Recommendation 8

The Department provided £30 million of funding to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), with £7 million allocated to the Zoo Support Fund.27 We asked the Department why the allocation to DEFRA to support zoos came from funding designed to support charities helping the vulnerable during the pandemic. We remarked that this seemed at odds with the fact that many zoos operate as businesses rather than charities. The Department explained that the design was the result of officials being “extremely concerned about the welfare of animals in zoos and what was going to happen as a result of zoos being closed during the period.”28 We asked whether this was an appropriate mechanism to support zoos, considering that a fund to support zoos was already in place through DEFRA. The Department stated that “Ministers took a view that they wanted to allocate funds to zoos” but was not able to provide any further detail.29