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Animal Welfare Bill

I am a bit of a showman, but not a member of the Showmen’s Guild. However, I support the points that have been made, in particular by my noble friend Lord Hoyle. The clause and the amendment are aimed at dealing with a serious problem. I would be much less keen if people were giving adults, and certainly children, greyhounds. The point being made so eloquently is that goldfish do not come into it. I was once responsible for an act of gross, although inadvertent, cruelty to a goldfish because we won one at the fair, I put it in my car and I could not find it when we got home. I later took off on an 800-mile round trip up north and three weeks later we found it under the driver’s seat—in fine condition. It lived for many happy years in a bowl and later in a pond in my garden. Goldfish are obviously more robust than some of the animals we might consider. If I might just finish on a serious point; this is an important and serious Bill. It must attract public consent for every word that is in it, because it cannot all be enforced by law; it has to be a commonsense Bill that is trying to improve cruelty standards. Here, we are starting to mess about with people winning goldfish in bags, many of whom will learn from that what it is to look after an animal. I do not think that the suffering of goldfish rates very high on the Richter scale of animal suffering. If you start extending the Bill to that kind of absurdity, you are changing into an Earl Ferrers and saying that the law is getting into everything. Having heard all that has been said, I ask my noble friend the Minister whether he can promise today to come back on Report with something that prevents the real evils that the Bill is trying to prevent, but saves our goldfish.