Meeting of the Parliament 20 December 2017
In the stage 1 debate there were plenty of puns. My contribution will certainly not be as slick as Donald Cameron’s, but I ask members to bear with me, as it will certainly not be irrelephant. Perhaps the Labour group should have been leading today’s debate, with the bill going through Parliament at a time when the only circus to look forward to is the next Labour leadership election. Since Kezia Dugdale’s trip to visit the wild animals in the jungle, she certainly has the koalafications.
However, as I have said previously, the light-hearted manner in which members across the chamber have approached this and previous debates in no way reflects the serious manner with which we have dealt with the bill, or indeed the importance with which the committee and my colleagues treat any subject relating to animal welfare.
The Scottish Conservatives supported the general principles of the bill at stage 1 and lodged amendments at stage 2, reflecting the commitment that my colleagues and I have to ensuring we have good laws to secure the highest standard of animal welfare. We support a ban on the use of wild animals in travelling circuses on ethical and welfare grounds by delivering robust legislation.
Across the chamber, we have heard of a number of concerns over the drafting of the bill, which we now believe the cabinet secretary has taken on board. Those concerns were chiefly around definitions of a wild animal and a travelling circus. Our concerns have always been founded on the desire to see the most effective legislation without either leaving wriggle room for those who would seek to continue to use wild animals in this type of activity or outlawing other types of activity that were never intended to be covered by the bill, including llamas and raptors at country fairs or even sheepdog trials. Vague definitions risked criminalising those who put on a show or event where animals have to be transported to the event, and that needed to be clarified.
The committee’s view was that the bill as introduced did not fully address the issues that it set out to cover and that it was at serious risk of capturing animal performances and shows that it may not have been intended to cover. The bill as amended should now not result in another piece of weak legislation from the Scottish Government that will fall down or be ineffective in the courts.
The fact that little time was spent exploring the use of the ethical argument behind the bill indicates that right across the chamber, whether on welfare or ethical grounds, we believe that public performances by wild animals are no longer acceptable. The debate surrounding the bill has largely centred on poor drafting and fears that it had the potential to fail in what it sets out to achieve. We on these benches believe that significant progress has been made and we will be supporting the bill this evening.
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