Paddy Tipping defends tail docking

This Telegraph article (registration required), reports that Ben Bradshaw (the animal welfare minister), will be including a full ban on tail docking in the animal welfare legislation.

Paddy Tipping, however, is in favour of an exemption for working dogs because docking avoids the potential for more harmful damage to tails later in life. From a position of considerable canine ignorance, this sounds sensible enough to me, but apparently 90% of vets are in favour of a ban. (Wonder where this figure came from).

The article also quotes a spokesman from the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) who put the case for a working dog exemption. Interestingly on the BASC website, you can see this picture of Paddy Tipping at their 2004 fair.
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He doesn't list shooting as an interest, but it frequently crops up in his questions and activities. Perhaps he is even a BASC member.

Paddy comments on WTO meeting in Doha

Paddy Tipping spoke at a debate on the Doha Round of the World Trade Organisation talks.

An important but complex process must be resolved over a short period. Does my right hon. Friend accept that not just agriculture issues, but the opening up of services, are important in this context? Is there not a possibility of some trade-off involving those two modalities.

Modalities are specific commitments (involving rules and formulae) made by countries to get reduce subsidies and improve access to markets for other countries.

Paddy Tipping questions Tony Blair over World Trade Organisation

At Prime Minister's Question Time, Paddy Tipping asked:

Although real progress was made last year towards making poverty history, the results of the World Trade Organisation discussions in Hong Kong were disappointing. What steps is my right hon. Friend going to take to give impetus to the process, so that we can move towards fair trade?

Tony Blair's answer was somewhat woolly:

We are in discussion with our principal allies, in Europe, America and elsewhere, about how we push the WTO talks on. It is important that the offer in those talks is bold and ambitious. The talks are about trade and services, as well as agriculture. We need Europe and America, as well as the emerging countries such as Brazil and India, to do more in terms of opening up their markets. The benefits of a successful trade round for all of us, not just the poorest people in the world, will be considerable. I assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to do all that we can to achieve that.

He frames out the problem - a particular point to note is his reference to trade and services. Because of existing tariffs, the Developing world tends to be forced to export only primary products such as agricultural ones. The more profitable parts of product processing are therefore carried out in the Developed world, perpetuating the disparity in wealth. What the PM omits is to answer the actual question - 'what steps is he going to take?'

Paddy Tipping supports animal welfare bill

Paddy Tipping made a lengthy speech in support of improved animal welfare, one of his key political interests.

Read full text at theyworkforyou.com

Can't fault anything he puts forward, it's about time we tightened up laws on animal cruelty, particularly in the area of mistreatment of pets which is notoriously difficult to prosecute and attracts what seem to be to be derisory penalties. However, I think it's time that a bit more attention was turned to permitted farming practices, which affects so many more animals than many of the classic animal welfare issues such as hunting, circuses and pet maltreatment.

Paddy Tipping speaks on police restructuring

Paddy Tipping MP spoke at a recent debate on restructuring in order to support the government's proposals to amalgamate a number of police forces.

Her Majesty's inspectorate and the Home Secretary will know about the difficulties that Nottinghamshire police face: serious crime and high rates of homicide. Is that not a typical example of why we need to increase resilience to tackle the way in which the face of crime has changed over the past 30 years? Change is necessary now.

He is clearly referring to the problems which Nottinghamshire police have had in resourcing significant cases, such as the shooting of schoolgirl Danielle Beccan, and the disruption that this has caused to their other duties. Presumably by closer integration with regional forces, it might be a bit easier to transfer resources from one force to another. However, are any forces currently conspicuously over-resourced? In addition there are limits to the flexibility of individual officers. Police are likely to perform better if they know the area, and few would want to commute across the entire East Midlands area, for example, on a case by case basis.

Later he interrupts David Davis to say

The right hon. Gentleman has a distinguished record as a former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. Given that there are 43 different police authorities and forces, is he really telling the House that there is no scope for efficiency savings? Surely we should examine such efficiency savings carefully and look at bigger organisations. Yes, there will up-front costs due to reorganisation, but he must accept that such a way forward could reduce costs in the long term.

Amalgamation doesn't always bring efficiency gains - note the 'could' in his last sentence. I would be very sceptical about the ability of such reorganisation to deliver real savings - certainly we would never be able to measure them.