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Mr. Gray: On amendment No. 289, I take great comfort from the Minister's reassurance that the records should be kept by the hunt and need not be revealed to the registrar, the tribunal or anybody else under subsection (5)(a). The provisions under clause 23(1), whereby the registrar would make the records available to the public, do not apply to those records, from which I take great comfort because it makes our amendment unnecessary.
Mr. Pickthall: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for his positive responses to amendments Nos. 223, 226 and half of 288. In each case, he has given a commitment to look for an appropriate wording. When he looks at amendment No. 226, he might like to think of it terms of the Government amendments to clause 24, which opened up the possibilities of shorter periods of registration and repeated registrations. I am grateful for the progress that has been made and beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 27 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 28
Automatic conditions of group registration
Amendments made: No. 326, in
No. 327, in
Clause 28, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 29
Amendment of Automatic conditions
Paddy Tipping (Sherwood): I beg to move amendment No. 221, in
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clause 29, page 11, leave out lines 23 and 24.
In the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), I am pleased to speak to the amendment, which will allow the Committee to have a short discussion about the role and powers of the Secretary of State after the Bill receives Royal Assent.
The Committee has had ample opportunity to discuss the registration process. It is clear that there are different views in the Room about the process and widely differing views about the wider issues. A new Secretary of State will have powers under clause 29 to propose changes to the registration scheme set out in clauses 27 and 28. For example, it would be within his power to remove the requirement for a representative of an animal welfare group to accompany the registered individual in the course of hunting, to remove the requirement for insurance or to remove the condition of consent to hunt on the land. All those things are to be done by order, and there is always some anxiety in Committee about the powers of a Secretary of State to do things by order.
The amendment would leave in the Bill the power of the Secretary of State to add a condition but take away his powers to remove or vary conditions. Perhaps the Minister would provide some examples of how a future Secretary of State would be inclined to use the powers.
Mr. Garnier: This is self-evidently a bad amendment. I am delighted for the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside that he is not here to move this dreadful piece of legislation and had to rely on the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) to do it for him.
Removing paragraphs (b) and (c) is clearly a device that is designed to unbalance the Bill. It is bad enough to give the Secretary of State unspecified powers, but to give him the power only to add conditions, without at the same time giving him powers to remove or vary them, strikes me as wholly unjust and extremely dangerous. I am amazed that someone as sensible and honourable as the hon. Member for Sherwood, who has had the misfortune to move the amendment, thought it a good thing to do. I trust that he will reconsider.
Alun Michael: The hon. and learned Gentleman has a remarkable talent for overstatement and for getting things out of proportion, which he has just exercised again. I understand why my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood has moved the amendment. He wants to satisfy himself as to the nature of the measure that is being passed and to be certain that the clause will not allow major changes to be made later. I hope that I can reassure him on that point.
5.30 pm
My hon. Friend will know from his ministerial experience how often legislation that looks perfect during its passage through the House turns out, despite all the careful scrutiny that it receives, to contain anomalies. He will know also how difficult it is, to put it mildly and politely, to sort out even small items of primary legislation, even when there is unanimity on both sides of the House about the fact
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that something unintended has happened. I am sure, Mrs. Roe, that you will have presided on many occasions when such an unintended consequence has been discussed.
I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood to accept that it is sensible, in case unforeseen circumstances arise, to allow a capacity to adjust or remove a condition, and to establish a mechanism for doing that. The alternative course would be to require primary legislation as the only way to bring about variations. The Bill, of course, contains a failsafe, in that any change under clause 29 requires the approval of both Houses of Parliament under the affirmative resolution procedure. That, especially with respect to a contentious measure, is sensible, because it means—if I may read my hon. Friend's mind—that major changes cannot just be slipped through, but must be considered by the House. All hon. Members will thus have an opportunity either to accept that the change relates to an unintended wrinkle, or to changed circumstances, or to take the view that it goes beyond what the House wants.
I hope that I can also reassure my hon. Friend that the Government do not have in mind any changes to the Bill's operation. I appreciate that he was discussing what might happen under another Government; presumably far into the future. It is always as well to look as far ahead as possible. I hope that, now that he has probed the question of what is intended, my hon. Friend will agree to withdraw the amendment.
Mr. Gray: The Minister makes a convincing case and I hope that his hon. Friend will listen to him. There is no logic in removing the provisions for removing or varying conditions. However, we object to the clause, because it is a classic Henry VIII clause. Subsequent Secretaries of State with all kinds of views may use it to change the Bill fundamentally. We therefore oppose the clause.
Paddy Tipping: I am grateful for the Minister's comments and take his point that it will be a long time before there is a Secretary of State who is hostile to the Bill. I am grateful, also, for his confirmation of what I expected; that the affirmative resolution would be used if it proved necessary to revisit the Bill. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 14, Noes 5.
Division No. 20]
AYES
Ainger, Mr. Nick
Bradley, Peter
Foster, Mr. Michael
Hall, Mr. Mike
Holmes, Paul
Mallaber, Judy
Marris, Rob
Martlew, Mr. Eric
Michael, Alun
Öpik, Lembit
Pickthall, Mr. Colin
Reed, Mr. Andy
Tipping, Paddy
Whitehead, Dr. Alan
NOES
Garnier, Mr. Edward
Gray, Mr. James
Gummer, Mr. John
Luff, Mr. Peter
Swire, Mr. Hugo
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Question accordingly agreed to.
Clause 29 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 30 and 31 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 32
Group registration: addition or replacement
Mr. Gray: I beg to move amendment No.40, in
clause 32, page 12, leave out lines 25 and 26.
Subsection (4) has no relation whatever to animal welfare. By no stretch of anybody's imagination could something that restricted somebody from joining a group registration as described under subsection (4) possibly make the death of the quarry species better, worse or indifferent. It therefore seems only right that that subsection be deleted, because the Bill's purpose, as often stated by the Minister, is purely to look after animal welfare, with which subsection (4) has no relationship. If that subsection were to remain, it would bring back a problem that we have discussed already over the definition of what a hunt and followers are.
If the Minister intends that definition to be ''anybody at all wishing to join a hunt as a supervised person under the terms of the Bill'', that is quite unacceptable. There might be up to 1,000 people out on any one day, and anyone seeking to join the hunt would require the consent of more than 50 per cent. of the others, which would be wholly impractical and bizarre. I can therefore presume only that when Minister talks about the number of people in that context he means the people controlling the dogs; the people doing the hunting itself. Even then it might not be possible to achieve more than 50 per cent., because people who are doing that might fall out with each other and might not come to a reasonable agreement about whether a third or fourth person should join them.
Subsection (4) is not only unreasonable on its own terms, but entirely pointless as regards animal welfare. We suggest that it be removed from the Bill.
Rob Marris: If subsection (4) were deleted pursuant to the amendment—I am talking hypothetically—what would there be to prevent someone who was a member of the League Against Cruel Sports, of which the hon. Gentleman has a low opinion, from applying to join a group registration? That would be like someone applying to join a club and the club not being able to stop them.
Mr. Gray: There would be nothing whatever to stop that, and there is nothing to stop it at the moment.
Rob Marris: With respect, there is something to stop people doing that; subsection (4), which the hon. Gentleman seeks to remove. That is precisely the point I am trying to make. That provision could stop what I described. The people in the group registration could say, ''Well, you have different views from us on this activity. You're not joining our club, thank you very much, because you can't get more than half of us signed up''. That is precisely why that provision is in the clause.
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