HL Deb 05 March 2004 vol 658 cc941-5

2.33 p.m.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty) rose to move, That the order laid before the House on 20 January be approved [8th Report from the Joint Committee]

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall begin by providing the House with some background. The Destructive Imported Animals Act 1932 regulates the keeping of certain non-indigenous, imported animals that are considered destructive to either our biodiversity or legitimate human activities.

The controls specified in the Act have subsequently been applied to other species by orders issued under the Act. Currently, such orders apply to the muskrat, grey squirrel, coypu and non-indigenous rabbits.

The order reapplies the keeping prohibition, as set out in the 1932 Act, to mink. The controls provide my department with powers to regulate those who are, exceptionally, permitted to keep mink in England and to enforce the stringent security standards required to prevent mink escaping from captivity.

Prior to 1997, mink-keeping orders had a five-year duration, but by the time the 2000 order was laid, plans were well under way for the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000. However, as the Bill was still to be approved by Parliament at that point, it was decided that the order should have a three-year duration to ensure that effective controls remained in place until the proposed fur-farming ban came into force.

My department now proposes the adoption of a non time-limited order, in line with the other orders issued under the Act. Therefore, the effect of the order is, first, to prohibit the keeping of mink, except under licence, throughout England, including all off-shore islands; and, secondly, to continue to disapply the obligation of occupiers of any land to notify the department of the presence of mink on that land. The latter is clearly not reasonable nor practical because the feral population of mink is regrettably now so widespread in mainland England.

I hope that that explains distinctly the importance of the legislation and the need for such an order. The number of licences under the order will be extremely small, but it is necessary to establish the strict prohibition on mink-keeping as a means of promoting the wider objective to maintain and enhance England's biodiversity. I beg to move.

Moved, That the order laid before the House on 20 January be approved [8th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Whitty.)

Baroness Byford

My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining the order, which I regard as a tidying-up measure. I also accept, as the Explanatory Notes state, that the provisions will be compatible with the convention rights, as defined in Section 1 of the Human Rights Act 1998. However, I understand that the order deals only with England. Will the Minister tell us whether the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament will be passing a similar order in due time, or whether they have already passed one?

As the Minister said, mink pose a real threat to wildlife, including waterfowl, nesting birds and fish and game businesses. It is estimated that the water vole population declined by an estimated 88 per cent—a terrible figure—between 1989 and 1998, and that they are now part of the biodiversity action plan species. In Scotland, serious breeding failures have been experienced on seabird breeding sites and concern has been expressed by salmon fisheries.

However, the whole saga of the ban on milk farming—sorry, I mean mink farming. We are coming to the subject of milk later. The saga of the ban of mink farming is a disgrace. Defra was very slow about producing a scheme in the first place, which was later to be found defective, and initially sought to appeal against its defeat in the High Court. The Second Reading in this House was on 19 July 2000. In her winding up speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, reassured noble Lords that compensation would be made available and that the Government understood the need to, move as fast as possible on the matter". Later the noble Baroness said: I understand the feeling about the need for a speedy response".—[Official Report, 19/7/2000: cols. 1155–6] In November 2000, the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000 became law. In August 2001, consultation on the draft compensation scheme came out. In January 2002, the compensation scheme—statutory instrument 2001/3853—came into force. In March 2002, a second order came into force giving interim payments of £40 per female animal, which was made six weeks later. I have the chronology here submitted to me by the NFU, giving details of no fewer than 19 stages, bringing us up to early March 2004, and stating that Defra has rejected concessions on the interest that is due to be paid as there is no legal obligation to pay it.

