rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Mutilations (Permitted Procedures) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2008.

The noble Lord said: I am pleased to speak to the Grand Committee about the regulations which make important and necessary changes to the original Mutilations (Permitted Procedures) (England) Regulations 2007. The 2007 regulations provide exemptions to the general provision in Section 5 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 that all mutilation of animals other than for medical treatment is prohibited. By “mutilation” I mean the carrying out of a procedure,

“which involves interference with the sensitive tissues or bone structure of the animal”.

Before making the 2007 regulations, we consulted stakeholders widely on any procedures that should or should not be allowed. When the regulations came into force, we believed that in most cases the status quo in common practice had been replicated where a procedure was felt to have a long-term welfare or management benefit.

However, after the 2007 regulations came into force, we were made aware of certain procedures that were in common practice before the Animal Welfare Act and the 2007 mutilations regulations came into force, but which were not highlighted by the relevant sectors during the original consultation. After consideration of the welfare costs and benefits of the procedures, it was judged that they were in the long-term welfare or management benefit of the animals involved and that they should, therefore, be added to the list of permitted procedures. It is to this end that these amending regulations have been produced.

In parenthesis, I should say that the same rules apply in Scotland and Wales, which will amend their regulations in due course. In other words, the relevant bodies and stakeholders did not come forward in any part of Great Britain to alert those who drafted the original regulations.

The amending regulations will have a number of beneficial effects on animal welfare and conservation. They will allow certain artificial insemination techniques to be used in sheep and goats for breed improvement programmes, which will facilitate the continued genetic development of the sheep and goat flocks, including in resistance to scrapie.

The regulations will allow the wing and web-tagging of birds to be used for conservation and research purposes, which will in particular aid certain wild bird reintroduction programmes. We also intend to introduce an exemption order under the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 to allow conservationists other than veterinary surgeons to perform those procedures. Initial informal consultation with officials at the royal college suggests that that would be uncontroversial, and we hope to have the exemption order in place by the autumn of this year. Lastly, the regulations will allow poultry and duck breeders to wing-tag, web-tag, neck-tag and web-notch birds involved in breed improvement programmes, therefore permitting breeders to use the most welfare-friendly forms of identification of breeding birds.

In conclusion, the mutilations listed in the amending regulations will have a positive effect on animal welfare, management and conservation. I regret that I have had to come forward with these amending regulations during the passage of the other regulations. Following widespread consultation, those techniques were not highlighted as being required for exemptions. Nevertheless, it is best that we do this as soon as possible. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Mutilations (Permitted Procedures) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2008. 17th report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.—(Lord Rooker.)

I thank the Minister for his introduction of the regulations. It is better to get it right eventually than to allow it to remain wrong. Perhaps the focus on issues such as tail docking prevented us giving this issue proper evaluation in the 2007 regulations. We value the fact that the Government have reviewed the operation of the 2007 regulations and been prepared to revisit them to ensure that practices with long-term welfare management benefits for the animals involved will be permitted. They are later in being laid than the consultation paper intended. What does the Minister consider to be the consequences of that delay? As my honourable friend Mr Wiggin pointed out in another place, it has already resulted in a loss of income to the farm veterinary profession, which already has pressures on it and is short of recruits.

The danger with this sort of legislation is that, short of constant updating, procedures become outdated as new ideas and practices developed elsewhere. The failure to recognise sheep and goats in the first permitted procedures has disadvantaged British producers. One can see from the internet that this is a fast developing area of scientific advance. It would be a disservice to our livestock sector if those advances were prevented from being incorporated into our industry by an overly restrictive regime.

The Minister accepts that the consultation process held before the introduction of the 2007 regulations failed to pick up on these issues. He made it clear that he thought that the industry should have been able to present them to the Government at the time. Were the Government sufficiently practical in seeking advice on those issues? What were the Government's advisers saying on the inclusion of sheep and goats in the regulations, for example? What steps are the Government taking to ensure that when regulations of this type of consequence on primary legislation come into effect, we sweep up all the issues that are likely to be involved, so that we do not have to revisit regulations in so short a time?

