Tim Bonner: Ministers finally see sense on animal sentience

Rarely has a government seemed to be as embarrassed about its own legislation as Ministers are about the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill.

Spawned by an unnecessary panic over a dishonest social media campaign, and revived by a manifesto commitment that no one wants to take responsibility for, the Bill limped through the House of Lords taking an extraordinary barrage of criticism from some of the most respected peers on the government's benches.

Our Chair, Lord Herbert, summed up the exasperation of many peers when he questioned why: "at the height of a pandemic which has killed thousands of people and cost our economy billions, we have decided to devote time to passing a law to ensure that no government policy can hurt the feelings of a prawn."

The Government relied on the support of opposition parties to get the Bill through the Lords and when it reached the House of Commons the whips were so concerned about it being derailed that they only appointed the committee to scrutinise the Bill the day before its one meeting. When MPs were finally given an opportunity to debate the Bill on Monday night the criticism continued.

Greg Smith MP promoted a series of amendments highlighting deficiencies in the Bill which succeeded in focusing the debate. In particular he raised concerns about appointments to the Animal Sentience Committee which the Bill will create and to which Ministers will have a statutory duty to respond. One of his amendments addressed prospect that animal rights extremists could be appointed to serve on the committee.

Responding to the amendment, the Minister, Jo Churchill MP, committed that "applicants from any organisation … must declare potential conflicts of interest, in order to be transparent and so that we can rely on the judgments."

It would be better if the committee did not exist at all but the courts do pay attention to Parliament's intentions in passing legislation so we are extremely grateful to Greg Smith for securing these assurances on the parliamentary record. He did not push his amendments to a vote, but finally, after the government had rejected dozens of amendments in both the Lords and the Commons it finally relented under the weight of the barrage and agreed to accept an amendment from Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown. This requires the new Animal Sentience Committee to "respect legislative or administrative provisions and customs relating in particular to religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage".

This wording comes from the Lisbon Treaty provision on animal sentience that applied in the UK while we were members of the EU, and brought the debate full circle. It was the government's decision not to transpose that commitment into UK law after Brexit which created the manufactured row over animal sentience in the first place.

The Sentience Bill is still a fundamentally bad piece of legislation, but this amendment does mean that the new Animal Sentience Committee will be required to consider customs, traditions and heritage when making its assessments as to whether Ministers have taken due regard to the welfare of sentient animals. Despite this and the commitments the Minister gave on membership, the risk remains that a future government might weaponise the Committee to promote an animal rights agenda. Monday's debate will, at least, make it harder for them to get away with it and the Alliance will be here to ensure that due respect is given to the interests of people, as well as those of animals.

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