The net result of all those years of disgraceful delays is that farmers stand to lose out on about two years' worth of interest on their compensation, which is in effect a penalty for successfully challenging the fairness of the original scheme. The NFU has raised the issue with me, saying that, any fair-minded observer would regard that as a most unreasonable penalty on claimants, given that the original order was found by the court to be defective. Nor do we think that a court would be impressed by this treatment of the human rights of the claimants. It would be truly ironic for persons whose businesses have been terminated not because they posed any threat to human or animal safety, but because in the Government's view their sector of farming offended 'public morality', to be treated in a manner which fell short of the high moral standard which Ministers insisted should be applied when justifying this legislation to Parliament". The Government ought to be ashamed of themselves. It is unlike the Minister not to try to encourage us along the way. I hope that he will be able to allay my fears. Two years have passed, and these farmers—although, it is true, there are not many of them—are unreasonably being held up in getting the compensation paid. I understand that there is no law stating that the Government have to give interest on the compensation that has been delayed but I hope that the Minister will accept that this position is unfair and cannot be allowed to continue. I hope that he will be able to confirm to me that this matter will be resolved immediately and not in weeks, months or years. However, I support the order overall.

Lord Addington

My Lords, I do not have much to say about the order, other than that we approve of its basic thrust. Mink, whether released from cages by incompetent or negligent farmers or by misguided and somewhat idiotic animal rights protestors, have done tremendous damage to our wildlife. Is the Minister in a position to tell us what is being done to reduce the number of mink? Does he know about that scheme and will he make that information available by writing to me?

I do not like the idea of keeping mink as animals for fur, but it was a legal activity. If we are not going to encourage farmers to have small accidents with fencing, surely they should receive payment. To follow up the point made by the noble Baroness, will the Minister give an assurance that the cases of farmers who are acting properly will be dealt with as quickly as possible? Will he also let us know what is being done about the control of mink? It has been put to me that the most effective control of mink on a riverbank is an otter. It is about twice the size and does not take kindly to the competition. If we could hear some good news about otter introductions we may well have the best natural control.

Lord Whitty

My Lords, on the last point, and indeed on the first point made by the noble Baroness about the effect of the feral mink population on other wildlife—as she said, it is particularly disastrous on the water voles—it is clearly necessary for us to enable feral mink to be trapped and otherwise caught. A significant effort to suppress mink numbers and to assist the water vole population is being made by a combination of the Environment Agency, English Nature, local wildlife trusts and other conservation organisations. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, there is a healthy side to otter repopulation. They are taking hack some of the land that the mink had acquired for itself and in those areas mink numbers are reducing significantly. I expect to see that continue as the otter population recovers. I am not able to give overall figures. I am not sure that we have overall figures in relation to the mink population. All we know is that, as a result of misguided and inadvertent releases, they are a serious problem.

As far as this order is concerned, clearly this is the residual part of what was a very substantial control over mink farming as well as over keeping mink for other reasons. It now relates only to special licences for very few conditions where people keep mink for other purposes. The number of such licences in England has been round about four a year. We are not talking about a vast regime. As far as the position in the devolved administrations is concerned, the Scots re-established an order in January. It is not quite the same as this order as it has a five-year limit but it is in the same direction. As I understand it, the Welsh arc minded to follow our lead, although it is likely that their process will take somewhat longer and it will be the summer before the new order comes into play there. Of course it is a matter for them.

As to the rest of what the noble Baroness said, which was also alluded to by the noble Lord, it has nothing to do with this order. This order is under the 1932 Act and the ban on mink farming, which led to the compensation scheme, was under the 2001 Act.

A compensation issue does arise. The Government came forward with some difficulty with a compensation scheme after substantial discussions with the industry in one form or another. That scheme was then overruled by the courts. We are now in the process of trying to reach agreement on a replacement form of the scheme that does not suffer from the same legal disadvantages which the court found at that stage. We have not yet reached agreement, but I hope that we will be able to promulgate such a scheme as soon as possible. However, it will not necessarily happen with the agreement of everyone affected by it. However, that is nothing to do with this order. Whatever strictures the noble Baroness may have for the Government, they do not, as I think she will accept, apply to this order. I commend the order to the House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.