7. Debate on the Petition calling on the Welsh Government to ban the use of Wild Animals in Circuses in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:56 pm on 7 March 2018.

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Photo of Lesley Griffiths Lesley Griffiths Labour 5:56, 7 March 2018

Okay. So, this work is ongoing and has been ongoing since the winter of December 2016, and probably before that as well, before I came into post, but it's absolutely going on at the moment. The timetable is—obviously, we will be looking towards year 3 of the legislative programme, so that's my aim now. But the section 12 is also—. And I was very grateful to Simon Thomas for the commitment of Plaid Cymru to support it, if that's the way we can do it. So, the timescale is current and I would hope to be able to bring forward a statement probably by the summer as to whether we would be in legislative programme year number 3, or earlier if we can look at whether we can use section 12.

I want to go back to the mobile animal exhibits, because we know there are not that many wild animals in circuses—I think it's about 19—but we don't know the number of mobile animal exhibits that we have in Wales. We all know of schools that are visited by them, so I thought it was very important that we developed the licensing of the mobile animal exhibits, and as I say, we have other parts of the UK now looking at our approach. I think the approaches taken by all the different parts of the UK need to be compatible also, so again, officals are working very closely with officals in Scotland, Northern Ireland and DEFRA to ensure that the development of our licensing scheme is not done in isolation.