Defra Clowns face another embarrassing defeat

By Gavin Shuker MP

Today could be a very interesting day in the House of Commons. A Backbench Business Motion jointly laid by a cross party alliance of Jim Fitzpatrick, Mark Pritchard and Bob Russell will seek to force the government to ban wild animals performing in circuses.

In a parallel to the backbench debate on prisoner voting a few months ago, MPs speaking in the debate are expected to almost universally support the motion. At that time, the government spun that they were intensely relaxed about losing. Not so in this case.

Backbench business proceeds on a one-line-whip, but you can bet that every government minister will turn out against it, along with every Tory or Lib Dem with an interest in developing their respective careers. Still, with Labour leading the fight, and a significant number of Tories and Lib Dems expected to rebel, the coalition may lose again.

Every single animal welfare organisation supports a ban, arguing that circuses are not the place for wild animals. Scientific evidence concludes that travelling circuses are not conducive to animal welfare, and the public overwhelmingly support a ban. That’s why Labour committed to introduce a ban in this parliament.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) dithered on the issue for a year, and in fact spun to the Sunday Express that a ban would be introduced, before the Prime Minister intervened. Now the government say they will ignore all of this and introduce a tough licensing regime instead.

So who does support DEFRA’s scheme? The circuses of course, who have confirmed that they have pushing for such regulation for 20 years, and expect the numbers of wild animals in circuses to increase as a result.

The Tory-led government have hidden behind their favourite excuses – Europe and the Human Rights Act. This is despite the European Commission saying that it’s an issue for member states. Comically, dragged to parliament by Mary Creagh, they cited a court case in Austria where the government had been taken to court over their similar ban. Bad luck for the DEFRA B-team that the case didn’t exist, the government later admitting they had only thought so after reading a circus press release.

DEFRA has already gained quite the reputation for incompetence, from their infamous U-turn on forests to delays to the Water White Paper; cuts to flood defenses and confusion on waste. Their response to this issue has been equally pathetic, and MPs from all sides, led by Labour, will be pointing that out this afternoon. I’d encourage readers to visit Labour’s campaign website backtheban.com to increase the pressure.

A government loss will demonstrate quite how incompetent, as the Department for the Environment has become a laughing stock, even amongst their own MPs.