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Farriers’ Qualification (European Recognition) Regulations 2008

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on securing the debate. I hope we will be able to clear the air of some misconceptions. I do not have any interests to declare, although a couple of long-distance friends from the 1960s might have in their loft a photograph of me—dressed in suitable safety equipment—trailing along the lanes of Llanymynech on the Welsh border. They were showing me what the movement of an animal underneath me feels like. That is about the full extent of my experience so I do not have an interest to declare in that sense. No one has mentioned it but it is worth putting on record that these regulations have been in force since 19 October last year. So we are not talking about something that has just been brought in. I do not wish to flood the House with constituents but it is also worth putting on record the latest figures I have. The total number of farriers on the register is 2,300 and there are 390 farriers without formal qualification or training. So there are 390 UK nationals—untrained, unqualified—doing farrier work. No one has mentioned that. The number of EU farriers on Part 1 of the register is two, and the number of declarations of intention to provide temporary services since October last year, when the regulations came into force, is one. That is the situation in June 2008. I wanted to set that on the record so that one can see the context in which we are dealing with this. There are nearly 400 unqualified, untrained, UK nationals doing farrier work against a total of 2,300 on the register; and there has been a grand total of three EU farriers on Part 1 of the register, including one declaration of intention to provide temporary services, since 19 October last year.