, who will be gravely disadvantaged if they are unable to protect their crops or otherwise their interests in a humane but nevertheless effective manner. It is probably this part of the Bill which affects me the most.
At this time of night I shall not make a long speech. Indeed, I shall confine my comments to two matters: first, to Clause 3 as it is qualified by Clause 17 and, secondly, to the already notorious Clause 4 which I know always plays a great part in the thinking of noble Lords opposite. Clause 3(1)(c)(i) is really the heart of the matter so far as the taking and killing of deer is concerned and the method used. As I read this clause and Clause 17, the use of shotguns is to be banned immediately in the case of red deer, sika deer; and after five years all other deers will be protected from the use of what I call a normal shotgun. Under Clause 17(8), the deer will not be protected from an abnormal shotgun—in other words, a sawn-off shotgun. To anyone who has spent a considerable amount of time in the criminal courts prosecuting criminals for using sawn-off shotguns, this is a slightly unusual reaction.
Lord NORTHFIELD: As a slaughtering instrument, which is defined later in the Bill.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: As I read the clause, if someone shoots a deer with a sawn-off shotgun he will not be liable to be prosecuted under Clause 3(l)(c)(i). I may be wrong about that, but that is how it reads to me. Clause 17(8) reads:
"A person shall not be guilty of an offence under section 3(l)(c)(i) of this Act by reason of using, as a slaughtering instrument, a smooth bore gun…"
and so it goes on. Of course, he has to use the large shot in it. I take that to mean that if a farmer wishes to protect his crops with a sawn-off shotgun, he will be entitled to do so under Clause 17(8). That may not be what the noble Lord intends, but that is how the Bill reads.
Lord BURTON: My Lords, I do not want to cross swords with the noble Earl on English law, but is it not illegal to have a sawn-off shotgun in one's possession unless one has a special licence for it?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, I shall deal with that; but we must take the Bill as we find it. What is the farmer to do if he finds deer on his land, injuring his crops, after five years? He can do nothing but watch the crops being eaten; he can use a shotgun, which will be illegal; or he can use a rifle, which will be illegal unless he has obtained a firearms certificate for it and, even so, it has to be the large rifle—certainly larger than a 2.2. Certainly it will be illegal for more than three people to take part in any shoot pending the five years.
I note that the noble Lord says that many bodies, including the police, have been consulted about this matter. Perhaps either he or the noble Lord, Lord WellsPestell, can tell me the reaction, if any, of the Association of Chief Constables to the likely increase in applications for firearms certificates in five years' time if the Bill receives the Royal Assent. We are increasingly told of the danger to the public of the increased use of firearms in an unauthorised manner. Bearing in mind the troubles in Northern Ireland and the frightening increase in violent crime, I should have supposed that chief constables would be doing everything in their power to discourage the possession and use of high-velocity or high-capacity rifles. It follows that if a farmer is granted a certificate, the police will naturally ensure that the rifle will be kept in the most secure conditions. And who shall blame the chief constable? This is one of the points that worries me. It is more, I suggest, than a Committee point, and it is more important than it might at first blush seem to be.
I have already dealt with the matter of sawn-off shotguns. As my noble friend observes, sawn-off shotguns are, in the ordinary course of events, not within the lawful ownership of the average citizen. He has to have a firearms certificate. I suppose he could get one, but a sawn-off shotgun is generally regarded in the criminal underworld as an even more delightful weapon than a rifle. I question whether the proliferation of these weapons
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is something to be welcomed. I know the purpose for which subsection (8) has been written into the clause, but I wonder whether it will have the effect that the Promoters of this Bill think it will.
The only other matter with which I wish to deal at this moment is Clause 4. As the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, related to us, there are horrifying incidents, unfortunately all too frequent, which poachers get up to in the cruel pursuit of what is now a profitable crime. So far as Part III of the Bill is concerned I have no comment except to say that it is a cumbersome way of going about regulating the purchase and sale of this meat. I have no doubt that when the noble Lord replies to the debate he will prove that I am wrong.
So far as Clause 4 is concerned, may I first say that the fact that there is already similar legislation valid and subsisting in Scotland, may not be a very good argument when it comes to England, partly because the law of Scotland has grown up in an entirely different way. If the noble Lord is going to satisfy one or two doubts which some noble Lords may have as to this Bill he will have to go further than saying, "Well, it is all right in Scotland". The first point is that Clause 4(a) is perfectly straightforward as a prohibition of the unlawful taking or killing of deer. I am worried in regard to Clause 4(b):
"If any person unlawfully—
(b) enters or is on any land in search or pursuit of deer with the intention of taking, killing,…"
Two matters arise here. The noble Lord was quick to point out when he introduced this Bill that it is not his intention, nor that of the Promoters of this Bill, in any way to interfere with, or stop, the perfectly lawful and, I suggest, laudable occupation of staghunting. Since he has mentioned this I think that I must make some comment on it. The noble Lord gave illustrations of the type of activity which he seeks to render illegal under this subsection, and he instanced the gentleman, or more than one, who come on to land, he said in a horrible way in a Land-Rover—I did not see what was horrible about it, but still—with a lurcher or two and pursue the deer, and by one method or another incapacitate it and kill it. That is perfectly easy to comprehend, and it is unlawful under Clause 4.

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If a stag hunt in pursuing a stag, for instance, go to some place to which they do not normally go but because the stag takes them there (the outskirts of a town or some part of the country to which they do not normally go), and there is there somebody who violently objects to their presence and to what they are doing and what they are there for, how does the noble Lord distinguish between the one and the other? For the life of me, I cannot. I do not think that one can do so by some tautologous use of the word "unlawfully". That is one part of this Bill which will have to be considered carefully. I know that the noble Lord says that they have this in Scotland; but they do not have stag hunts in Scotland, and therein lies one particular difference.
The second example concerning which I am seeking information, and maybe the noble Lord can give it, is if in England an occupier perfectly properly shoots with a rifle and wounds a deer on his land—and occupiers are not all good shots—and he then goes to his next-door neighbour in pursuit of that deer, what in English law is his defence to a summons under Clause 4(b)? I do not know of it, and I am sure that perhaps at a later stage the noble Lord and I can talk about it or be in correspondence, and he can satisfy me.
There is going to be considerable—I will not say outcry—adverse comment from noble Lords, and I do not want to take up any more time, on this question of the rights of the occupier or farmer to control deer in a way which seems most suitable having regard to his particular circumstances. I instance, for example, the case of a suburban farmer, where it would be highly dangerous to have the air rent with bullets. I think that the noble Lord would agree that in general fanners, being countrymen, are responsible in what they do, and if they do shoot at a deer in order to protect their crops, or for whatever reason, they are on the whole scrupulous about following it up and seeing that it is as painlessly despatched as may be.
If the noble Lord is to justify this fetter upon their otherwise lawful activities I think that he must show rather more irresponsibility on the part of the farming community than he has been able to so
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far. I fully agree that the man who comes in some form of transport and descends on land for the purpose of taking deer by whatever method he can, purely for the purpose of selling its meat, merits very little consideration and no sympathy; but I suggest that the opposite situation obtains in the case of a farmer who may genuinely merely want to protect his crop, and will not spray unsuitable shot in the general direction of a deer. I know that other noble Lords will have many other points, but for myself, as I said at the beginning, I welcome this Bill. However, it will need a bit of digging out of the ground to make it acceptable in the end.
7.28 p.m.
Viscount THURSO: My Lords, I claim some knowledge of this subject, being the owner of a large area of deer-occupied land in Scotland, and thereby having the responsibility for the management and culling of a herd of wild deer numbering usually something over 1,100. I have also stalked deer both as an amateur and as a professional. I have pursued and apprehended poachers, and finally I served for a number of years as a National Farmers' Union representative on the Red Deer Commission in Scotland. I suppose that in a remote sense I have an interest in this Bill, but only inasmuch as the Bill may affect the whole British market in venison. Otherwise, I join in the debate hoping that the knowledge and experience of the subject that I can offer will prove to be of assistance to my Welsh and English colleagues in your Lordships' House.
The Preamble to the Bill claims that its main purpose is to improve the management of deer in England and Wales. I have read through it carefully several times and yet I still cannot find where it is supposed to provide for this. I find in it provision for the prevention of poaching, but the prevention of predation on a wild stock is not necessarily good management, not unless it can be shown that the predation is threatening the species, and we have no evidence of this—the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, has already told us that the deer population of England is increasing in spite of the level of poaching that is taking place—nor unless it can be shown that there will be substituted for the predation which normally takes place a

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controlled cull, and there is no provision in the Bill to try to ensure that this takes place.
When the Deer (Scotland) Act was passed, the whole key to the legislation was the establishment in Scotland of the Red Deer Commission with their duty to advise on proper management, to carry out a cull if necessary, to control the deer population, to prevent damage and, their most important advantage of all, that of providing a focal point where the interests of deer forest owners, farmers, stalkers, scientists and administrators could meet to thrash out the problems of management and advise all those interested parties as well as Her Majesty's Government in the person of the Secretary of State. Now that I am no longer a member of the Com mission, I think I can claim for that Commission that they do a good job and I know I can point out that a defect of this Bill is the lack of such a body, the lack even of the suggestion to provide a committee to advise or to act as a forum where competing interests can meet to thrash out their problems.
Let us examine the individual clauses of the Bill more minutely. Part I, together with Schedule I, provides for close seasons for the taking of six species of deer, and here I find myself at odds with the Bill right away, on two counts: first, I do not see the need for differences in the seasons between Scotland and England; and, secondly, I do not think it desirable to include muntjac and Chinese water deer in the list. The differences between seasons in Scotland and England would in my view be helpful to poachers, especially in the area of the English-Scottish Border. It would in my view be confusing to the venison trade and it seems hard to justify on the grounds of conservation.
Specifically, the differences are that the Bill suggests a month less open season for red dear stags in July and six and a half months more open season between 21st October and 30th April. Why? Stags are in poor condition, smelly and run down, after the rut in the last six and a half months, and are not desirable for meat, so it cannot be to meet the market demand. Nor can it be to meet the need to cull, as we have never found any difficulty in Scotland in achieving a suitable cull within our existing seasons. The Bill then suggests 10 days less open season for hinds
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in October and a fortnight more open season in February. This must surely be wrong, as hinds are in much better condition in the early part of the season and are getting well on in pregnancy by the latter half of February. In the case of fallow does, the same difference of season is suggested, though the season for fallow buck is the same as the Scottish one. In the case of sika, the anomalies are the same as those for fallow. The suggested roe seasons are again totally different, starting this time earlier by a whole month for buck and ending 10 days later, even though in the case of does it is suggested that the season starts only 10 days earlier and ends on the same date as it does in Scotland.
All of this must be very confusing and I cannot see why it is not an advantage to get together on these points. In Scotland we do not have seasons for muntjac or Chinese water deer. I do not think we have these species and I do not think it desirable that we have them. I can see no conservation case for granting recognition to a recently escaped exotic species. They do us no good in the feral state, they are a potential menace to farmers and nurserymen and they could be a problem and hazard in the event of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. They should be treated as vermin and eradicated in the feral state, not recognised by granting them a close season. If wolves escaped from our wildlife parks would we give them protection? They would have more right to it than muntjac because they were once native to these islands.
I come to Part II of the Bill, and here again we find a difference between the law of the land in Scotland and that proposed for England. It is proposed to ban the use of shotguns for taking all species of deer except, oddly, in the case of a sawn-off shotgun—to which the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, referred—a weapon the use of which it can hardly be a good idea to encourage in any circumstances. In Scotland, the occupier of agricultural land is entitled to use a shotgun to protect his growing crops and this should be true, too, in England. If we take from the farmer the right to use a shotgun, we must automatically grant to him the right to a firearm certificate so that he can arm himself with a high powered sporting rifle in order to protect his goods.

