4. What discussions has the Counsel General held regarding the Welsh Government's ability to use section 12 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to introduce a ban on wild animals in circuses? OAQ51903

We listened to the debate on the petition that was held last week, and there were almost 6,500 signatories to that petition. Welsh Government is committed to exploring opportunities to bring forward legislation to ban the use of wild animals in circuses in Wales.

Thank you for that response, which doesn't really help in assisting us to understand what the Welsh Government intends to do. Clearly, this section could be used, as it gives Ministers very broad powers to intervene in cases of animal welfare. It is clear too that we could use primary legislation in this place—a Bill and an Act going through this place. Now, in the past, you as counsel general and your predecessor counsels general have generally favoured Bills, because they do give an opportunity to provide some context and to tidy up some other aspects of the law too. But, it's clear that the Assembly wishes to see urgent action in this area. Plaid Cymru is of the view that it would be appropriate to use section 12 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and I would want to know where Government thinking is now on using this section because there is so much other legislation in the pipeline emerging from Brexit and other issues. Isn't now the time for you to give the appropriate legal advice to enable Lesley Griffiths to proceed on this issue?

Well, with section 12 of the 2006 Act, what is important is that strong evidence supports the argument for animal welfare. The UK Government has been clear that there isn't a sufficiently robust basis for that, and more than one report has demonstrated that. The Welsh Government commissioned a report that demonstrated that there was evidence to support that to some extent, but the risk within the welfare analysis is that it won't be adequate to withstand any legal challenge in the courts. There has been discussion, as the Cabinet Secretary alluded to in a recent debate. There has been discussion with the UK Government on a joint Bill, so that we could actually tackle that challenge that jointly, but that will take time. Consideration has been given to a specific Act to deal with this, and the powers that will come to us under the new settlement are broader, of course, and won't restrict us just to looking at animal welfare specifically. I listened to the comments of both the Members and the Cabinet Secretary in that debate, and I cannot discuss legal advice here, but I understand the strength of people's standpoints in this context.

Can we just be clear, does section 12 give you the ability to ban wild animals in circuses or not? 

Well, I'll just refer the Member to the discussion I've just had about that, which is about the availability of evidence supporting that. There is a question around that and as I've said, I'm not going to discuss legal advice that I'm giving on this particular point, but I've heard the discussion in the debate and the comments of the Cabinet Secretary in relation to that.