Meeting of the Parliament 05 October 2017
As a member of the ECCLR Committee, I am pleased to contribute to the debate, not least because it is a further step towards Scotland leading the way for the rest of the UK in tackling the important ethical issue of the use of wild animals in travelling circuses. It is also welcome because the use of wild animals in circuses has been the subject of deliberation by campaigners for decades, with part of the existing framework dating back to the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act 1925.
The cabinet secretary alluded to this but, for the record, it should be noted that the UK Government announced in March 2012 that it would
“bring forward primary legislation at the earliest opportunity to ban circuses from using wild animals on ethical grounds.”
However, as of this year—more than three years after the initial offer of a joint UK bill—no date had been set for a bill to be introduced in the UK Parliament, so the issue seems to have gone off the UK Government’s radar.
We have heard contributions from members that covered a number of issues, including the need to tighten definitions—particularly the definitions of “travelling circus” and “wild animals”. The ethical and welfare arguments have also been well aired. I will concentrate on enforcement and the need to support local authorities in their enforcement duties.
In its stage 1 report, the committee expressed the view that enforcement powers in the bill could go further, particularly given the evidence that we took from local authorities, which called for additional powers to intervene to prevent shows from taking place. The bill does not make it a statutory duty for local authorities to enforce the powers, so enforcement will, in effect, be discretionary.
I have some difficulty with that, and I wonder what the point of introducing the bill is if it will not remove the discretionary element of the local authority enforcement powers. However, I welcome the assurance that the cabinet secretary gave in evidence to the committee that any non-enforcement of the bill by local authorities could be solved by ministers appointing their own inspectors. As she told the committee,
“The bill also allows Scottish ministers some flexibility to appoint inspectors, so it will not be up to local authorities alone to do that. There is a power in the bill for ministers to appoint an alternative inspector if we think that certain local authorities are not enforcing this legislation.”—[Official Report, Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, 27 June 2017; c 13-14.]
That would be fine if we were not dealing with travelling circuses but, as it says on the tin, they travel, so there is every possibility that, by the time a Scottish Government-appointed inspector was alerted to a local authority’s non-enforcement, the travelling circus could have moved on. I therefore urge the cabinet secretary to re-examine the issue and consider removing the discretionary element of the local authority enforcement powers.
In addition, guidance is proposed to support local authorities in their enforcement duties. Given the importance of that document for interpretation, the committee considers that it should be available to councils as soon as the bill is enacted, if it is passed.
I look forward to further consideration of the bill at stage 2 in the hope that we can get it right by the time it reaches stage 3, so that, once enacted, it will enable the ban on wild animals in travelling circuses to be put into effect immediately. Implementation of the ban should be accompanied by the issuing of the appropriate guidance, which the committee has called for.
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