Caring For Our Animals

The Chartered Trading Standards Institute has established an Animal Welfare campaign called ‘Caring For Our Animals’ in response to a new piece of legislation – the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.

Clause 48 of the Bill brings in minor amendments to the Animal Welfare Act 2006. In light of feedback from some of our members CTSI would like to see a number of proposed amendments to the legislation, which we believe would:

• help to reduce the number of animals at risk
• reduce the burden on the public purse
• protect enforcers from being prosecuted in civil cases
• protect the rights of those individuals who may be impacted by enforcement measures taken

CTSI’s Lead Officer for Animal Health and Welfare, Stephanie Young, explained one of the ways the amendments would reduce the number of animals at risk and reduce the burden on the public purse.

She said: “At the moment, there is no provision for voluntary surrender of animals in the Animal Welfare Act 2006.  If animals are taken into possession because they are suffering or likely to suffer, we can’t stop people having more animals unless they are convicted by a court which - if a matter is contested - can take two or three years. Meanwhile animals could continue to suffer. We want disqualification to be made a pre-conviction approach, not post-conviction.”

CTSI has been working hard behind the scenes, with the expertise of Steph Young (CTSI Lead Officer for Animal Welfare), to lobby Parliamentarians and other animal welfare stakeholders.

• CTSI has written to Therese Coffey MP, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, asking for consideration to be given to the inclusion of minor amendments to Clause 48 to further protect animal welfare. Following recent Government changes we have requested an opportunity to meet with officials from the Defra animal welfare policy team to discuss these proposed amendments
• We have established a positive relationship with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare to discuss proposed amendments
• CTSI will also be meeting with stakeholders including the RSPCA to raises some of the issues in relation to the Bill.