There is in principle a danger in relying on a regulatory regime that defines in detail permitted procedures but which, by definition, excludes all others. If the permitted procedure is not defined, it is by definition not allowed. It can mean that progress is dependent on a new regulation coming in to permit the new scientific advance. Given the high animal welfare standards in this country—I am sure that the noble Lord agrees—the regulation could be amended to reflect the current animal health and welfare requirements, while retaining the flexibility to use new and innovative techniques as they become available. In other words, is a prescriptive regulatory regime the best way of dealing with such issues? The deficiency of playing catch-up is best demonstrated by the ovum transplantation and other artificial insemination methods being extended to include sheep and goats.

New techniques can be highly beneficial to animal welfare and good management. What about camelids, such as alpacas and llamas? In the US, the research into transplantation and embryo transfer is much more advanced than here and includes frozen blastocysts. That could have considerable advantages for breeders in this area of animal husbandry, particularly as artificial insemination in camelids is impracticable, the collection of semen from males is difficult and camelids are induced ovulators.

Schedule 4 concerns birds. How do the Government propose to ensure that the procedures in the proposed A2 and A3 in Schedule 4 may only be carried out within 36 hours of hatching? Is there some development that happens at 36 hours that provides an obvious watershed, or is it just an arbitrary time period?

We have received considerable concerns from the RSPCA on wing-tagging. I wonder what the Minister has to say about that and whether he can reassure Members of the Committee and the RSPCA on that issue.

I can but welcome the regulations, but I do so feeling that there may well have been a better way of combining the needs of animal welfare and the use of modern science.

We have no difficulty with the regulations. I have one question, since this provision has been updated to cover areas that were not formerly included. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is going through Parliament. Ova are collected from cattle, and human DNA is used with cattle ovum. Is the recovery of the ova from cattle covered by the regulations, or will we have to come back to that later?

If I may, I will speak seated. I want to speak briefly about wing-tagging. It is a good development in the law to permit it. Many years ago, I was concerned with some research looking at gulls and terns in East Anglia. There, the common method of tagging of chicks was with leg bands. The mortality from that was remarkable, simply because the rings caught on grass and debris on the ground, and the chicks died. Wing-tagging is very much more effective. Frankly, I cannot understand why the RSPCA should object to it. It is a very good development, which will result in much more effective information on a range of wild birds for research and breeding purposes, and it will be safer than leg tags.

Perhaps I may follow the comments made by my noble friend Lord Soulsby. If I heard correctly, the Minister said that a lot of wing-tagging may be done by conservation bodies and that he had not received representations from either the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons or the BVA expressing any concerns. I should like to seek clarification on that point.

Secondly, my noble friend referred to alpacas and llamas. Have the Government changed their view on making a list of places where alpacas and llamas are actually being kept? Some of them are in quite big herds and clearly their welfare is a concern to us all. I should hate us to pass regulations and then say, “My goodness, why did we not think of that at the time?”. I should like a little more explanation on the position of alpacas and llamas.

Thirdly, going slightly wider and with no wish to be difficult, can the Minister bring me up to date on the question of the ear-tagging of sheep generally and what progress is or is not being made on electronic tagging?

I am grateful for the comments of noble Lords and I shall do my best to answer the questions put to me. On the consequences of delay and the resulting loss of income to vets raised by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, there was an original plan that these regulations would come into force in April 2008, but the date was moved forward to June in order to allow the consultation period to be extended. The consultation was deemed necessary as the original consultation brought up too many issues which we felt that stakeholders should be given the opportunity to comment on. The regulations were changed to reflect those issues. Web-tagging was added to the list of permitted procedures and the purposes for which wing and web-tagging can be performed were extended to include breed improvement programmes. When making the decision to extend the consultation, stakeholders in the sheep and goat breeding industry were consulted, and we were informed that moving the coming-into-force date to June would have no significant effect.

We have had no information on the impact of the fact that these procedures have effectively been about since last year, or at least I do not have a note to that effect. I personally have heard nothing from the RSPCA. The department may have had something, but as a Peer you disappear off the radar when you are a Minister. Some of these organisations do not send you anything. I open my own post, so I know that I have had nothing about these regulations. I do not know why the RSPCA is upset, but frankly all the information we have is from welfare organisations. Moreover, as the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, said and it has been explained to me, it is much more welfare-friendly to avoid having to ring the legs of chicks for breeding programmes. The chicks are so tiny that by definition the band has to be very small. It can restrict growth as well as risk causing damage if it snags. There are major issues of welfare improvement here.