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Do we seriously think that it is wise in these troubled times to proliferate the ownership of high velocity rifles and high powered ammunition all over the country? Most farmers have a shotgun and know how to handle it sensibly. They should be allowed to continue to use it for the necessary protection of their property. If, by some misfortune, muntjac and Chinese water deer get left in the Bill, the use of shotguns should certainly be left in for the culling of these species. Some of them are little bigger than hares and a high powered rifle could almost blow them to bits. If we are to use them for meat at all they would have to be culled with shot guns. However, I see one case where the use of shotguns is undesirable; it is not good for it to be legal to shoot at a fallow or roe running through the line at a pheasant drive; but this would not be a problem if the right to use a shotgun were restricted only to the agricultural occupier of land.
Coming to Part III of the Bill, here in my view we come to the most serious flaw of all. Farmers and growers have a right to prevent damage to their crops and produce; nay, they have a duty to the country to prevent this damage and to protect the food supply of the nation by doing so. They must therefore be allowed to kill deer destroying their produce. By killing these deer they take possession of them, in legal terms, and therefore they should have the right to sell what is theirs without it being conditional on close seasons. It is their only compensation for the damage done to their crops and it is a great inducement to see that deer are controlled and managed properly.
The same clause which seeks to prevent farmers selling deer taken out of season would prevent the sale of Scottish venison that had been lawfully taken in Scotland to English hotels, restaurants and game dealers. To achieve adequate culls of deer, it is vital to keep existing markets, and one hopes we will not see restricted the existing markets in England for Scottish venison. It is also conceivable that the attempted restriction on sale would be frustrated by carcasses being sent to Scotland to be marketed. This clause raises one or two fundamental questions about trade across the Border which go far beyond the province of this
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Bill and which might more properly be considered for discussion in another place at this particular time.
However, let us turn to Clauses 7 to 10 and the proposal to put the venison trade into the hands of licensed game dealers. I wonder whether anyone asked the game dealers whether they wanted this responsibility. In Scotland, we have game dealers but not all of them wish to handle venison. I suspect that the same may be true in England. Likewise, there are butchers who wish to handle venison but who do not wish to be game dealers. Therefore, when we thought that there was a real need to gather information about the venison trade, we asked Parliament to create a separate class of dealer. We created this separate class as a venison dealer and the records kept by these people were used by the Red Deer Commission to check the levels of cull being taken in different areas. By relating this information to levels of population statistics, an overall picture of the growth or decline of numbers was built up. In this way, the Red Deer Commission can give more fully informed advice to the Secretary of State and to the owners of deer forests. But who is to collect and collate this information under the present Bill? For what purpose is the information to be gathered? For what purpose will an authorised person seek to examine a game dealer's books?
One final point occurs to me to criticise. In Part V, Clause 19 empowers the Nature Conservancy Council to issue licences to take deer for experimental purposes. As the Nature Conservancy Council is a body which is engaged in wildlife research, it seems wrong to put it into a position where it is licensing its own activities. It would surely be better to put this matter into the hands either of the Home Office or of the Ministry of Agriculture.
To sum up, although there are certain features of the Bill that are desirable, it seems to me to be lacking in the right sort of motivation. It appears to lack the provisions necessary to achieve its avowed main objective. Whether it is possible at this time to draft a Bill which can do for England what the Deer (Scotland) Act did for Scotland, I rather doubt. In the circumstances, it may be desirable for this Bill to fail. Certainly, it seems desirable that it should be considerably amended

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in its passage through your Lordships' House. Nevertheless, I shall listen with great interest to the rest of the debate.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, before the noble Viscount sits down, may I say that the reason for the very short close season for stags in England and Wales is that the habitat is quite different in England. Here, we have dense woodland and the land is very rich so that the stag soon regains his strength after the rut whereas, as noble Lords know, after the rut in the Highlands and after the close of the season on the 20th October, the stags are not worth shooting. Indeed, they can hardly walk and many die. That is the chief difference. It is the difference in the habitat. One cannot compare Scotland with England in this Bill.
Viscount THURSO: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for his explanation, but I hae me doots! I shall listen to what the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, has to say at the end of the debate.
7.45 p.m.
Lord DORMER: My Lords, I rise for the first time to address your Lordships' House and must ask for your customary indulgence. The list of subjects on which a Peer may address your Lordships for the first time is wide. In my case defence, the arts, law and order, forestry and agriculture occurred to me. I have deliberately chosen the Deer Bill because I feel that this is a subject on which there will be a wide measure of agreement on both sides of the House. For this reason, I believe that the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, for introducing the Bill.
Before I begin to discuss the Bill, I should like to take a short backward glance into history. The deer has always been a much favoured animal and has been hunted by kings and queens down the centuries. Saxon kings hunted the deer; in the reign of King Henry VII a Statute was passed to prohibit hunting by night; Queen Elizabeth I hunted deer with delight. Last weekend I saw one of the herds that she used to hunt and I am glad to say that the deer are still in excellent condition and are beautifully managed and a very fine sight.
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My honourable friend the Member for Ludlow introduced the Deer Act 1963 which formed the basis of this Bill in another place. Events since have proved it to be inadequate and ineffective in some respects, and the present Bill enlarges it and strengthens it in some important ways. The Bill also contains some new provisions. It is essentially a humanitarian Bill. It is based upon the Scott-Henderson Report of 1963 and implements most of its recommendations. The first change is that all six species of deer—red deer, fallow deer, sika, roe deer, munljac and Chinese water deer—are mentioned in it. A further background change is that foreign buyers are now prepared to pay very high prices for venison in this country. A fundamental change has taken place in the woodland acreage in England and Wales since 1963. This is now 1,134,000 hectares as a result of the excellent efforts of the Forestry Commission and private landowners. Similarly, there has been a great increase in the number of deer during the same period. I am told that there are now approximately 100,000 deer in the kingdom. These two factors have been important in bringing about the necessity for this Bill.
Turning to the Bill in detail, Part I deals with the close season for deer. An important addition here is the close season for roebuck. As many noble Lords will know, the bucks are then in velvet and are in a weak physical condition as they are growing their horns. This close season is therefore both overdue and very welcome. The nightly close times during which it will be illegal to kill or injure deer are also extremely welcome and will do much to prevent the poaching which, unhappily, is taking place in many areas with great cruelty to the deer.
I shall not give details of what is going on. It is sufficient to say that wounding, though not killing, is taking place on a very considerable scale and the subsequent sufferings of the deer are exceedingly severe, the more so as they are often prolonged over many months. All, including the police and gamekeepers, who love and value our wildlife, are concerned at this aspect of the matter which, I am happy to say, has received great attention in this Bill. I should like to mention the admirable work of the Deer Society in

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the South of England in supplying a trained shot whenever necessary to control the numbers of red deer.
Part II is the heart of the Bill. It defines the unlawful weapons which may be used and gives a legal definition of poaching. I am particularly glad to see that artificial light by night is prohibited and that, although it may sound curious, the arrow, artificially discharged, is also prohibited. I am told that this can be a particularly unpleasant weapon. I consider that the position of private herd owners in attaching a tag to the ear of newly born calves, for age identification in the culling programme, at a later date, should be clarified.
Part III concerns the control of sales and purchases of venison. This is a new provision. It places an obligation on all game dealers to keep records of purchases and to produce them for inspection by an authorised person. This is a very valuable provision. I am advised, however, by a very reputable game dealer that it would be in the interests of all if on the official form (Schedule 3) space could be provided for the signatures of both the seller of the venison and of the game dealer, to make it a legal document. I am further advised by a senior police officer that it would be advisable if the number of the vehicle delivering the venison could also be compulsorily entered on this form. This would enable the police to check on the activities of the vehicle, if necessary, in the future.
Part IV concerns enforcement and procedure. I am advised by a senior police officer that the Bill gives ample powers to the police for their task. He also particularly welcomed the power of forfeiture of the vehicle in addition to the firearm, which the court may order under Clause 15(1)(b); and of the cancellation of any firearms certificate. Under Clause 16 the penalties for offences under the Bill are greatly increased. I particularly welcome the penalty for an offence of a fine up to a maximum of £500, and the provision that in respect of more than one deer the maximum fine shall be determined as if the person convicted had been convicted of a separate offence in respect of each deer. This will, I hope, prove a valuable deterrent. In my opinion these greatly increased fines will, together with
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the forfeitures I have mentioned, provide a real deterrent to poachers, and will, I hope, put an end to the undesirable practices with all the attendant cruelties which they inflict.
Part V concerns the exceptions to the Bill. Clause 17 concerns the necessary provisions for the killing of a calf or fawn deprived of its mother. While welcoming the intention of this clause, which it quite admirable, I believe that it needs careful attention. It is a well-known fact that a red deer hind will leave its newly-born calf for most of the day while it goes in search of food and water, and an unscrupulous or ignorant person, or both, could take or kill the calf and plead that it was deserted, whereas that is not so at all. I have no doubt that other noble Lords may wish to consider this matter, particularly at the Committee stage. I should mention that a red deer hind may travel up to 20 miles a day before she returns to her calf.
My Lords, I would not wish to be controversial in this speech, but I am advised that Clause 17, which deals with the killing of deer which may be causing serious damage to crops, may be too widely interpreted. I am further advised that subsection (7), which deals with the killing of fallow, roe, Muntjac and Chinese water deer by means of shooting with any smooth bore gun of 12 bore gauge during the period of five years following the passing of the Bill should be very carefully considered, with the welfare of the deer in mind. As is well known, the fallow deer is a far more difficult animal to shoot than is the red deer. I have no doubt that other noble Lords may wish to consider this clause in the light of objections which have been made; and I have no doubt that with the deep knowledge and experience of wild deer which noble Lords possess, and with their humanitarian instincts, they will be able to reconcile the conflicting interests under this clause—those of farming and forestry—with the true welfare of the deer themselves.
I welcome the Bill. It will, I hope, improve the conditions, life history, and chances of survival of one of the most beautiful—and certainly in the case of the red deer the most magnificent—of all our mammals, which has been famous in song and verse down through the centuries,

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and which lives on for us in the canvases of Landseer, Sir David Wilkie and Sir Francis Grant. From my own knowledge of deer I know the prosperity they bring to the areas in which they are preserved and in which light industries flourish as a result. During the time that I have been in your Lordships' House I have noticed the emphasis placed upon light industries in our more remote areas and the sad drain of the best of our young manhood to the towns. In those parts where deer are preserved the reverse is the case; together with agriculture, light industries are carried on and bring prosperity and worthwhile employment to young people, as well as to older people. To see the deer in their natural state is a joy which can be appreciated only by those who have done so; and to come upon a red deer calf in early summer, alone, is to experience a sense of rare privilege.
The Bill will greatly reduce and indeed, I hope, obliterate the extremely undesirable poaching with vehicles and sophisticated weapons which has become a large-scale operation in deer country and from which great cruelty results. It will strengthen the powers of the police in bringing offenders to court and greatly increase the penalties to bring them into line with modern economic conditions. My Lords, I heartily welcome the Bill and wish it a speedy and well deserved passage through your Lordships' House.
7.56 p.m.
Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dormer, on his maiden speech. The noble Lord did a much better job on it than I did a few years ago, and I am sure that like me he is glad that it is all over. I was particularly pleased to hear in the speech his use of the word "hectare". This obviously shows that he has studied not only the Deer Bill and got that under his belt, but also the Common Agricultural Policy. So I hope that in future we will hear him speak on agriculture as well.
I must follow the noble Lord's excellent example and be brief and get on with my task. I have an interest to declare in that I am a farmer. I am a farmer who has had, and does have, and will have damage done by deer. The amount of damage is anyone's estimate, but one year we certainly
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lost four acres, and I do not intend to tell the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, he being an agricultural economist, how much that cost me. I am sure that he could also tell me how much it cost me in "green pounds" as well. I have got that over, thank heavens! No doubt when he looks at the Bill, and when we all look at it, we see that it is dealing with the English problem as opposed to the Scottish problem, which, as the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, said, is a slightly different problem.
My Lords, when I first got sight of the noble Lord's Bill—and indeed I was aware of its rough format in July, because my local branch and council member of the National Farmers' Union asked farmers who were affected by deer for their views on deer control—I and my neighbours readily agreed that something ought to be done to prevent poaching, and, more important, to prevent unnecessary cruelty. It was particularly pleasing to find that the National Farmers' Union and the British Deer Society were in agreement. I believe that the British Deer Society was anxious to obtain the farmers' support for this, and listening to the noble Lord I think I can still take this as being so.
Provided that the Bill would prevent poaching and cruelty and preserve a correct balance of deer in the country, it would have my complete support—but here comes the snag. I sadly have to tell the noble Lord that unless he can see his way to certain Amendments, I do not think that it will. Furthermore, he knows as well as I do that over the last few months there has been a difference of opinion between the National Farmers' Union and the British Deer Society. I hope that we shall be able to resolve this division as the Bill passes through Committee. I felt that the noble Lord's speech was particularly moderate, and I hope that mine will be in a similar manner.
My Lords, I will leave it to other noble Lords to express their detailed views on poaching. I believe the provisions in the Bill relating to the sale of venison to be on the right lines. It is my view that the great majority of cruelty comes from the poaching fraternity. My worry is that the effect of the Bill as it is written now will be to take from the individual farmer

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his right to protect his crops. Your Lordships can understand Bills far better than me, but I am supported in this view by Clause 17 (to which the noble Lord has already kindly referred) which prevents the use of shotguns on red deer and sika by forbidding completely the use of a shotgun in five years' time, and by the prevention of deer drives, which are the most effective method, or one of the most effective methods, of controlling deer. My Lords, deer drives have a horrible image. Images are not necessarily correct. I should be grateful for any documented evidence weighing up the alternative. Frankly, the using of rifles instead of shotguns at drives is not for me, but knowing of the many Members of your Lordships' House with decorations for gallantry, it may be that we could find a firing squad from them. It may also save any further discussion as to what should happen to your Lordships' House in the future!
My Lords, these items in Clause 17, I am afraid, are totally unacceptable to farmers—I am sorry to say it laughing, but they are—because it will mean that the British Deer Society will eventually have complete control over protecting my, and our, crops. So I must ask the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, to tell me something about the British Deer Society. I have a long list of questions here, but I will not bore your Lordships as it is getting late; I will ask just one or two of the things which are most important. How many members has the Society got, and where are they operating? Who will pay them to kill my deer? Will they do as I tell them, and what happens when they do not? Can the noble Lord assure me that the British Deer Society's interests will be the protection of my crops, and not the protection of its enjoyment? What happens if the British Deer Society goes broke, which is quite a common thing nowadays among farmers? Who will take its place? Lastly, I ask: Where is the noble Lord who will convince me that this corporate body is more efficient and effective than the individual farmer?
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to interrupt him? Can he tell me where in the Bill the British Deer Society is mentioned?
Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY: I am sorry, my Lords; I may be using the wrong words. I mean the control. It will eventually be done under the control of the British Deer Society, as I understand it. They will take over control.
Several noble Lords: No!
Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY: Who is going to take over, then? Will the noble Lord tell me who is going to control my deer when I am not allowed to?
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, the noble Lord will be able—and I would think he really were able—to control his own deer.
Lord BURTON: My Lords, could I tell the noble Lord—
Several noble Lords: Order, Order!
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I do not think we can carry on a debate in this way. If any noble Lord raises a matter, then presumably my noble friend Lord Northfield will deal with it; but if we have this continuous interruption we shall not make any progress at all.
Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. I am doing my best. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, will pull me up on these points and that we will get them straight in Committee, as I suggested.
My Lords, my last point is that of cruelty. This Bill was promoted to prevent cruelty. I believe it will have the opposite effect, for the following reasons. If the Bill works as it is suggested it should work—I am not allowed to mention the British Deer Society now, I think—the farmer will have to protect his crops with a rifle, and not a shotgun. I ask your Lordships: Is the farmer as capable with a rifle as with a shotgun? I am not. Does he know the range of a rifle as well as he does that of a shotgun? Does he, like me, think it is a 25-pounder, or does he think it a pea-shooter? Is he as good a shot with a rifle as with a shotgun? Certainly I am not; in fact, I am a positively dangerous shot with a rifle. It is possible to wound with a rifle just as well as it is to wound with a shotgun.

