Lord Blencathra (Con)

My Lords, I will speak briefly. First, I commiserate and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Katz, because, for the past two months, he has sat diligently on the Government Front Bench and listened to about 30 speeches I have made on amendments to the crime Bill; admittedly, he rejected every single one of them, but he did so graciously. Yesterday, on our 11th day, I said that I had no more speeches to make on the Bill. Noble Lords ought to have seen the sheer delight on his face when he heard that he would not have to reply to me any more—yet here we are again; I commiserate with him for that. I also congratulate him on moving on to greater and, at least, nicer things. For the past two months, we have debated terrorism, knife and machete killings, child abuse, stop and search, vile online abuse and pornography, and animal sexual abuse—all thoroughly unnatural things—so it is good for him to speak today about nature and removing one other aspect of animal abuse, albeit admittedly a very small one. At the outset, we recognise that this instrument is narrow in scope and technical in nature, but it touches on matters of animal welfare, public health and the operation of the internal market, all of which merit careful consideration. Glue traps are quite simply cruel devices. As the noble Lord rightly said, they cause prolonged suffering through starvation, dehydration, torn skin, broken limbs and, in some cases, self-mutilation. They are also indiscriminate, frequently trapping non-target species, including birds and domestic pets. Few who have seen the consequences of these traps can reasonably describe them as humane.