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Farriers’ Qualification (European Recognition) Regulations 2008

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on introducing this debate. I am the third noble Lord to apologise for not hearing the first couple of minutes of his opening remarks. I too was caught out on the timing. This is a rather sad debate. We are discussing something that we cannot change. This is an EU directive and the explanatory memorandum says that, "““the consultation on these Regulations did not consult on the principles underlying the Directive or those provisions whose transposition into domestic law leaves no room for discretion at Member State level””." My noble friend Lord Ferrers is absolutely right about that. Therefore, we are wasting our time talking about it. We have contracted out our farriery to Europe just as we have contracted out immigration. This is yet another regulation or directive that we simply do not need. It joins the curd cheese regulations, which were debated a few months ago; the drivers’ hours regulations; the ladder directive; the very recent regulations which noble Lords enjoyed on mediums and spiritualists, which drew some comment from the Liberal Democrat Benches when they could not believe that they were actually involved in that—sadly they were. Those are regulations that we cannot do anything about. This evening, I have been struck by the expertise of everyone who has spoken. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, with his detailed knowledge, must have been head of the Birmingham mounted police force in a previous incarnation. He is quite right to say, ““No foot, no horse””. Farriers do an invaluable service and save us a lot of money; with good farriery we do not have to call the vet out as often. This country has had a very good farriery service and we still do. As this debate, although sparsely attended, has shown, we are capable of running our own show when it comes to farriery. Why do we need to import these absurd regulations from Europe? We cannot do anything about them. We can make wonderful speeches and we can move ourselves to tears with our eloquence but, in the end, it will not do any good at all. I am sure that the Minister who is an honest and straightforward man, whom I much admire, will admit that we have to put these regulations or directives into law. We have no alternative. It is a sad evening when this Chamber, this Parliament, is reduced to asking itself why we cannot run our own farriery industry. I should like noble Lords to think about that and to wonder whether it is right that we should have contracted out so much of our government to an unelected bureaucracy in Europe and sit here willingly to discuss something that we cannot change. It is deeply depressing and deeply sad, which is why, like my noble friend Lord Pearson, I believe that we would be very much better off out of the European Union and running our own affairs. We have a perfectly good Government—let me rephrase that and say we have a good system of government, the highly respected mother of parliaments and an educated electorate. Why do we have to contract out so much to the European Union? Why are we doing it? The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, is quite right: it is time we asked ourselves whether we are going down the right road here. I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Addington, in what he said in this debate, and all the other speakers were spot on in what they said. However, I am afraid that the Minister will tell us where we get off.