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I believe the farmer is much better with a shotgun. It may be that safety does not matter. I think it does in England. I farm near Oxford, and there are a lot of people there. Indeed, due to his long experience with a shotgun and none with a rifle, he is, as I said before, just as likely to kill cleanly with a shotgun as with a rifle. If, however, the farmer does not get a licence for a rifle—and, quite frankly, I am not keen on every farmer having a rifle in his unlocked back kitchen, which, law or no law, is where it is likely to be—I ask your Lordships: What might happen then? He will shoot deer with a shotgun. Make no mistake: he will. I would. I hope I am protected by privilege. The non-farming community has no idea at all of the strength of the farmer's wish and will to protect his crops. A farmer is not worth being called a farmer unless he is dedicated to producing food and protecting it. So, my Lords, as the shooting will be illegal, it will be surreptitious. The shot size is likely to be six. Why should I go in and buy buckshot when it is illegal to use it? The shooting will be hit-and-run, and he will not attempt to follow a wounded deer. I hope that I have convinced your Lord-ships, or some of you, that under these conditions there will be more, not less, cruelty.
I leave the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, with one thought. The farmer's first responsibility is to produce food. It is not necessarily to make money, even though he, as an economist, may think it ought to be. The farmer must be allowed to protect his crops. The noble Lord's Bill, as written, prevents him from doing so effectively. Therefore, I must ask the noble Lord to look again at these points. I should like to see the Bill go on to the Statute Book with the farmers' approval. After all, we do farm the land off which the deer live. I can assure the noble Lord that I and the National Farmers' Union are only too happy to try to resolve these differences with him between now and the Committee stage. After all, we are basically all on the same side. Indeed, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I am promoting a Bill in your Lordships' House tonight to prevent roe bucks being shot during the mating season, a practice which is undoubtedly cruel due to the tender state of their heads.
8.8 p.m.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, I support the Bill, and as I introduced the original Deer Act in 1963 I should support this Bill because it incorporates a lot of the original Act. The Bill brings up to date the original Act, particularly in relation to the change in the value of money. Where I am extremely pleased regarding this Bill is in the clause dealing with the sale and purchase of venison and with the prohibiting of the illegal traffic in venison which will stem from this. This has been a custom for a long time on the Continent. I am most happy that we are now having provisions in this Bill—if it becomes an Act, not too much amended as regards this clause, anyway—regarding the sale of venison. That is excellent because the price of venison has so rocketed since the 1963 Act came into force. I sell my venison now for 56p a pound with no transport costs. It goes to a middle man. I do not know what he sells it for. What the poor consumer has to pay, I have no idea.
Under the old Act, my Lords, the fines were quite laughable. I have known instances where poachers have been had up in court—not lately but a few years ago. They may have shot, say, six deer and they have got away with a fine of £25. Of course the price of venison was not so high then, but they probably netted £150. So I commend to the House this clause dealing with the sale and purchase of venison. I also commend the greater powers of enforcement given to the police and the courts under Part IV. Clause 15 empowers the court to forfeit among other things a man's car if he is convicted of an offence. This power did not exist under the Act which I introduced in 1963. Today, with the very much greater ownership of cars and the resulting increase in cars on the road, I think this is important, because a lot of poaching is done in early mornings from cars and even if the deer are not shot from a car the latter is necessary to take the carcass away. If people did not have cars they would find it very difficult to poach deer.
Clause 16, the penalties clause, provides realistic penalties. Paragraph (a) is particularly appropriate because formerly a poacher was usually fined the same amount whether he killed one, three

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or four deer. I think it excellent and very appropriate that now he can be fined per deer, so to speak, and if he shoots three deer he will be fined more than if he shoots one—not necessarily, but it can be done. That I think will be a great deterrent. What I should really like to see is the fine tied to the cost of living index every year, but I do not suppose we shall get that. One of the clauses I am a little worried about, and I think my noble friend on the Front Bench was too, is Clause 4. I think it will have to be amended. I will not go into the arguments that my noble friend Lord Mansfield went into, but I agree with him there. It is going to be difficult particularly of course, as my noble friend mentioned, regarding a hunt like the Devon and Somerset. A person on entering land may not actually be seen shooting deer. If he was not carrying a rifle or a shotgun it would presumably be difficult to prove he was going to shoot a deer. If he was carrying a cross-bow he might say he was going to shoot squirrels. Well, he would have to be a very good shot. On the other hand, if he was carrying a shotgun he could say he was shooting jackdaws or pigeons and was not after deer. I think this is a difficult clause.
Might I turn to Clause 3 and Schedule 2 which deal with unlawful weapons. I think this is excellent. This extends and clarifies the provisions of the 1963 Act, but I am not too happy about the prohibition on marking of live deer. Presumably it applies to the owners of deer, of estates and parks. Some estates mark deer calves on the ear. It is quite an interesting study, and if one has to apply constantly for a licence to do this it would certainly be rather a bore. Perhaps some exceptions might be made, but it is a Committee point. As regards poachers, weapons have become more sophisticated since 1963. I am pleased to see that this unlawful weapons clause includes, as did the 1963 Bill, cross-bows and bows, but the weapons have now become far more sophisticated. Who in 1963 would have imagined somebody with an infra-red light or ray to poach? This is, I imagine, used with some telescopic sight that you can use in the dark.
Before concluding I should like to refer to the Part V, on which the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, spent a large part of his speech. For instance, I think
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subsection (2) of Clause 17 will be open to abuse. An individual can easily claim that he killed an injured deer, but he may have injured it first, then killed it. I think it is going to be difficult to prove otherwise. Regarding the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, and the farmers, I farm and I am also a landowner and grow trees. I see his point, but I am afraid I cannot agree with him all along the line. In fact, I cannot agree with him to a very great extent. From my own experience many farmers—and this applies to foresters—are inclined to exaggerate the damage done by deer. I farm my park down here and we do not have any deer fences round the crops. We do get some damage, but at the worst the damage done is never more than 10 per cent, of the total, and usually 5 per cent. I agree that is annoying for farmers, but I think they are inclined to exaggerate the damage.
I am sorry to say that I know one or two cases of farmers who have sown a crop, in my opinion deliberately to attract deer in order that they may shoot them. They have put a single wire with a few posts round a field so that it is enclosed. I am sorry to say I have known instances of that, because now, with the very greatly increased price of venison it can be far more profitable for a small farmer to shoot all the deer he can than to farm. So I do not agree with the noble Lord behind me. I think it fair in the close season to allow farmers to shoot deer provided that they can prove they were destroying their crops; I think that is fair enough. I think the Promoters of this Bill have been rather generous in saying that for five years farmers can continue to use shotguns to shoot deer on their land—apart from red deer and sika. I cannot see why after five years a farmer cannot apply for a firearms certificate. Provided he is a responsible person, I am sure the chief constable would grant him one. I appreciate that we do not want thousands of farmers roaming the country with rifles, but provided the man is responsible—and it is up to the chief constable to decide that—I can see no harm in it. Where big estates are concerned I can see no problems at all. They have their gamekeepers and one man probably experienced in deer, and if a tenant has his crops eaten and rings up the landowner or the agent the keeper will go and control the deer; so that there is no trouble regarding big estates.

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I appreciate that there may be some injustices here. But if you are going to completely ban shotguns for all species of deer after five years you will have to have some form of organisation like the Red Deer Commission in Scotland, who can send out experienced stalkers to a farmer if his crops are being eaten and if he wishes that protection, which presumably he would. I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, say that the Deer Society (and I am a member of that society) were hoping to have a monopoly of all the deer shooting in the arable country through England and Wales. There is nothing about that in the Bill, and I think he is jumping to conclusions. There will eventually have to be some organisation, probably a joint organisation between the State and some society.
I must commend Clause 17(7)(c) regarding the number of persons carrying firearms—no more than three persons on the land at the time. Deer drives are highly unpleasant when shotguns are used. Large numbers of people gather who have no experience of deer—at any rate, most of them have not—and they loose off at extreme range. A lot of deer are wounded and blinded. It is most unattractive. The proper way to shoot deer is to stalk them in the early morning with a rifle when they come out from the woods to feed. You need only one man if he is adept at the job. He can keep the deer down perfectly well with no cruelty. The shooting of red deer with shotguns ought to have been banned a long time ago. That is extremely cruel. You have to be within 12 yards of the deer. The number of deer I have seen blinded by people using shotguns—and it is not all done by poachers—is sickening. My Lords, I must not speak any longer. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, upon introducing the Bill and I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dormer, on his maiden speech. I hope we shall be hearing him often in various debates.
8.23 p.m.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, I should like to support this Bill very strongly. Of course I realise as well as anybody else that deer have to be kept in control; but surely it is up to us to see that the culling is done in as humane a way as
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possible. So far as I can see, that is one great merit of this Bill. It eliminates poaching. Poachers use the most barbaric methods in the killing of deer. Very often they will snare it and then kill it by degrees with a clawhammer, or something like that. They have used all descriptions of weapons in their efforts to get their deer. As the poaching movement seems to be growing a great deal, particularly in England, this Bill does a good job in stepping on that practice.
Poaching is not the only method by which deer can be illegally killed. They can be illegally killed by the landowner on his own land. I should like to quote a paragraph from a talk given by the vice-chairman of the British Deer Society to the all-Party Conservation Committee in your Lordships' House. He said:
"The other side of the problem is perhaps even more worrying. It is the landowner or occupier who shoots deer on his own land illegally. This is now so widespread in many areas that it is regarded as commonplace. Let me give you one of countless examples. In January last, two and a half months ago, on a farm of 2,000 to 3,000 acres in a southern county belonging to an extremely wealthy farming family, 40 gallon drums with holes in their sides filled with corn were put out in a field to attract the deer. One night, when enough deer were thought to be there, three Land-Rovers were driven into the field, the headlights were turned on and within minutes 27 deer were killed: male, female and young. How many were wounded will never be known".
That is a statement of an incident which actually occurred. I would be the last person to support any legislation which was going to make things difficult for farmers. I have a great respect for farmers, and the last thing on earth I would want to do would be to make conditions difficult for them; but I cannot see that this Bill will do so.
The National Farmers' Union support the entire Bill with just two exceptions. I should like to deal with those two exceptions. One, of course, is something which has been discussed at some length already tonight: the question of the banning of the shotgun. Farmers are given five years in which to perfect them selves in the use of a rifle. Meanwhile, they can go on using their shotguns provided that they are not smaller than I bore. All the objections that have been raised are entirely baseless. The noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, spoke of the fact that the police would not welcome the

