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Farriers’ Qualification (European Recognition) Regulations 2008

My Lords, in rising to support the Motion to revoke proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, I ask the House to forgive the fact that I missed the first two or three minutes of his speech. I was detained elsewhere. I declare an interest in that I am a member of the Countryside Alliance, which has some interest in this subject. We are looking at something that has fallen between two major government departments, the DIUS and Defra, and is borne upon by European Union directive 2005/36 on mutual recognition of professional qualifications. All of that adds up to a classic example of the law of unintended consequences. As one picks one’s way through the barbed wire entanglement of regulations and statutory instruments, one comes to a point where the result could not have been intended or imagined and is certainly unacceptable. I should like to dwell on the two words ““rider”” and ““horseman””. Riders are people, often with considerable competence, who sit on top of a horse and generally do not fall off. Horsemen know a good deal more than riders about the animal on which they are riding. All horsemen have known for some centuries the four-word truism which is as true today as it was centuries ago: ““No foot—no horse””. To the uninitiated, a horse stands on a lump of bone which has underneath it a piece of metal to protect its feet from the road. Nothing could be further from the truth than that. As all horsemen know, the hoof conceals one of the most complex physical systems in the animal kingdom. Not only is the hoof involved, but underneath it, near to the ground, is the very sensitive sole of the frog. Inside the hoof you have a complicated, complex system of laminae and blood vessels; above that, suspensory ligaments; and, then, a very complicated system of bones that makes up the lower leg. All of that can be made or marred by the farrier. ““No foot—no horse”” is true, as I have already said, and yet farriery appears to be now classified in the basket labelled ““metalworkers””. That seems quite ridiculous. There is clearly, in the minds of officials, a confusion between blacksmiths on the one hand and shoeing smiths on the other, to use the old cavalry definition. A farrier operates in that middle ground between skilled metalwork and considerable veterinary knowledge. I do not intend to take up too much of your Lordships’ time tonight, but looking at protocol 33 to the EC treaty on the protection and welfare of animals which requires member states, "““to pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals””" when formulating policy, it seems to me, first, that that is legally binding and, secondly, that neither the 2005/36 directive nor the supporting regulations that we are looking at tonight appear to have considered welfare at all. We are here tonight to look at health and safety considerations. It alarms me, as it may alarm other Members of your Lordships’ House, to see that farriery is not included as a profession with health and safety implications. The all-pervasive health and safety regime in which we now live—a regime which reaches all the corners of life that other legislation cannot reach—has not seen fit to include it. The dangers posed to horse riders, horse carriage drivers and members of the public on or off the road when a horse is stressed through pain or bad shoeing are quite enormous and cannot be overemphasised. In lay terms, a horse beyond control which is bucking, bolting and lashing out is likely to be a result of bad shoeing, and accidents, of course, will happen. It also seems strange that veterinary nurses are included in the list of occupations with health and safety implications which excludes farriers. When I kept horses of my own and employed both veterinary nurses and farriers from time to time, I would quite willingly put up with a veterinary nurse who had minimum qualifications but I would certainly never go to a farrier who I could not trust. As has already been alluded to by other noble Lords this evening, foreign standards vary. We cannot always in all corners of the European Union get to grips with the sort of standards that are being espoused there. To face a circumstance where somebody from the farther reaches of the EU claiming six years’ experience can come here and practise full time, or claiming two years’ experience can come here and work temporarily, but in which the regulatory authority has no ability whatever to establish clearly the quality of that foreign experience or the resulting competence is quite bizarre. The UK has approaching 1.5 million horses and 4.5 million people who ride annually. We have a farriery industry which, I understand, earns itself £250,000 set within a critical part of an equine industry that is worth £4 billion. Yet we are looking at something today which could disrupt much of that industry and those people who use it or are employed within it. I close simply by saying, as I said at the beginning, that I support the Motion proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, to revoke the regulations and I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will cause, in that revocation, Defra, the DIUS and the equine sector to work together to produce workable regulations that meet the clear objectives of the legislation which these regulations patently have not managed to reach.