Banned wagon
A weekly survey of the things our rulers want to prohibit ONE of the charming aspects of our parliamentary procedure is that con- cerning private members' bills, whereby obscure backbenchers are allowed to take part in a ballot for a once-in-a- lifetime stab at changing the law. Need- less to say, these dictators for a day have an unnerving tendency to want to ban something or other. And, not unusually, it is something to do with furry animals.
Number eight in this year's ballot was Ken Livingstone, who wants to outlaw hunting with dogs. One place below him is Gwyn Prosser, Labour MP for Dover, for whom the world's greatest injustice is the export of live farm ani- mals. He has duly prepared a bill which would impose heavy fines on anybody who dared cross the Channel with a sheep, whether it be for slaughter or further fattening.
The bill, thankfully, wouldn't prohibit the transportation of animals over long distances within the United Kingdom if it did all livestock farming would have to cease. The need to transport animals is in fact increasing because of the clo- sure of small abattoirs in country towns. And since time immemorial farmers have sent sheep raised in the highlands to be fattened in the lowlands.
The question is why, if sheep can legally be taken by lorry from the Cheviots to Romney Marsh, should they not be allowed to complete their journey with a 20-mile hop across the Channel? There is no logical reason at all — the bill is really nothing more than mutton-chop xenophobia dressed up as a love of furry little lambs. Export live animals, Mr Prosser is say- ing, and they are bound to end up in the hands of some beastly Frenchman.
It all makes you grateful for that other charming aspect of parliamentary procedure whereby private members who come lower than about three in the ballot invariably find that their bills run out of time.
Ross Clark
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