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terrific increase in gun licences. If a gun licence is applied for by a farmer and he states the purpose—
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, would the noble Lord give way? What I said was that I did not think the Association of Chief Constables would welcome a proliferation of firearms certificates.
Lord SOMERS: Yes, firearms certificates. My Lords, if it is known that they are for the purpose of farmers defending their own lands and properties, I hardly think that they would raise any objection.
The second exception was regarding the numbers of people who may shoot deer at a time. This is referred to in the Bill towards the end of Clause 17. It says that a person has to certify:
"that he was one of no more than three persons using or having in his possession such firearm and ammunition on that land at that time".
That, of course, is solely for the reason of preventing these deer drives that take place at the present time and which result in a great deal of very random and reckless shooting, together with an enormous number of wounded deer. That surely is something which it would be good to try to prevent. I am no expert on firearms—I can say at once that I have never shot anything—but, on the other hand, I cannot believe that a farmer who is an expert in his own work cannot learn to use a rifle just as well as he has learned to use a shotgun.
8.31 p.m.
Lord DULVERTON: My Lords, I am rather involved in the subject which is before us this evening, because I have the privilege of being the chairman of the British Deer Society, and I shall be saying something to the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, in a moment, when he comes back to his place. However, I should like first to say to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, how grateful all deer men are to him for his introduction of this Bill and particularly for the way in which he introduced it into your Lordships' House not so long ago. I should also like to congratulate him, if I may be so bold, on his grasp of a subject which he has told us is in many respects somewhat
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new to him. I also congratulate him on the clarity of his explanation of the issues before us.
I think it is notable that at this time, when our national life is being assailed from within and without by so many dangerous influences, in your Lordships' House we can give a day to the welfare of animals. I think that is a splendid thing. I should also like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Dormer on his interest in deer, so clearly and feelingly expressed. I am glad that we have him as an ally of the Deer Society.
I feel that in these rather introductory remarks of mine I must mention John Hotchkis, who was also mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, and who, as an individual, was the man most concerned with the immense amount of work, involving research and the interviewing of people, which went into the composition of the Bill. In so far as the Bill is in your Lordships' House, it is Lord Northfield's Bill, but until it came to these august premises, I had always thought of it as John Hotchkis's Bill.
As serving president of the British Deer Society, perhaps I need not tell your Lordships how much I applaud the aims of this Bill. I am also a serving member, as was the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, until a short time ago, on the Red Deer Commission of Scotland. However, so as not to give the impression that I am wholly biased in favour of the deer, I think I must also add that I, like the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, am a farmer. I am also a forester, and am at present president of the Timber Growers' Organisation in England and Wales. Therefore, I can view deer and their place in the countryside in the various aspects in which rural people have to view them, and I know full well the damage they can do to crops, to young trees and to some trees which are not all that young.
We have to try to find a more civilised way of dealing with the deer in England and Wales. I may say that I think we are fairly civilised in Scotland, where I also have interests; but it has to be said that in England we have a fairly new phenomenon. The deer exploded in population during the war, when they were not being controlled very well. Also, the enormous amount of planting that was done up and

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down the country and the number of young plantations have given them cover which they have been quick to seize upon, so that they have expanded rapidly. Within the last 20 years the expansion has been most marked, and deer are now found in the wild in very many parts of England and, I believe, also in Wales, where they were not found before.
I feel I must dwell for a moment on the comments made by my noble friend Lord Mansfield. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, will not feel that in making comments on what some of my friends have said, I am seeking to usurp the function of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield; but some of the things they said I cannot let pass without a comment or two. Incidentally, I thought the article in The Field, to which my noble friend Lord Mansfield referred, was very fair comment. My noble friend made much of a point which, however, he failed to understand, about the sawn-off shotgun. If it is of any help to the House—and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, could explain this later—the sawn-off shotgun was put down particularly because the staghounds in the West Country, having bayed the stag, brought it very often to bay in a brook or stream. It was then despatched at very close quarters with a slaughtering instrument, which is a sawn-off shotgun. That is why it was put down in the Bill, and it seems to me a very good reason.
As regards the difficulty of getting firearm certificates, my noble friend was a little inconsistent, because he drew attention to the great danger of many people having rifles, and then he went on to say that shotguns were much more frequently used by the criminal classes; so I do not know where we are on that one. However, the fact is that the criminal classes, as we all know only too well, can get hold of firearms if they want to—and they have got them.
A point was made concerning the pursuit of a wounded deer on to a neighbour's land. I think that was also referred to by my noble friend. As he knows, in Scotland on the rare occasions somebody has the misfortune to wound a deer, the convention is absolutely well established: that you follow it if necessary over the marsh into your neighbour's forest, and
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try to get it for all you are worth. How ever, I think it is a valuable point, which we must try to deal with during Committee stage, as to whether something ought to be said about that specifically, because the convention may not be known in England.
The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, my recent companion on the Red Deer Commission, as was (and still is) my noble friend the Duke of Atholl, was straying from those wide-open spaces of the far North of Caithness into what I might respectfully call, for him, somewhat unknown territory. That would account for one or two of the questions he asked, which could be fairly simply answered. He queried what the Title of the Bill meant when it referred to the improved management of deer, and I think I should dwell upon that for a moment.
The custom where deer existed in small pockets of England used to be, I regret to say, either a drive to shotguns, which could be a holocaust, or, even worse, a snare was used in the woods. Listening to our debate this evening is one man who has done more than any other to evolve a means of management of deer in the woods of the Forestry Commission and elsewhere. I am referring to Mr. Richard Prior who, together with Mr. MacArthur in Scotland, has done more than almost any other man to devise a means of management whereby not only are the deer shot effectively and in the right numbers, in view of the population increment, but they are the right individuals, both for the good of the herd and for the prevention of damage.
If I may digress for a moment to illustrate what I mean, it was those two men who discovered that where widespread damage was taking place in young plantations, as it was all over Britain, it was no good just indiscriminately shooting roe deer. The right ones to shoot were the young bucks, and of course a proportion of females as well. But people had tended to shoot the old big bucks and that was the best way to ensure lots more damage, because all the young bucks which the old buck had kept well under control, started moving into his territory and trying to claim it, and fraying the trees. I hope that I have not digressed for too long, but that is what we mean when we are talking about management.
Viscount THURSO: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question? This is all very interesting and very well known to me, but where does it appear in the Bill?
Lord DULVERTON: My Lords, I think that it appears in the Bill in various ways. One object is to stop the poachers so far as you can, because you cannot have a management plan if the poachers are coming in and shooting the wrong animals, and possibly too many of them. Will the noble Viscount let me off with that? The suggestion of an English Deer Commission, such as we have in Scotland, must have occurred to noble Lords and it has been mentioned by others. I hope that consideration will be given to this but it is not so easy. A year or two ago, it was suggested that the Red Deer Commission in Scotland should consider extending its responsibilities and activities to roe deer. But having considered the matter very thoroughly, they came to the conclusion that it was too difficult and diffuse a problem for them to deal with, so they rejected it.
On the game dealer question, very much the same reasons apply in England, where there is a lack of proper regulations, as in Scotland. Very similar regulations have worked fairly well in Scotland and, among other things, have enabled the Deer Commission to check up on what deer are being legitimately shot. Otherwise, under the counter sales are only too easy and it is very difficult indeed to check up on what is legally acquired venison and what is illicitly shot.
Moving on to the final two points that I want to make to your Lordships, I have had a communication from the Zoological Society of London which I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, about afterwards. They are worried about the restriction on the movement of deer, and I am sure that that is a simple matter which could be dealt with in Committee. Coming to the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, there are two difficulties of major importance in this good Bill and one of them, certainly, is connected with the prohibition of the use of shotguns, in the case of red deer immediately and in the case of other species in five years' time. Let me say categorically that I wish it were possible for the banning of shotguns to be the rule. They are not
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the right instrument to use on bigger deer, and they wound far more than they kill. But it may not be realistic to try to force this legislation at the present time, because, in view of the attitude of farmers and their knowledge of deer, it would be virtually impossible to enforce it, and a law that cannot be enforced is worse than no law at all.
I have referred to the rapid spread of deer of three or four species, but especially of fallow and roe, which in many parts of England have spread faster than it has been possible to train people in their control. That is really the crux of the problem. The best way of controlling them is by employing skilled riflemen doing selective shooting, maybe at dusk and dawn, and this has been proved. Of course, the man behind the rifle must be well trained in field craft and have aknowledge of deer, as well as being accurate in markmanship and following the rules of safety. He will often operate in woodland conditions from a high seat. There are tens of thousands of deer shot every year on the Continent using this method, and quite a few thousand in England. Many people are afraid of the dangers of using a high velocity bullet in highly populated areas. As we know, a bullet can carry or ricochet a very long way, but, taking a firm grip on this good English oak behind me, I can say that I have never heard of an accident from operations of the kind that I have been describing; and I would ask your Lordships to take in that point.
The National Farmers' Union have strongly expressed their view that the farmers of England should not be debarred from protecting their crops by the use of shotguns. I hope that the House will note that the shotgun is now debarred on deer and was phased out over, I think, five years, as is suggested here, in the densely populated and intensively farmed, and well-farmed, country of Holland. That is the rule now. Thus, I feel that we can at least look at some alternative way of bringing in measures of this kind, even if it takes a little longer than we were hoping, and that we can look to the understanding, co-operation and willingness to learn of the farming community. The British Deer Society must, and I am sure will, make efforts through precept and example to educate people with responsibilities in the countryside in how, most expeditiously

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and in accordance with British standards of fair play, to deal with this fairly new phenomenon. This will entail the training of a cadre of people all over the country, which has already started, but the numbers are probably insufficient and the geographical coverage is not wide enough.
Before I leave the subject, there are certain inaccuracies in the paper which some of your Lordships will have received from the National Farmers' Union. I must address this point to those of your Lordships who have received, as I have, their circular letter—we have since heard much the same from the noble Lord sitting on my right—in which the NFU make the insinuation that the British Deer Society are aiming for
"a virtual monopoly of deer killing over agricultural land in England and Wales."
The British Deer Society is not simply a shooting organisation. Many of our members do shoot and they are very skilled at it, but that is not a generous interpretation by a big and powerful organisation, the National Farmers' Union, of the motivation of a small and dedicated society, an interpretation which I hope the former will have the grace to withdraw with no less emphasis than they have given expression to this unworthy and damaging thought.
I said that there were two main difficulties. The other is that with which the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, dealt so frankly and explicitly at the outset, and I am so glad that he did. It revolves around the danger of this good Bill being seized upon by others, perhaps in another place, and twisted for some purpose other than that which was intended by those who laboured so long and hard to make it an instrument of the sound and humane management and control of deer in this country. I am, of course, referring to the stag hounds of the West Country. I think I am right in saying that there are still three packs. I was born and nurtured down there, and in my early youth I was steeped in the great traditions of the warmhearted and great-hearted people of the West Country. I should hate anything that passed through the House in this Bill and connected with the name of Dulverton, which I bear, to damage in any way the West Country stag hounds. That is a sentimental point but there is another absolutely practical point, and
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I promise your Lordships that it is my last. If the stag hounds were stopped or if they ceased to exist, only a very short time would elapse before the wild red deer of the West Country ceased also to exist. It nearly happened during the war when they had to cut down their activities. I thank your Lordships for bearing with me for longer than I had reason to expect. That is, I promise your Lordships, my last point.
8.53 p.m.
The Duke of ATHOLL: My Lords, first I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Dormer on his maiden speech. As I made my maiden speech on the Deer (Scotland) Bill, as it then was, in 1959, I have a great affection for noble Lords who venture into controversy by making their maiden speeches on Bills connected with deer. The subject seems to attract a great deal of interest. I do not think that I can put it any higher than that.
This is the first time that I have spoken on the subject without having to declare an interest. I own no land in England or Wales, except for the very small area upon which my London house stands, and that certainly does not have marauding deer coming on to it. Although, as my noble friend Lord Dulverton has said, I am a member of the Red Deer Commission, its remit does not extend South of the Border, for which I, for one, am very grateful as I find that we have quite enough to occupy our minds in dealing with the problems of the red deer North of the Border.
Your Lordships may well wonder why I should want to speak tonight. There are two reasons. First, I have always been very interested in the welfare of deer and therefore am a natural supporter of the Bill. Secondly, if it passes into law, as I hope it will, I feel that eventually it may have an effect on legislation for Scotland. In an ideal world, obviously there would be no need for the Bill. Unfortunately, this world is not ideal. Poaching and illegal shooting exist and I am assured—and I am sure that this is right—that they are very common in many parts of England.
As we have already heard from various noble Lords, in particular from the

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noble Lord, Lord Northfield, and the noble Lord, Lord Somers, great cruelty is involved in this illegal shooting. I am sure therefore that there is no one in this House who does not support the principle of the Bill, and we all hope that tonight it will receive an unopposed Second Reading. However, there are two points in the Bill to which I should like to draw your Lordships' attention. The first comes in Clause 6 and relates to the total ban on the sale of venison 10 days after the start of the close season for a particular species. I appreciate that many people feel that this is the only way of preventing poaching, but are we morally justified in insisting that much perfectly good meat, legitimately shot by farmers and others in defence of their crops or their woods, should go to waste? I suspect not.
The ban on the sale of dead wild geese has been accompanied by an explosion in their numbers. Farmers cannot get people to shoot them because cartridges, as most of us are only too well aware, are very expensive; and you cannot sell the geese afterwards. The geese are doing a very considerable amount of damage, certainly in the central parts of Perthshire, and I feel that some of the damage is due to the ban afterwards on the sale of geese. Admittedly, the ban on the sale of venison is not so extreme because it applies only during the close season of the species concerned. However, I feel that a similar problem might arise. Also, I feel that it is wrong that one should not be able to use perfectly good meat.
I should like to point out that most marauding takes place out of season, although as the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, has pointed out, the seasons in this Bill are considerably shorter than those which apply in Scotland. To a certain extent, therefore, the position would be better. I support the Bill. In fact, I introduced the Bill which registered venison dealers in Scotland. However, I think that there are differences between the situation in Scotland and that in England, the main one being, as has already been pointed out, that the officers of the Red Deer Commission, who are very knowledgeable about such matters, have the power to inspect the books of the venison dealers in Scotland. Secondly, venison dealers are separately
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registered and do not have to be game dealers. It would be useful if the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, considered that point at the Committee stage of the Bill because there are many people, like butchers, who to a certain extent deal in venison, but not in game. I think that it would be better if there were a separate licence for venison dealers.
There is a minor technical difficulty over banning the sale of venison during the close season: that sometimes it is very difficult when the carcases have been skinned to tell the difference between the sexes. The sexes have different close seasons, of course. I hope that this point will be borne in mind. I hesitate to say what conditions are like down here, but in Scotland the sale of the carcases of marauding deer is regarded as slight compensation for the amount of damage that they may have done. Again I feel that this point should be taken into consideration.
Then there is a danger that venison shot out of season in England might be sent up to Scotland and sold there. It would be perfectly legitimate to sell it there, as there is no ban on the sale of out of season venison to registered dealers in Scotland. I should like to see some more flexible system adopted so that marauding deer, legitimately shot by the occupier of the land in defence of his crops, could be sold without sending them to Scotland. This would to some extent recompense the farmer for the damage done to his crops.
The second major point which I should like to bring to your Lordships' attention is this—and I will be very brief because this is developing into a long debate: Before you can shoot deer out of season in defence of your crops you have to show that they are doing serious damage. I am not all that happy about that. My experience with deer coming down from a hill—and I appreciate that this may not apply to deer coming in from woods—is that the sooner you shoot them when they start getting into your crops, the better, before they get the taste of the turnips, or whatever is the crop. I personally prefer the words used in the Scottish Act:
"It shall not be an offence for an occupier of agricultural land or enclosed woodlands to take or kill during the period specified in that subsection"—

