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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to bring forward legislative proposals to maintain animal welfare after the end of the transition period.

This Government is committed to high standards of animal welfare. We are working to deliver a number of manifesto commitments that will strengthen our position as a world leader in this field at the end of the Transition Period.

We have committed to introduce tougher sentences for animal cruelty. To deliver this, we are currently supporting the passage of a Private Member’s Bill, the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill, which increases the maximum custodial penalty for the worst animal cruelty offences from six months or an unlimited fine to five years or an unlimited fine.

We will take advantage of our departure from the EU to deliver our manifesto commitment to end excessively long journeys for slaughter and fattening of livestock. We have previously run a call for evidence on the topic and will launch a full consultation before the end of the year.

We are continuing to work on delivering our other manifesto commitments, including developing new laws on animal sentience and cracking down on the illegal smuggling of dogs and puppies. We will also be consulting in the near future on our commitments to ban pet primates, introduce mandatory cat microchipping and implement the Ivory Act. We have also committed to ban imports from trophy hunting of endangered animals. We ran a call for evidence and consultation on this issue and the Government will be publishing our response to this as soon as we are able to do so.

In addition to supporting the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill, we are considering the best legislative vehicle to bring forward these reforms in the near future.