Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the impact of his Department's publication entitled Action Plan for Animal Welfare, published on 12 May 2021, on animal welfare in (a) Dewsbury, (b) West Yorkshire and (c) the UK.

The Government has an ambitious agenda for animal welfare and conservation reforms, which we continue to take forward during this Parliamentary session. We will continue to introduce and support legislative and non-legislative reforms where possible.

Since the publication of the Action Plan, we have delivered on key manifesto commitments: we have increased the penalties for those convicted of animal cruelty, passed the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 and launched the Animal Sentience Committee. We have made cat microchipping compulsory and have announced the extension of the Ivory Act (2018) to cover five endangered species. In addition, we have provided for penalty notices to apply to animal welfare offences, introduced new police powers to tackle hare coursing, and banned glue traps.

We are pleased to have introduced the Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Bill to deliver our manifesto commitment to end this trade. The Bill will ban the export of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and horses for slaughter and fattening from Great Britain, stopping unnecessary stress, exhaustion and injury caused by exporting live animals.

In December 2023, the Government laid the Animal Welfare (Primate Licences) (England) Regulations 2023 in Parliament and published the summary of responses to its 2023 consultation on Licensing of specialist private primate keepers in England.

Defra maintains a close working relationship with the zoo sector, and we will continue to build upon this to identify non-legislative improvements.  We aim to publish updated zoo standards early this year, which we have developed in collaboration with the sector and the Zoos Expert Committee, which raise standards and support enforcement.

Whilst no specific analysis has been undertaken for individual locations, policies regularly undergo evaluation or post implementation reviews to assess their effectiveness in meeting their animal welfare objectives.