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that is the one referring to close seasons—
"any deer found on any such arable land, garth grounds or land laid down in permanent grass as aforesaid, or on such woodlands as the case may be."
Under the Scottish Act you do not have to wait until the deer has done serious damage before you can shoot it out of season. I think it is a little illogical for the farmer or the forester to have to wait until he can prove that the deer are doing serious damage.
As I have said, I very much hope that this Bill will get a Second Reading. I support it. The cruelty attached to the poaching and illegal killing of deer must be stopped, but at the same time, as we all recognise, deer can do much damage to most crops and trees and occupiers are, as this Bill recognises, entitled to defend their crops. We must get the balance right, and that is something which we shall have to weigh up carefully at the Committee stage.
I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, for bringing this Bill forward. It will cause him much worry and fuss, take up a lot of his time and necessitate his writing innumberable letters, and I have every sympathy with him on that. I hope we can get it on to the Statute Book. If we do, I am sure it will give him great satisfaction, and he will deserve the thanks of all of us.
9.2 p.m.
Lord SWANSEA: My Lords, the hour is late and I hope I shall not keep your Lordships long, but I want to join with other noble Lords in giving a welcome to this Bill and also to take the opportunity of congratulating my noble friend Lord Dormer on his excellent maiden speech. I hope we shall have the pleasure of hearing him again soon and often.
The Deer Act of 1963 has done a useful job but it needs to be brought up to date and strengthened in some of its provisions, which is what this Bill proposes to do. In particular, the poaching by organised gangs has reached a very serious pitch in some parts of the country, as we have already heard. The penalties for the unauthorised killing of deer must be increased to the point where they become a serious deterrent. Deer of all species are among the most attractive creatures which we have in these Islands. It is
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fascinating to watch them and to study their habits. I have seen them in various parts of the country, sometimes in the most unexpected places. For instance, in Surrey I have a bungalow at Bisley Camp, and once or twice I have seen deer there when I have been driving in late at night. Only about ten days ago I was walking round the ranges, and on the butt of one of the ranges itself I found large numbers of footprints of deer, some of them very fresh which must have been made only the previous night. Obviously they are not disturbed or worried by the shooting which goes on at the Bisley ranges or the Pirbright ranges next door. They stay happily in the woods during the day and come out at night to feed.
Of course the damage that deer cause to crops and young trees is a serious problem, so they must be kept under control. Obviously the feeling uppermost in the thoughts of everyone who has spoken here this evening is that the control of deer must be carried out in the most humane way possible. I am not really happy to see shotguns permitted for the control of deer. Their effective range is very limited and they can cause prolonged and great suffering. It is very tempting to take a shot at too great a distance. That only results in peppering the deer, which goes away with a number of pellets in it and it can go through the most terrible agonies.
I notice that in this Bill the permitted size of shot in shotguns has been reduced from that commonly known as SSG to that known as AAA. I am told that the reason is that the denser pattern with a larger charge of smaller shot increases the chance of hitting a vital part of the deer, and I can understand that very well. At the same time, smaller pellets also have less striking energy and it is really a case of finding the optimum size of shot which will still be effective at normal distances, preferably not above 20 yards. But it is a compromise. I would rather see shotguns prohibited altogether. The rifle is much more effective and humane, and I do not think the difficulties which some noble Lords have mentioned are really as great as they are made out to be. It is perfectly possible for anyone to achieve reasonable proficiency with a rifle at the distances at which he might reasonably be expected to shoot deer,

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if he has to do so, especially in England and Wales where he is likely to be shooting them in woodlands or in fairly close country and not at long distances.
In the United Kingdom we have been for many years so hedged around with firearms legislation of a highly restrictive nature that the police have got into the habit of viewing applicants for firearms certificates with the gravest suspicion. Also, chief constables in different parts of the country interpret the Firearms Act in widely differing ways. One chief constable's idea of what constitutes a safe place to use a rifle may not coincide with the views of his neighbour in the next police area. Furthermore, prospective applicants for firearms certificates tend to be frightened off by the formalities which have to be gone through. I hope that the proposed five-year period for the elimination of shotguns can be looked on as a period of education for both the farmers and the police, to get the farmers used to the idea of looking on a rifle as a natural weapon with which deer should be controlled, and to get the police into a more amenable frame of mind over the issue of firearms certificates.
The rifle is quite safe in densely populated country, as my noble friend Lord Dulverton told us a few minutes ago, if the proper precautions are observed. Using a high seat, where you are firing at a steep angle downwards towards the ground, the bullet does not escape; it generally breaks up, especially if you are using an expanding bullet, which is prescribed in this Bill. A soft-nosed or expanding bullet will 999 times out of a thousand break up when it hits the ground, whether it has missed or hit the deer. So the danger is, I think, very much exaggerated. If, as my noble friend told us, a rifle is the only permitted weapon in such a densely populated country as Holland, we cannot go very far wrong if we follow that example. So I hope that by the end of the five-year period both the farmers and the police will have overcome their objections to the use of rifles.
A certain amount has been said about Clause 4 and the question of trespass in pursuit of deer. I am speaking off the cuff here and I am open to correction, but I think I am right in saying that
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similar provisions already exist in the Firearms Act and in the Acts in relation to game. Of course, deer are not classed as game as such, along with, for example, pheasants and partridges. But I think the objections to this clause in the present Bill are probably unfounded. My noble friend Lord Mansfield mentioned the point about following up a wounded deer which has been legally shot at but has run on to neighbouring land. Obviously there is an obligation to follow up that deer and dispatch it as quickly and as humanely as possible. I am sure that point can be met by a relatively simple Amendment to Clause 17 in Committee. There are other points which also need further consideration in Committee. I join with other noble Lords in wishing this Bill a speedy passage through this House. I think we all ought to be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, for introducing it.
9.12 p.m.
Viscount MOUNTGARRET: My Lords, I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, for introducing and steering this important Bill through your Lordships' House. Any measure which at one and the same time is designed to cut out inhumanity, promote the conservation of animals, and eases the enforcement of the law, which at present serves of little benefit to anyone, must be welcomed. I should perhaps say that I am a member of the British Deer Society and also of the British Field Sports Society, both societies whose aims and achievements I thoroughly applaud. I am also a farmer, regretfully not a member of the National Farmers' Union, but I can well appreciate the difficulties and troubles which many farmers have to put up with from marauding deer, and they have my every sympathy. I mention these points because I know there is a great deal of opposition from these organisations, if not to the Bill as a whole, certainly to the more important clauses. This is a great pity, because I believe that the fears are not based on sound fact. The principal objection to the Bill seems to be in relation to the prohibition of the use of shotguns, on which my noble friend Lord Swansea has just addressed us. I hope I shall not repeat what he has had to say.

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The National Farmers' Union complains that it is illogical to ban shotguns now on red and sika deer but to retain their use for five years for all other types. I agree with that. In my view, shotguns should be prohibited forthwith for all types of deer and we should not have to wait the five years. The weapon is totally unsuitable and invariably causes considerable pain and wounding. Today in your Lordships' House we have discussed the Cruelty to Animals Bill. It seems rather unfortunate that that Bill was not given a Second Reading and yet we are in some danger of allowing a measure to go through which will cause pain and thereby cruelty to the animals covered by it. I see no reason whatever why farmers who have a deer problem should not be allowed quite easily to possess a rifle. My noble friend Lord Mansfield said that large rifles would have to be obtained. I think that possibly he painted a slightly inaccurate picture. Large rifles are not necessary for culling deer. A calibre of about·243 inches is quite large enough to be effective. On the other hand, the shotgun is not only a more expensive weapon than the rifle but is certainly much less effective.
The dangers of having weapons "pinched" from unlocked kitchens apply just as much to shotguns as they do to rifles. I should be interested to know the number of criminal cases that have come to light where rifles have been used in preference to sawn-off shotguns. I would suspect that the shotgun is a more attractive weapon than the rifle. It is a false argument to say that public security is at risk. As your Lordships know, deer feed in the early morning and after that retire to the woods for the rest of the day. The general public are seldom about at dawn and therefore the danger of anyone getting shot by a farmer stalking deer is very slight.
It is not true to say the the police would view the increase of applications for firearms certificates with alarm. Quite the contrary—I understand that they would welcome it on humane grounds and because it would make enforcement of the law very much easier. The NFU also fears that police would not issue certificates. I do not know why that should be so. If that were to happen, appropriate action could be taken. The NFU also argues that the control that the Deer Society has attempted to establish in many
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parts is incomplete. This may be so, and it is quite right for the farmer to be allowed to defend his crops—but it must be with the right weapon. The shotgun does not qualify for that description in this context.
Apart from the poacher and the farmer, the only people who still regularly use a shotgun on red deer are, I think—and if the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, were here he would correct me—the members of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds who from time to time organise deer drives principally to cull surplus hinds as hunting alone does not seem to kill a sufficient number. The hunt maintains that these shotgun deer drives are the only effective method of deer control, and claims that all wounded deer are always followed up by hounds and accounted for. If the banning of the shotgun on red deer comes about, the Devon and Somerset Staghounds would have to make other arrangements for culling surplus deer.
A solution could be to appoint one or two suitably trained forest rangers who during the autumn staghunting season could act as harbourers, while during the winter hind hunting season they could selectively kill surplus hinds in those areas where stock are too high. A comparison can surely be made with the manner in which the Forestry Commission now go about deer control. At one time it was their practice to drive the deer to men armed with shotguns, but now the rifle has replaced the gun, and quite apart from being more humane, far better results are being achieved.
Some 25 years ago, the Scott Henderson Committee made a thorough examination into the question of cruelty to wild animals, and their report was, and I quote from Cruelty to Wild Animals, Cmnd. Paper No. 8266:
"… the shooting of deer with shotguns must inevitably be accompanied by a great deal of suffering."
Twenty-six years has not made the shotgun any less cruel.
I should like to applaud in particular two important features of the Bill. The first relates to close seasons. In the Deer Act 1963, while there is provision for close seasons for both sexes of red, fallow, and sika deer, only the roe doe is accorded any such protection. The new Bill,

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therefore, provides not only the roe buck with a close season but also those two small Asiatic deer which have now established themselves in a feral state in parts of Central and Southern England—namely the muntjac and the Chinese water deer. The close season proposed for roe bucks extends from 1st November until 31st March, which is entirely right, for many of the older bucks will have their antlers clean by this date and with the spring foliage not yet much in evidence, one can be more selective.
For the muntjac and Chinese water deer, it has been decided, very sensibly, to provide both sexes with the same close season as already exists for all other female deer in England. A "unisex" close season for these two small deer is a wise decision, for distinction between the sexes in the field—particularly the Chinese water deer, in which neither sex bears antlers—can be extremely difficult in cover or when the animal is in flight. Thus, giving both sexes the same open season avoids giving anyone an excuse for killing "by mistake" the wrong sex out of season. Furthermore, it will enable both sexes to be killed during the winter months when the undergrowth is at its minimum.
The second provision is that contained in Part III. Venison in this country is at present currently worth almost more than lamb or beef and, as such, ought to be making a valuable contribution to our food supplies, particularly as it costs virtually nothing to produce. It is quite wrong to allow this important product to be badly managed or be the subject of large-scale indiscriminate killing, as is the case today. The quantity of illegally killed venison reaching our tables today is fairly considerable, and provisions contained in Part III should effectively block the existing outlets.
It is not only from the poaching angle that I find these provisions highly important; there is a health aspect as well. As many of your Lordships may know, two years ago it became the rule that any venison to be exported had to be handled in an extremely hygienic fashion, and to pass a veterinary officer's inspection to see that it was fit for human consumption. I can think of very good reasons why similar regulations should be made for
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venison supplied to the home market. After all, any bullock, pig or sheep so killed in our abattoirs is inspected by Ministry of Agriculture officials before it is allowed to be sold to the general public, so why cannot our venison be treated likewise? I wonder whether the noble Lord would accept a new clause to this effect at Committee stage.
Finally, I would suggest that the method of keeping records as prescribed might be looked at again. There is another method which, in my view, might be simpler and more effective; namely, the tagging of carcases. At this extremely late hour I certainly do not wish to deal with this in detail, but briefly the system works that each owner applies to the appropriate authority, which in Scotland would presumably be the Red Deer Commission, for a number of tags to cover the number of beasts that he knows he wants to cull in any one season. The tags would have the name of the property on them and the issue of such tags would be recorded. The tag would then be attached to the carcase, removed by the dealer when it reached his premises and retained by him for presentation to an inspector from time to time. The dealer would be prohibited from accepting any carcase without a tag, and therefore if he sold more carcases than he had tags, questions would be asked. If it became necessary for a farmer to kill marauding deer to defend his crops, special permission could easily be obtained from the authorities for him to kill and for the dealer to accept the carcases.
That would go a long way very speedily to remove a substantial amount of poaching. I should be interested to know if this method has been considered and whether it would work in England. Certainly so far as red deer in Scotland are concerned, action along these lines is imperative and I hope it will not be long before we see legislation to that effect. I hope the Bill will be given an unopposed Second Reading and I look forward to seeing it put on the Statute Book speedily.
9.26 p.m.
Viscount RIDLEY: My Lords, knowing the propensity for your Lordships to talk at length about animals, I am rather sorry that we have had two such important Bills on the same day; I should have thought that it warranted two days to discuss these

