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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of an inspector appointed under the Wild Animals in Circuses (No 2) Bill; and from which budget that cost will be met.

Currently only two circuses still use wild animal acts in Great Britain. Given any breach of the ban proposed in the Wild Animals in Circuses (No.2) Bill would involve a circus performing or exhibiting a wild animal in public, we do not believe many, if any, circuses will seek to contravene the ban. Therefore our estimate is that any cost to Defra of enforcing the ban will be negligible.