The Bill's progress can be followed here - www.bills.parliament.uk/bills/2880
Launched by Government but not yet progressed through all stages needed to be passed as law.
The Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill will raise animal
welfare standards in five key areas:
1) Puppy smuggling: The Government will introduce new powers
to tackle the unethical trade of puppy smuggling by reducing the number of pets
(dogs, cats and ferrets) that can travel under pet travel rules. It will also
include powers for the Government to bring in further restrictions on the
movement of pets on welfare grounds, for example by increasing the minimum age
of imported puppies and restricting the import of pregnant dogs and dogs with
mutilations such as cropped ears and tails.
2) Live exports: Live animals can endure excessively long
journeys during export, causing distress and injury. EU rules prevented any
changes to these journeys, but the UK Government is now free to pursue plans
which would see a ban on the export of live animals for slaughter and
fattening. We will become the first European country to end this practice.
3)Banning keeping primates as pets: Primates are highly
intelligent animals with complex needs and require specialist care. The
Government will deliver on its manifesto commitment to introduce a ban on
keeping them as pets, ensuring that all primates being kept privately in
England are being kept at zoo-level standards and that those unable to meet the
standards are phased out.
4) Livestock worrying: The Bill will give new powers to the
police to provide greater protection to livestock from dangerous and out of
control dogs. The Bill will also extend this protection to other species such
as llamas, ostriches and game birds.
5) Zoos: The Zoo Licensing Act will be amended to improve
zoo regulations and ensure that zoos are doing more to contribute to
conservation.
Environment Secretary George Eustice said:
The Kept Animals Bill will bring in some of the world’s
highest and strongest protections for pets, livestock and kept wild animals.
As an independent nation outside the EU we are now able to
go further than ever on animal welfare by banning the export of live animal
exports for slaughter and fattening, prohibiting keeping primates as pets and
bringing in new powers to tackle puppy smuggling.
This builds on the launch of our Action Plan for Animal
Welfare and Animal Sentience Bill last month as part of our work to build on
our status as a world leader on animal welfare.