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matters, and I shall be interested to see what length of speeches we get when your Lordships discuss Bullock tomorrow. I speak as an ex-president of the British Deer Society, and I wish briefly to pay tribute to what that Society has done during its existence to increase interest in, and care for, deer all over Britain.
As well as the increased knowledge and study of deer, has come, as has been mentioned, the increased knowledge of the control of the deer population which has been rendered so necessary because deer have been suffering—if "suffering" is the word—a population explosion of unprecedented magnitude all over Britain in the last 20 years, as has the price of venison. I remember that only 10 years ago many of my neighbours would say, "Please come and shoot these beastly deer which are eating all my roses ". Now they say, "Please try to find me a fat, rich German who will come and shoot the deer and pay me £150 each for doing so". That is the measure of the success that our knowledge of deer has increased over this period.
I thoroughly support the primary purpose of the Bill, which is to stop the illegal killing and poaching of deer. The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, has spoken at such length about this with such graphic descriptions that I will not weary your Lordships with anything further. I believe it is absolutely vital that we have the Bill to prevent this abuse and the terrible things he described to us. I was sorry that my noble friend Lord Mansfield felt it necessary to give the Bill rather a tepid reception from the Front Bench of the Party to which I belong; I had rather hoped that we would have had something more enthusiastic from him and from others on this side of the House who are interested in landowning and the welfare of animals.
My noble friend made several points which are worthy of careful thought and his natural and right concern that stag hunting be not dragged into the Bill in any shape or form is an important point which we must look at. He mentioned in particular the clause which allows the entry on to land in pursuit of deer and the problems that could cause in stag hunting areas. I wonder whether we could consider in due course an Amendment to exclude just those parts of England where stag hunting still goes on. I should have
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thought it would be possible to exclude them from the clause, although that may not be so easy.
Many noble Lords have mentioned the use of shotguns to control deer. Personally, I feel it is absolutely abhorrent and revolting that people still use shotguns for the control of deer, and it is even worse to think that they might control or protect their crops by blazing away with shotguns at deer in a cornfield. That seems to me to be a most appalling thing to do. We may have to look with very great care at the National Farmers' Union's case that this law might not be enforceable. We also need to know more about the reactions of the police force to this. I can see a problem in that chief constables would not issue every small-holder with a firearms certificate to buy a rifle and I can see this reaching the stage when the law would not be obeyed, and we would not wish to be associated with laws which cannot be enforced.
I am not sure about the period of five years and whether it would not be wiser to compromise and have a longer period, during which I hope that the National Farmers' Union and everybody else concerned will try to educate their members not to use shotguns on deer but to acquire the proper rifles with the proper permission to use them. In short, I think that it is possible that we should be prepared to compromise, because it is so important to get the rest of this Bill through. In order to get the support of the National Farmers' Union it may, as has been said before, be necessary to make changes in this part of the Bill at the Committee stage.
For instance, danger has been mentioned. I believe that, in many people's minds, the idea that a rifle bullet can travel a very long distance over flat countryside is a threat. I live in a fairly flat part of the world and I am very frightened in certain places where I should like to fire a rifle at deer but sometimes cannot. There are ways round this, but it is not always easy to remember that a rifle bullet is lethal at such a tremendous range. I believe I am right in saying that in some of the States of America the use of a rifle has been banned because there were so many accidents to other hunters and domestic livestock. There, it is only possible to use a shotgun to control deer

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and that is a different situation from what we have here. I should never support that, but it shows that we cannot quite write off the dangers of indiscriminate rifle shooting in England where there are so many small farmers, all of whom would claim that they had a right to own a firearm. I believe that we must look at this again.
The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, made several points, two of which were good ones. As he only had two points, if he will forgive me, I will describe him as a "switch" not a "royal" on this occasion. The first point was on the Deer Commission, and that has been dealt with so I shall say no more about it; but the noble Viscount made a very good point about the seasons being the same in Scotland as in England. I believe that this wants looking at. I venture to suggest that, not for the first time, the Scots are behind the English in some of their legislation. Maybe they should move to keep up-to-date and follow the proposals in this Bill for close seasons, which I think are very reasonable and a great advance on what we now have. There is a case because venison could undoubtedly be shipped across the Border in one or the other way and sold in the close season. At this moment, Scottish game dealers come down and buy venison in England quite legitimately. I think that we could look at that again and amend the Scottish laws if necessary. I shall not waste time on discussing how one might do that. If we can improve the Bill it will be to the benefit of everybody.
My final point is this. It appears from what has been said, not in this House but outside it, that the British Field Sports Society is opposing the Bill. I should like to know whether this is the case and, if so, why. It seems that the Society has introduced in another place three small Bills which are parts of the present Bill. Two of them seem to have been shot with a shotgun or maybe they were shot with a rifle. I am not certain. I hope that, in the future progress of this Bill through this House and the other place, we can have agreement from the BFSS and everybody else concerned on the very desirable aims and objectives of the Bill, and that they will support in another place what we are trying to do here and what the noble Lord, Lord
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Northfield, has so ably introduced to us tonight. I therefore end by supporting the Bill, with the reservations that I have made. I was particularly glad to see the willingness of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, to compromise. In that spirit, we shall get the main purpose of the Bill which I shall do my best to help when the time comes.
9.34 p.m.
Baroness SHARPLES: My Lords, first, I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Dormer on his most interesting maiden speech. I thank him very much. There are really only two aspects of the Bill which disturb me. Like many of your Lordships, I have had countless trees destroyed by roe deer since 1961. However a kind neighbour with a rifle has been culling them and now the stock is controllable and healthy. This has produced a very satisfactory balance with nature. However, any great increase in the number of persons allowed firearms licences might upset that balance. I know that the police are extremely strict in dealing with any applications to shoot with a rifle, but, agreeing with my noble friend Lord Mansfield, I ask: do we risk overburdening the police, whether it be now or in five years' time? We live in a climate of violence which may escalate, and the police have to protect everyone's interest.
The British Deer Society may well be able to cope with all the extra demands which might be made on it and it is a highly responsible body, but I have a fear that some other, all-powerful, organisation, covering the whole country, could spring up. Might it even become yet another Governmental Department? Of course all deer should be killed as humanely as possible, but do we really need more legislation to achieve this? That is a question that I wish to ask the noble Lord, Lord Northfield; but despite my query, I support his Bill and wish him luck with it.
9.36 p.m.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, first I should like to apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, because I was not present to hear his opening speech; this I greatly regret. But I welcome the Bill in general terms, and I speak at this late hour only because I live in a far corner of England which is one of the few places where there have always been some deer,

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both red deer and roe deer, right through history, and not just introduced in either the 18th or the 19th century. Therefore I would think that we in the North-West of England are probably more deer conscious than are people in other parts of England, if not as excited as the Scots always appear to be about deer. This interest is a very good thing because deer are the largest and among the most interesting of our mamals; and the interest is growing. Nor is it just something found among tourists. In the North-West of England the numbers of deer are not such as to cause much damage, except in a very few small areas. None the less, we must try to meet the legitimate interests of farmers in those areas. But this is a matter for the Committee stage, and with good will I do not see why some solution cannot be worked out.
Next, on the question of control, I would say that control does not by any means just mean reducing numbers—shooting the first deer that one sees. Whatever we do, we must find the right balance between the danger from the use of rifles by people who have never been trained how to use them, and those who have absurd faith in the killing power of big pellets in a 12 bore cartridge, which even at 20 yards can show such a dispersed pattern that wounding is much more likely than killing.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Ridley that in some parts of enclosed country, such as his and ours, one has to be very careful before using a rifle; because a careless shot can well carry over a motorway. All this means discipline, training and schooling from teenage years upwards, which many people who see deer eating their crops have not had. There can be a real danger in putting a rifle in the hands of somebody who has not had a certain amount of training in the Army or elsewhere. But a sporting rifle is not the best weapon for robbing a bank, and I wonder whether all chief constables consider this when refusing certificates. And do they all work on the same lines, because magnificent men though most of them are, I do not look upon them as omniscient, any more than any other group of men is omniscient.
With regard to poaching penalties, I believe that they must without doubt be brought into line with today's money values and today's price of meat. In this,
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as in so many other matters, there should be closer liaison between England and Scotland. I find this all-important. Are the penalties the same on both sides of the Border? If not, they ought to be. I understood my noble friend the Duke of Atholl to say that there should be much closer liaison between the two sides of the Border. That suggestion I welcome. My Lords, however high meat prices may rise, possible fines, even if they do not reflect a Botany Bay attitude, should at least show that poaching does not pay. I say this because poaching with a firearm, whether it is a shotgun or a rifle, is just as dangerous to others as drinking and driving—something which takes up so much of police and magistrates' time, and which should be taken seriously.
9.40 p.m.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, in addressing your Lordships' House I must first of all say that I have never shot deer, either with a shotgun or with a rifle, and I have had no connection with any estates owning deer: I have merely been an onlooker. I welcome this Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Northfield. I think it is an extremely good Bill; and I must thank Mr. Hotchkis most sincerely for all the time he gave me when I was asking questions about it. I can assure Lord Northfield and Mr. Hotchkis that I give it my full support, apart from what I call Committee detail, and at this late hour I do not propose to go deeply into that.
There are three things which worry me about the Bill. One is the use of shotguns and rifles. One arrives at a situation where great suffering is caused to deer by the use of shotguns and one wants to restrict their use considerably; and then it is said that that must be done by the issue of rifles. I have great sympathy with chiefs of police in this matter. We are facing an outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland, and, although we may or may not like it, one might at one time or other be faced with the same situation in England and Wales. I would not presume to go further North than the Border in view of the prospects of devolution. I have an awful feeling that if one starts granting licences to farmers around the countryside one must, somehow or other, obtain some guarantee, or provide some method, whereby these

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rifles—or, for that matter, sawn-off shotguns—are properly kept. We are told that the acquisition of sawn-off shotguns and other dangerous weapons for the criminal fraternity is quite easy in urban areas, but there might come a time when it is not so easy; and if we proliferate sawn-off shotguns and rifles around the countryside, one feels that we may be laying out a potential armoury for any ill-natured person who wishes to lay his hands on these things, and providing more easy access to them.
Another thing which worries me slightly is why we should allow this period of five years for the use of shotguns. Personally, I should have liked to see a shorter period. I can see the difficulties in that, and the difficulties in proliferating arms around the country. I can also see the difficulties which are facing chief constables around the country, and I sympathise with them. I should like there to be further control over these guns. That is a matter which we can perhaps go into in Committee.
I was most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, for referring to me in his opening address and to the subject of the destruction of dogs, which are used in this matter. One has a principle—at least, I have: how many other people have it, I do not know—that one should never penalise an animal for the action of its owners. I am extremely grateful to him for his reference to the fact that he would accept a small Amendment to that effect in Committee.
My Lords, the other thing which rather worried me concerns the rather kindly disposed persons who will find what they think to be the abandoned calf, or whatever it may be called, of a deer. They will take it home with them and, as I know has happened in a number of cases, will successfully rear it. According to this Bill, you are not allowed to remove a deer from one area to another. I am a little worried as to the meaning of the word "area". It is one of those things which, as is the case in many Bills which pass through your Lordships' House, a rather closer look at the wording may resolve. Apart from that, I should like to say that I am fully in support of the principles of the Bill, and any help that I can give it to go through the Committee stage I shall only be too willing to give.
9.46 p.m.
Lord BURTON: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, for having so ably introduced this Bill. I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dormer, on his maiden speech and I very much welcome his support. I am sure your Lordships will agree that he put the case in a most persuasive and competent manner. The question has been raised as to why there should have been so many Scottish Peers interested in what appears to be an English Bill. The suggestion has been made that perhaps we are worried about devolution. So far as I am concerned, it has nothing to do with that. I am still a tenant farmer near Burton.
My Lords, deer is an emotive subject about which there is still much ignorance, but an enormous amount has been learned about deer in recent years. Knowledge and experience have developed enormously since 1963. Unfortunately, not only have the best methods of controlling them been learned and developed; there have been other technical developments which have not proved so satisfactory. The 1963 Act, so far as it goes, has generally proved useful but there are many flaws and loopholes, partly those brought about by new technical developments. These badly need stopping up and the Bill should be strengthened. A substantial effort has been made in this Bill to update the 1963 Act to the satisfaction, I think, of the vast majority. It has been suggested that, in place of this Bill, the 1963 Act should be amended, but I am afraid that if you go into this you will find it a terrible hotchpotch which would be probably little more than a lawyers' paradise.
I heard some fears voiced. Many of these, I believe, are ill-founded. I agree that some Amendments may have to be made. I hope that we can get an agreed Bill after the next two stages. As has already been agreed by most people, most of the Bill is highly desirable. There has been some apprehension expressed as to the view of the police in this matter, but I understand that the police have been widely consulted and that with one accord they agree that the Bill is a highly desirable piece of legislation to enable them to enforce the existing law.
I think that the NFU hand-out which many of your Lordships will have seen,

