Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 3
First Report - Moving animals across borders
Published 30 Sep 2021
Paragraph 13
Addressed to Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Moving animals across borders All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Bill should maintain the flexibility to allow ministers to adapt to future science and intelligence, but Defra should include a ban on animals younger than six months, heavily pregnant animals, and animals which have been subject to poor welfare practices on the face of the Bill, rather than secondary legislation. It should include a clear definition of ‘heavily pregnant’. Putting these prohibitions in primary legislation would be a serious and sincere statement about the value the Government attaches to animal welfare.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, First Report - Moving animals across borders (HC 79), paragraph 13, 30 September 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 16 December 2021 (deadline 30 November 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government says it "shares many of the Committee's key concerns" and sets out its approach to pet smuggling, equine identification, livestock movements and biosecurity, agreeing with some recommendations and declining or qualifying others.
- On putting pet import bans in primary legislation, it says the Bill includes a power to restrict imports "via secondary legislation", and it is "working at pace" to deliver that legislation alongside the Bill.
- On moving pet checks from carriers to a Government agency, it says it has "no plans to change the current compliance checking arrangements" but will keep compliance and enforcement "under review".
- It plans a public consultation on equine identification, including further digitisation, "early in the new year". It says it will explore flexibility on 'high health status' horses but notes the Commission has been clear that third country rules apply.
- It "does not accept" that the ban on exports for slaughter will create longer journeys, and it will report back to the Committee within 12 months of implementation of livestock residency and identification requirements.