Hansard

Presiding Officer, as your deputy on the cross-party group on animal welfare, it is a privilege to speak in a debate that I hope will take Scotland a step forward in ending the cruelty and distress that are inflicted on animals in travelling circuses. Later today, I hope that we will be unanimous in our vote to approve the principles of the bill, so that we can progress to more detailed consideration and—crucially—amendment.

This week saw the birthday of one of the greatest practitioners of non-violence: Mahatma Gandhi. He did not distinguish who he included in that non-violence, and he once said:

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

There is nothing great about the treatment of animals in a travelling circus, from either an ethical or an animal welfare point of view. The animals are faced with cramped and restrictive accommodation, without the space to recreate their natural behaviour, to explore, to socialise and to find food as they would in the wild. From stress, to ligament damage, to disease, the behavioural, psychological and physical impacts that such conditions have on the animals are clear, as is the impact of the work that they are forced to do in order to perform. So-called tricks are learned through intensive training and there are many well-documented instances of trainers using abuse and negative reinforcement.

The performances themselves, in the presence of human audiences, often cause distress to the animals. I am sure that we are all aware of examples of that in our constituencies and regions, and—I say this for the benefit of Peter Chapman—not that long ago. Although I did not attend, I remember the Bobby Roberts Super Circus touring Dumfries and Galloway with its aged, arthritic elephant, named Anne, who was mentioned earlier by David Stewart. Having been taken from the wild in Sri Lanka, Anne was used for entertainment for more than 50 years, right up until 2011, when her last trick was to stand and pose for photographs with audience members for £5 a time, before she was eventually rehomed after protests at the appalling treatment that she received. That example shows that existing regulation or monitoring of the industry did not and does not work and that, without a full ban, the mistreatment of animals such as Anne is inevitable.

That is a view that appears to have overwhelming support. Public consultation on the bill showed that 98 per cent of respondents supported a ban on travelling circuses keeping wild animals for performance and 96 per cent believed that a ban is the only way to end such cruelty. Respondents were clear in their comments about the physical and psychological cruelty to which animals are subjected, describing it as “archaic” and “barbaric”.

The bill is a positive step towards relegating that cruelty to the history books. However, I very much commend the work of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee in highlighting problematic definitions, potential loopholes and, ultimately, the need for the bill to be strengthened, and I welcome the 20 recommendations in its report. In particular, I echo the committee’s calls for the bill to include a list, which can be easily updated and amended, of animals covered by the legislation, to ensure that ambiguity over the distinction between domesticated and wild animals does not prevent the bill from working as intended.

I also reiterate the importance of not only making enforcement of the bill statutory, but taking steps to ensure that local authorities have the resources to enforce it. Council officials expressed to the committee their concerns about the practicality of enforcement, and Mike Flynn of the SSPCA expressed his doubt over whether enforcement powers would be used. The discretionary aspect of enforcement should be removed, but if the burden of enforcement is to be devolved to local authorities, they must also receive the necessary resources.

I hope that the Scottish Government will accept the changes to the bill that the committee has proposed, so that we will have a thorough and robust ban. I understand that the Government has now responded to the committee, but that that was only a few hours ago. I point out to members who are not members of the committee that we have not yet seen that response.

The bill is a step in the right direction for animal welfare but, in all sincerity, it is one that is badly needed. The failure of the Government to ban electronic shock devices or to consult on a ban on snaring, and its recent decision to reintroduce tail docking, together with concerns that it will not go beyond Lord Bonomy’s recommendations and ensure a proper ban on hunting, all seriously undermine its credibility when it comes to animal welfare. We badly need steps such as the bill if our “moral progress” as a nation is indeed to be judged in a positive light.