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can be largely ignored. Alas! In spite of being a farmer in England, I saw this document only this evening, but there are in this hand-out a number of technological inexactitudes. My noble friend Lord Dulverton has already mentioned one. As an instance of another, the Bill does not propose an immediate ban on the shooting of roe deer, as the hand-out suggested. The Bill proposes an immediate ban on the use of shotguns on red and sika only; and not roe deer. Their objection to the number of persons being allowed to pursue deer with shotguns is almost certainly misconceived. Shooting in groups, killing indiscriminately, will almost invariably murder the hinds, leaving motherless calves. I need not say much more about this as your Lordships were fully enlightened on this subject by the noble Lord, Lord Somers.
The worries about the use of rifles are also misconceived, as was explained by the expert on firearms, Lord Swansea, and many other noble Lords. The NFU and, I regret to say, the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, are wrong in attributing deer control societies to the British Deer Society. The control bodies are individual organisations affiliated to a federation which has very strict regulations. Indeed, the British Deer Society specifies that anyone using the name of the Deer Society to secure stalking will be immediately removed from the list of members of the Society. The NFU themselves have tried to get similar organisations started for the control of rabbits.
So far as deer in Scotland are concerned, there are very many more red deer there than in England. We were worried about the use of shotguns on red deer in Scotland and made an approach to the Red Deer Commission. Their answer for not introducing any legislation on banning shotguns for red deer was that they had made a survey of the carcases submitted to the various dealers and during that year they had found in Scotland, I believe, no carcases with shotgun pellets in them. That shows that the worries about the shooting of a few red deer in England are ill-founded.
There is also the possibility of wounding which we have heard about this evening. I have had the misfortune of having to shoot two blind stags. There is nothing more pitiful or painful than to see these
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animals struggling. One was on a public highway trying to dodge the cars, and the cars were trying to dodge it. The deer had broken knees and looked in a most pitiful state. One stag had been wounded, probably by a crofter with a shotgun, and the other by a poacher. I also shot a stag in which, when it was skinned, three different sized pellets were found. I do not know if any noble Lords have had the misfortune of being shot with a shotgun, but I can assure your Lordships that it is extremely painful.
One more observation on the NFU paper. It shows another inaccuracy in remarks about the size of shot. In fact, what the Bill proposes is not a larger shot but a smaller one. The NFU paper shows it the other way round. The answer, as the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, said, was the intention that there should be a better pattern of shot, which would be given with smaller pellets rather than bigger ones. At the present time over 16,000 deer a year are shot with a rifle in England and Wales. Perhaps more amazing still is the fact that at least 300 to 400 roe deer are shot with a rifle each year south of the Thames within a 40 mile radius of your Lordships' House. It is not likely that there is a more densely populated area in the country than will be found in that 40 mile radius. This gives the answer to those who, in their ignorance—and, 15 years ago. I would have been among them—feel that control by rifle is not feasible or practicable.
It has been suggested by my noble friend Lord Mansfield and some other noble Lords that there is a danger in the Bill about the possibility of the pursuit of wounded animals. I agree that this must be looked at either before or in the Committee stage. I should like to issue a warning to the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, after his remarks on having no close season for muntjac deer or Chinese water deer. I know that a certain naturalist would be, to say the least, angry, and he is likely to be suing the noble Viscount without any close season!
The noble Viscount was also worried about gamekeepers having to keep records. I am afraid that I was not able fully to follow his reasoning on that point. I think he was suggesting that licensing of venison dealers, as is done in Scotland, might be better; but I cannot agree with

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him on that point. The licence can be bought for a very small sum of money—I believe 50p—which will last that individual for the whole of his lifetime and cannot be removed for any offence whatsoever. The noble Viscount wondered why it was necessary that records should be kept. Perhaps we might ask: why should records be kept for game or salmon? It is, of course, to prevent the unlawful sale of those products.
Again, I agree with my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard on the question of a close season for stags. My noble friend was worried that there was a different season; but the situation is different. On the Continent, the close season for stags is very similar to that which I believe is proposed in this Bill. The reason is that the deer in the Lowland areas are in sheltered woodland and good ground, and therefore their stags will recover very much more quickly after the rut. However, the Red Deer Commission are not altogether such a thoughtful body in this respect as the noble Lord would have us believe, as they will permit many wretched Highland stags which, as the noble Viscount said, are in a thin, poor and smelly condition, to be killed in the winter. Indeed, I am ashamed to say that half the stags shot in Scotland are shot out of season and in the condition described by the noble Viscount. I would suggest that a great deal of that killing is brought about not to protect crops but by the desire to make money out of those animals. Therefore, I would disagree with my noble friend the Duke of Atholl on that point, although I certainly agree with the rest of what he said. In England, where the proposed seasons will be longer and the circumstances different, there is no reason why the sale should not be banned shortly after the season closes.
The noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, was worried about crop protection. Twelve years ago, I myself could not possibly have seen how enough deer, and particularly roe does, could be killed on my ground each year in the required time with a rifle. I have since learned that in fact one can shoot with a rifle far more deer than one should do to secure the right number for a cull. It is partly a
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matter for education, and that is why a five-year period of grace has been put into the Bill. I think my noble friend who has just spoken was wondering why there should be a five-year period; it is to give an opportunity for people to educate themselves more than they are in a position to do at the moment.
My noble friend Lord Cranbrook has told me that he has had to leave in order to catch his train, and he has asked me to make his apologies on that account. I hasten to do so, and I know that your Lordships will be sorry that he has had to leave because, as we all know, he is particularly knowledgeable on any subject connected with wildlife. I believe he is particularly worried about the explosion of the deer population in certain areas. We both feel it is desirable that the Government should perhaps have some advisory body on deer—that has been mentioned by several other speakers—and possibly also some body to which a farmer with a deer problem could turn for advice. The Bill would do a great deal to stop the appalling cruelty about which we have heard so much today, and accordingly I strongly commend it to your Lordships.
The Duke of ATHOLL: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, can he say what is his figure for the number of stags shot out of season in Scotland?
Lord BURTON: My Lords, unfortunately, I left in a hurry and I omitted to bring the exact figures. But if I am not mistaken—and I may well be wrong—there are about 10,000 or 12,000 shot in season. The noble Lord who has been on the Red Deer Commission will probably know the figure better than I do, but I believe that a total of 25,000 stags are shot each year, which means that as many are shot out of season as in season.
The Duke of ATHOLL: My Lords, if my noble friend checks his figures, I think he will find that under 10 per cent of the stags shot in Scotland are shot out of season.
Lord BURTON: I may be wrong, my Lords.
10 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I should like to begin by offering my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Dormer, on his maiden speech. He raised a good many points with great economy of words, and that always endears one to your Lordships' House. I shall try to emulate him this evening in putting the Government's view with regard to the Bill of my noble friend Lord Northfield. Let me make it perfectly clear at the beginning that the Government welcome this Bill as a means of strengthening the law against cruelty to deer. Having said that, I am bound to draw your Lordships' attention to a number of features some of which are not acceptable to the Government, and others of which ought to be scrutinised most carefully, which I imagine will be done in the usual processes of the Committee stage.
My noble friend Lord Northfield explained clearly the provisions of each clause, so I do not think any useful purpose will be served by my going through the clauses. I think I can be of most service to your Lordships by listing those ways in which the Bill sets out to achieve its aims, which we believe are, for want of a better word, misguided, and we would feel impelled either to attempt to remove or to amend in the Committee stage. I refer, in particular, to the provision in Clause 22 which would apply the Bill to the Crown, but would not authorise proceedings to be brought against Her Majesty in her private capacity. As your Lordships know, it is unusual for any Bill to be expressed to bind the Crown, and the Queen's consent must be signified in such cases before it may reach the Statute Book. My understanding of the matter is that the intention of the Bill's Promoters and supporters is to ensure that the Crown's servants—in particular, officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Forestry Commission—observe the law, especially as to the season, time and manner in which deer may be killed or taken. The Deer Act 1963, which is the present law, does not bind the Crown and the suggestion seems to be that, as a result, Crown servants feel free to ignore it. I can say that, as a matter of public policy, that is not so.
If I put this matter in rather strong terms, it is because we feel it unthinkable
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that a Crown servant, acting in his official capacity, would be instructed, or encouraged for that matter, to ignore the law of the land. If, on the other hand, he went off on a frolic of his own, he would be liable to prosecution the same as anyone else. We feel that it is not right to bind the Crown in this way. No other modern piece of animal legislation carries a provision of this kind, and we sincerely hope that my noble friend Lord Northfield will feel able to look at this, because it would be a pity if this Bill was in some way jeopardised on its journey to the Statute Book by insistence on the retention of Clause 22. Of course, I leave that to my noble friend. The Government are not—
Lord NORTHFIELD: My Lords, will my noble friend allow me to interrupt? I refrained from interrupting throughout the debate, and I hope that I have been behaving myself. But will my noble friend check on what he said about no other modern Act binding the Crown? Will he have a look, as I suggested in my opening remarks, at the provisions in Scotland which are not very old and which do, in fact, bind the Crown?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I will certainly look and will take advice on this matter, but that is the information which I have been given. The Government are not convinced that a case has been made out for control over the sale and purchase of venison, the provisions for which occupy seven clauses making up Part III of the Bill. We appreciate that such statutory control exists for Scotland, and we acknowledge that it seems to work smoothly there.
It is important to remember that the management of deer in that country is under the control of the statutorily established Red Deer Commission and that control over dealings in venison was introduced some years ago after the creation of the Commission as a means of providing that body, for management purposes, with information about the number and location of deer killed outside the larger estates. It was not designed primarily as a means of controlling illegally taken deer, and I would suggest to your Lordships that only firm evidence of a widespread and serious mischief can

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justify the system of control provided for in the Bill, involving as it does the need for traders to keep detailed accounts available for inspection by local authority officials and the police on pain of prosecution and a fine of up to £500 per carcase. The Government do not believe that a case has been made out for the creation of what might be seen by some people as yet another category of people paid from the public purse to police an accounting system which the determined poacher could, in the view of the Government, evade without too much difficulty of detection.
Another feature of the Bill which, as the sponsors will know—and it was dealt with by the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield—has caused the Government some concern is the provision in Clause 4(b) which makes it an offence unlawfully to enter or be
"on any land in search or in pursuit of deer with the intention of taking, killing, injuring or driving deer."
I am sure that this provision will not have escaped the notice of those who at certain times of the year enter or are on land for just that purpose. The Government's concern is more particularly with the consequence of this provision. Live deer at present, like other wild animals, do not belong to anybody unless they are reduced to captivity—for example, in a deer park. Clause 4(b) would seem to say, in effect, that the deer become yours once they enter upon your land. The result seems to be that if landowners consequently lawfully kill deer they are the only persons who can enjoy the profits from the sale of venison. It is true, of course, that it is already an offence to poach game—a word, by the way, which in law does not cover venison. But poaching offences were created long ago with the deliberate intention of creating a property in game. The only poaching offence in relation to wild deer, confined to certain Royal forests and estates and one or two other places, was repealed by the Theft Act 1968.
May I say a brief word about the penalties provided for under the Bill. There is to be, for all offences, a single range of penalties which are set out in Clause 16. There can be a fine up to £500, imprisonment for up to three
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months, or both a fine and imprisonment. The Government believe that the level of the maximum fine is right. Indeed, there is provision in the criminal law, which is still under the scrutiny of your Lordships' House, for the maximum penalty under the present law to be increased, as your Lordships know, to that very figure. The Bill before us goes a little further than that, however. The fine may be imposed in respect of each deer in respect of which the offence is committed. There are precedents for this approach in recent legislation, notably the Badgers Act 1973 and the Conservation of Wild Creatures and Wild Plants Acts 1975. However, it should be remembered that we are speaking about a maximum of £100 and about animals and plants much more in need of protection, some people would argue, than deer.
A blanket approach of this kind to all offences created under the Act would create both uncertainty, and, in the view of the Government—and the Government may be quite wrong about this—an injustice. I wonder what would be the position of the man who enters land stalking a whole herd of deer? In matters of this kind we must look and advise what some of the difficulties may well be. There will clearly be some dispute among witnesses about the size of the herd, which would significantly affect the size of any fine which might be imposed. The man might well contend that he was not in fact pursuing the herd but only one deer, presumably the largest.
It is worth, too, considering the case of the properly licensed dealer in venison who has failed to keep a record of a considerable number of lawful purchases. The Government will certainly seek to amend the penalty provisions—and I must put the Government's point of view—in order that the punishment might fit the crime.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord for one moment. I have no doubt he is aware that a fine per animal is already provided for in the game laws and in the badgers conservation Act.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I thought that I in fact said that. If the

