17 Jan 2022
Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee is seeking assurances from secretary of state George Eustice that new Animal Sentience Committee will have power to act on policies.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
Assurances are being sought from environment secretary George Eustice that a new welfare body will have the powers it needs to do a proper job.
Members of Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee want the Government’s proposed Animal Sentience Committee (ASC) to be able to ensure all necessary policies consider impact on sentient animals.
The move comes ahead of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill having its second reading in the House of Commons tomorrow (18 January), where MPs will get their first chance to debate the main principles of the bill.
Ahead of the debate, the EFRA Committee has written to Mr Eustice to set out its own views on the bill.
The bill passing would create an ASC that would publish reports about whether animal sentience is at the forefront when policies are developed, to which ministers would have to respond.
The bill’s new draft has been broadly welcomed by the EFRA Committee, which said a previous version in 2017 was vague and would have left Government policy open to judicial review.
Among other requests, the committee wants people with sufficient expertise in animal welfare and scientific knowledge on the ASC, and has suggested the 15 to 20 days allocated to it would not be enough to attract high-calibre candidates to the role.
It also wants the ASC to have sufficient independence to be able to publish reviews without requiring approval from the secretary of state or Government departments and have sufficient powers to gather information it needs.
Otherwise, members of the committee felt the ASC may become “another toothless Whitehall committee whose reports gather dust while critical issues of animal welfare within policymaking go largely unaddressed”.