The noble Lord asked about the reason for the 36-hour limit. This provision concerns welfare in a breed improvement programme, so it is quite specific about when neck-tagging or web-notching can be carried out since they are legally classified as mutilation procedures. It may be because the skin at that age is very loose so it is easy to insert a small tag into the chick’s neck. Later it becomes more difficult. We have been informed by the industry that it is not done any later, so the regulations are following advice.

Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord asked about camelids, a question also raised in the other place. For a mutilation to be added to the list of permitted procedures, we consider that it needs to be shown that it has a welfare or management benefit, and that such a benefit could be weighed against any welfare costs. During the consultation, we were not presented with sufficient evidence to show that there are welfare or management benefits associated with the artificial insemination of any species other than sheep and goats. Several stakeholders did raise the issue of allowing certain artificial insemination techniques in camelids, but stated that research in this area is still at an early stage. We do not think that there is enough evidence to justify including camelids in the regulations. However, if in the future the artificial insemination of camelids or any other species can be shown to have a welfare or management benefit, the next time the regulations are reviewed, that certainly could be considered for inclusion.

We may have covered all the techniques currently in use—the regulations are bringing us up-to-date with techniques currently in use that were missed out of the exemptions. Other scientific research on new techniques—we can always improve and get new techniques—is likely to be covered by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act and a licence for research granted under that Act. That would alert us to possible new techniques, which we may want to cover in the permitted exemptions. So it is not as though some new technique will be invented and put into industrial use without our knowing about it, because a research licence must be issued in the first place and that will alert us to a new technique. As I said, the amendments are essentially covering existing techniques that were missed from the regulations when they were originally brought forward.

The noble Lord mentioned that wing-tagging was much improved. The type of tags vary according to the size of bird. I must tell the noble Baroness that I have nothing whatever to say about sheep identification—well, I have a lot to say, but I have no brief in front of me, and I am not going to speak off the top of my head.

The granddaddy of all questions, to which I have not had an answer, came from the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. I did not expect to be discussing the embryology Bill currently being debated on the Floor in the other place this afternoon. All I can assume is that all the techniques covered by that Bill are fully regulated for all concerned, whether the animals or the humans, by the authority set up by Parliament to deal with that. I do not think it is a matter for Defra, but if I am wrong I will write to the noble Lord. I have to say: 10 out of 10 for the question.

The Minister did not answer my question about consultation on conservationists being able to do the procedure, rather than it being a veterinary procedure.

I said that we will come forward with another regulation. We have had a preliminary consultation with royal college officials, but we are not out on a consultation process at present. There will be a formal consultation before the exemption order under the Veterinary Surgeons Act is made, but the indications from our discussion with officials of the royal college is that it will be uncontroversial to allow non-vets to carry out some of these procedures, and we will need to change the law for that. That will require consultation, which will take place in autumn this year.

So they are not coming in yet.

No, they are not coming in with the regulations, there will be a separate consultation later in the year for that. That will be done quite separately and we will have them in force by the autumn, which is some months away.

I asked the noble Lord earlier about the consultation procedure and the degree to which it had dropped the catch. I am not seeking to apportion blame, but somehow something quite significant in ensuring that the regulations worked—we are now addressing the deficiency—went wrong. Has the department looked at that and should the department have a more proactive role in ensuring that it stimulates the necessary response?

That may be so, but the fact is that the industries concerned did not consider these to be mutilations in the sense discussed under the animal welfare legislation. That is why they did not respond. It is not that they were unaware when the Animal Welfare Bill was going through the House: it was of major concern to all keepers of animals. They simply did not consider this to be covered by the mutilation provisions for the exemption order. It was not a failure, because we had consulted. We have hundreds of consultees on the address list, it is amazing, but we do not know everything.

The fact is that, as I have discovered in other issues, especially with mercury in barometers, industry does not always respond. In this case, it was genuine in the sense that it did not think that it was covered and we did not know about that aspect. I am hopeful that there will be no more cases, that what is being done to bring these regulations to the House will have alerted anyone to any other issues. I know that the matter has been raised in the other place as well. It is something that we will have to watch for, because techniques are employed, and people bring new techniques in from abroad and think it is perfectly all right to do so. We need to know about these things. We will see whether we can redouble our efforts on consultation to spell things out. If people have a doubt about the technique, or about whether what they are doing is covered, they at least should be proactive and ask whether it is covered, so that we can take advice when we are drafting the regulations. It is a fair point, and we will see that it is followed through.

On Question, Motion agreed to.