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noble Lord reads Hansard tomorrow I think he will find that I said that. I hope that what I have said today will not be dismissed by your Lordships as being a lot of carping criticism, or that I have been ungracious in any way. It is part of the duty of the Government to look at these things and to express what they think. They are not always right, and your Lordships in your wisdom may decide otherwise at the Committee stage. I repeat that the Government applaud this Bill in general and, if I may be permitted to do so, I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Northfield on the persuasive way in which he has argued for a reinforcement of the present law. But in matters of legislation we ought not to be blindly over-enthusiastic in our attitude or mindless in our obligation when we come to consider questions of this kind.
I hope that the House and the sponsors of the Bill will take note of the reservations I have expressed today on behalf of the Government, and I believe there will be a good chance that this measure will emerge from Committee in a form better suited to achieving its aim of reducing the amount of cruelty inflicted on wild deer. This is the hope of the Government. I know it is the expressed intention of my noble friend Lord Northfield, and as I said at the beginning of my remarks we approve this Bill, with the exception of the comments and observations that I have made.
10.14 p.m.
Lord NORTHFIELD: My Lords, at this late hour I shall not inflict another long speech upon your Lordships. I wish to start by thanking noble Lords most warmly for the constructive, kind, indeed generous remarks they have made from all parts of the Chamber about this draft of a Bill to protect deer. I should particularly like to thank those noble Lords—if my calculations were correct, there were 12 out of 16—who gave almost unqualified support to the Bill. I hope this will have some impression on the Committee stage and that we shall not be too easily deterred, as I suggested in my opening remarks, from some of the main principles; not too easily forced into compromise. I should like particularly to thank the noble Lord, Lord Burton, who has kindly offered to help me with the Committee stage, and
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the noble Viscount, Lord Mountgarret, and the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, who have been particularly persuasive because of their particular knowledge, their own skills and experience of the deer and its habits and the need for control in a dignified and proper manner. I hope that when we come to the Committee stage we can deal in detail with most of the points that have been raised.
I should, secondly, like to thank even more warmly than I did at the beginning Mr. Hotchkis of the Deer Society. The noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, was very correct, if I may say so, in paying particular tribute to him; I think he deserves the warm appreciation of all of us who care for this kind of measure for the work that he has done, not just now or recently but over many years, with immense dedication and enthusiasm. Thirdly, I would offer my own congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Dormer, on his maiden speech. As my noble friend said, he said so much in 11 minutes—I know he was making great efforts to be brief, as these occasions demand. He said so many things that I became envious when I looked at how little I had said in more than twice that length of time. I was particularly grateful for what he said about the consultations he had had with local police about some of the powers suggested in the Bill. That is the sort of information which is very helpful and contributed a great deal to the case for the Bill. I hope he will join us in all the later stages of the Bill. Then, I was particularly glad, too, that the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, was able to take part. He is the author of the 1963 Act. It was so very warming to have his commendation of a Bill replacing his own some 14 years later.
Finally, before I deal with one or two points, may I join with the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, to this extent. I was slightly sorry about some of the remarks in the leading article in The Field this week. I hope that it will not in any sense be regarded as a Party issue just because somebody with a Labour tag on him introduces this Bill. I join the noble Earl in making that point. I think there was a misunderstanding. I do not think The Field meant to suggest that there was a Party battle; it just misunderstood the situation. I am sure that this can

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be quite quickly forgotten. Certainly I do not have a very wild Party tag on me, if that is any help to the situation.
My Lords, may I now deal with two or three points before I sit down? First, of course, we want to consider all the possible suggestions for amendment at Committee stage, and I will not try to deal with them all now. But I would mention one or two things. First of all, may I say to the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, that this business about the sawn-off shotgun really was a red herring. What he has to do, if I may suggest it to him, is to look at the definition in the last Part of the Bill about the use of a slaughtering weapon. He will then see that this is not an open invitation.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, it is not that definition which he wants to go for; it is the 1968 Act. That regards a weapon for certain purposes as being adapted for a certain purpose.
Lord NORTHFIELD: My Lords, I am sure we shall argue it in Committee. I think the noble Earl will find it is a red herring in the sense that it could in no sense be an open invitation for the proliferation of sawn-off shotguns. That is the point. In other words, this provision was put into the Bill to meet a very limited demand from the stag hunting community to have this recognised as a legitimate weapon for one very small purpose in one very small part of the country. In no sense could this do great national harm. In that sense, I think the point was a red herring.
Before I come to the major point, the only one that I want to deal with in detail, which is about the issue of the shotgun, may I say something about the Government case. Here I must restrain myself, but I am tempted after no less than 26 years in Parliament simply to say: do Governments never learn? Year in, year out, I have watched cold water poured on Private Members' Bills from Government Dispatch Boxes, only to find after some months of persuasion that Governments are actually taking them on and shepherding them through. Perhaps in
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some cases two or three years are needed before they finally realise the situation; but then, without even an apology, they come along, take the Bill, and proudly see it through. Do they never learn?
My noble friend said that this is a very good Bill, that the Government are all in favour of it but that they would love to emasculate it in Committee. I have heard that said about Private Members' Bills for a quarter of a century, year in, year out, and then seen the Government sooner or later capitulate on many of them. I wish that they would try to learn this much: that it is not the case that Private Members—after consultations as widely undertaken as this, over as many years as this, with so much crashing evidence—will come lightly to your Lordships' House to inflict legislation on it. They come only because the evidence is overwhelming. In this case the cruelty is blatant, and there is an obvious need for an expansion of control over the sale of venison—which is the point the noble Lord made—in order to stop the poaching.
Why could they not at least have recognised that this matter is now a public scandal on a scale that means some slight departures from present legislation, and come some of the way with us? It is my Badgers Bill of 1966 all over again. The Home Office case has had to be put by a Minister—notwithstanding his charm and his personal good will towards us all. It is the old business of the Home Office never learning until the very last moment that public opinion must be taken into account and that blatant cruelties must be remedied, even if that means departures from the accepted law of the moment. I shall be no more angry than that—perhaps that is enough.
I turn to the main point of argument—the shotgun versus the rifle. I was heartened by the fact that 12 out of 16 of your Lordships, who kindly spoke in this debate, wholeheartedly supported the Bill and the gradual suppression of the use of the shotgun on deer. I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, will reflect that there is, so to speak, a three-quarters majority of speakers already in favour of doing something quite significant about this issue.
The noble Lord said that we must show that the farmers, whose case I understand,

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are showing irresponsibility—those were his words. With respect, I do not have to show anything of the sort. I do not have to prove that kind of case because it is not the kind of case that I am making. We very seldom in Legislatures have a clear-cut case where we are able quite easily to show that something needs to be done. Our job is to weigh up the balance of argument—the advantages and the disadvantages of a particular form of action through legislation. In this case we know that there are responsible farmers who are not using the shotgun improperly. We know, on the other side, that some farmers—perhaps a small minority—plus a large number of poachers use it and make it their own weapon. The balance of argument that we have to assess is whether the disadvantage for the respectable, reputable farmer is outweighed by the cruelly of the remainder and the need therefore for legislation. That is all I have to prove. I do not have to prove that farmers as a whole are irresponsible. I have to prove the balance of argument.
I want to make one or two suggestions. First, the noble Lord will know that many reputable farmers would never use a shotgun on deer. The noble Lord is not backed by the whole farming community in this matter. Many reputable farmers refuse to tolerate the shotgun being used on deer and have already taken to the rifle. The noble Lord must also know that reputable bodies, such as the Forestry Commission, would never tolerate this sort of thing, and are trying to set a public example. Is their experience, their guidance and wisdom not to be set in the balance against the other point of view? Does he not also realise that many farmers are already letting their stalking, a very valuable asset, and reaping a considerable income from that by putting it out to people who do it properly? I am not saying that those people should have a monopoly; I am saying that many farmers who do not want to use a shotgun are willing to put the work out. Deer control societies are spreading, and help enormously in particular areas.
There are two final points. I think we shall be able at Committee stage to suggest better evidence about the view of the police. I do not want to refer directly to discussions that took place some years ago, but I can say that in consultations with the police it became clear at that stage that
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they preferred the disabilities, the disadvantages, of a greater use of rifles to the continued indiscriminate killing by shotguns. Once again the balance of argument was being assessed, and in the case of the police I hope that we shall be able to prove even more definitely that, when faced with that challenge of the balance of argument, they will come down on the side of saying that the disadvantages of one outweigh the disadvantages of the other.
I end with one figure on this point. I wonder whether the noble Lord who is so worried about this issue knows the figures produced from checks made by the Deer Society. I do not know whether they were made by themselves or by people with whom they made full contact. The figure they have given me is that if you make a check on deer shot today by rifle and examine them—they have apparently done this with other people who have made these checks—you now find that 70 per cent. to 75 per cent. of the deer shot by rifle already contain in their bodies small shot. In other words, we know that indiscriminate peppering is going on. This is a figure which alarms me considerably, and must lead me to say in the end that if there are figures like that which can be proved, then the case for continuing with the shotgun is itself shot to smithereens. I hope that the noble Lord will check on matters like this.
I join with the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, in saying that we must reach agreement with the NFU. But we cannot reach agreement with them unless there is give on all sides. I hope he is not going to say that the NFU, in striking a balance of argument as I have been trying to illustrate, must have it all their own way. That is the point in the end. If they are willing to sit round a table and say, "We admit the cruelty involved and we are willing to find a way of reducing that cruelty through the use of the shotgun that will lead to its eventual outlawing", then I am sure we shall find that way. But they have to come over that first hurdle of agreeing that the level of cruelty involved is such that the need to outlaw must finally be conceded at some date. We can then make progress. I hope that the noble Lord will join with the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, in urging that there

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must be give on all sides if this agreement that the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, mentioned is to be reached.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, I very much hope that the noble Lord realises to what my remarks were being directed. In this instance I fully supported him, and said so I think quite fulsomely, on the cruelty issue. My concern is that what is admittedly an unsatisfactory state of affairs should not be made into an even worse state of affairs by a legislative nightmare. That is what I was concerned about, not the actual aspect of the cruelty.
Lord NORTHFIELD: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Earl. I hope that in the Committee stage we can reach agreement about this. I want to make it clear that the case on the other side is so strong that we cannot easily be expected to compromise, in view of all the expert and other opinion that wants to outlaw the shotgun as quickly and as reasonably as possible. It is in that situation that I hope we shall reach agreement.
The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, was kind enough to give a great deal of advice from Scotland and I welcomed it in the sense that it may well be the case—I am thinking aloud—that we need some form of advisory committee attached to the Bill which would then be comparable in some way to the Red Deer Commission. That might provide a clue as to how we could then outlaw the shotgun, because the body might advise on that as progress is made in that direction. I hope we can join with the noble Viscount in hoping that we could bring the Scottish and English close seasons into line. I join with one noble Lord who said that perhaps the Scots might have to move on this, not the English, as we might be more up to date on the matter.
Looking at the Bill as a whole, it forms a total pattern. It simply says that various methods must be outlawed; that, because of the scale of it, we must also control the sale of venison; and that we must, to give the police real powers of enforcement, make the entry on to land to poach deer an offence. Those are three cardinal issues to which we shall come time and again, in addition to the argument about shotguns. I hope we can stick to those
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and try to get them right in terms of the balance of advantage, and do what is reasonable for the farming community.
In that spirit, I assure noble Lords that, despite the hotness of some of the remarks about the Government's case, I shall in Committee be extremely reasonable. I repeat my suggestion that we might now allow a considerable period before Committee during which wide-ranging consultations can take place in order to get an agreed Bill. I hope the Government will join in some of those consultations, will not hold against me some of the hard words I have said, and will themselves be willing to show a little give in the consultations in order that we may obtain an agreed Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ROE DEER (CLOSE SEASONS) BILL
10.33 p.m.
Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Stanley of Alderley.)
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, with the permission of your Lordships, I shall be very brief. The Bill to which we now turn is a simple measure designed to deal with the close season for the buck and roe deer. That has already been included in the previous Bill we were discussing, so what it amounts to is that these two Bills form a race to the Statute Book. I think the only other point I need make is that, given the limited objective of the Bill, the Government do not wish to raise any objection; in the short time that we have had it we have been unable to pinpoint any drafting ambiguities, and thus all I need do now is to commend the Bill to the House.
Viscount THURSO: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Government are prepared to have consultations about possibly bringing Scottish and English law into line on this point, seeing that they are about to give the Bill a fair wind? Can he say what are the views of the Department of Agriculture and the Scottish Office on this matter?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I do not know what discussions, if any, have taken place, but the intention is that the Bill should operate from 1st November this year, which is the beginning of the close season for the animal that it is designed to protect. I should have to find out whether any consultations have taken place, or whether they are necessary, but beyond that I cannot go at this stage.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

EMU WINE HOLDINGS LIMITED AND SUBSIDIARY COMPANIES BILL [H.L.] INTERNATIONAL PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION BILL [H.L.]
Examiners Certificate that the further Standing Orders applicable have been complied with; Ordered to lie on the Table; Bills committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.