I think Darren thought he was having to get up and make a speech then. [Laughter.] Thank you, Presiding Officer—it's my pleasure to move the amendment that the Conservatives have put down to today's debate by UKIP, and I thank UKIP for bringing the debate on animal welfare here to the Chamber this afternoon. As I said in yesterday's statement, one of the things that fills most Members' postbags, and, indeed, Government postbags, I would assume, is issues around animal welfare and the concern that the public here in Wales have both for farm animals and for domestic animals as well. What I do think is important to understand, and the leader of UKIP touched on this—our deletion of part of his motion—is that, actually, in the farmed livestock sector it is important to look at the UK frameworks as well, on the basis that a lot of Welsh livestock, for better or for worse, ends up going over into England for processing. You can't isolate Wales on its own, albeit we can use the powers that are available to us to make significant advancements in improvements here.

It was a pleasure to make sure that our manifesto in 2016 actually included mandatory closed-circuit television facilitation across all Welsh abattoirs, and I know that the Government, to their credit, in fairness, are making progress on this particular issue. But what's really important is that access to funding for small and medium-sized abattoirs is secured, because the pressures in that particular sector have seen a huge demise of abattoir availability here in Wales, which, in effect, then knocks miles onto the journey time that stock have to go on to be processed, because, obviously, that local abattoir has had to shut because of cost pressure. So, it is vitally important that the Government do work with the sector to make sure that this mandatory adoption of CCTV in abattoirs is achieved, and that the financial systems, either through the rural development plan or another form of support, is made available to those operators. 

The situation we find in the farmed environment at the moment is radically different from where we were 20 years ago, without a shadow of a doubt, when it comes to animal welfare. We have a consumer who is far better informed today over purchasing the product off the shelf that they wish to consume and, very often through their tastes and demands, drive improvements in welfare at the farm gate. We've seen a plethora of farm assurance schemes come forward in the livestock sector to give that assurance to the consumer when they're making that informed choice—the red tractor logo being one of the schemes, RSPCA Assured livestock, with their welfare badging, is another one, and I could go on because there are many. In fact, one of the issues, I would suggest, is maybe there are too many assurance schemes out there, and if they could be brought together either under one or two labels, that would assist informing the consumer of what they're actually purchasing. 

That leads into labelling, which I do think is an important area for improvement to come forward. I raised in the statement yesterday the example of chicken being purchased here in Wales. On the front of the packaging it said 'British poultry', when you turned it over, it was 'produce of Thailand'. Now, if someone wants to purchase produce of Thailand, that's their prerogative, but when you're looking at the shelf and the front message is telling you that it is domestically produced poultry, that is misleading the consumer, without a shadow of a doubt, and yet the retailer in this particular instance does seem to have got away with it.

So, we do need to work on multiple fronts to make the improvements we want to see—from labelling to improvements in infrastructure and above all, I would suggest, as I said in the statement yesterday, around education in particular. The amendment that we've put down includes the Lucy's law proposal, which I think is vital for us to actually try and progress here in Wales when it comes to domestic pets, in particular—dogs, puppies and kittens—because this is an area of huge concern to the general public, and puppy farming, in particular, regrettably has a foothold in west Wales, in particular, as numerous examples have proven. We have the ability here through the legislative powers that we have and the regulations we can make to actually, once and for all, stamp this process out that leads to such dreadful welfare consequences to puppies and, in particular, kittens here in Wales and beyond, obviously, because those animals are transported great distances to the ultimate market that people are trying to sell those puppies and kittens to.

I'd also like to ask the Minister if she could, in her response, touch on the point about that it's all well and good us talking within this Chamber about regulation and legislation, but what's important to understand is: do the regulatory bodies here in Wales have the ability and the resource to actually enact the legislation and the regulations we've put forward? Very often, trading standards departments are one of the departments that have been hollowed out in local government, and they have a huge pressure and a huge agenda to deal with. And what is vital to understand is that if we are to bring forward proposals such as Lucy's law, such as improvement in transport regulations for farmed animals and improvements in abattoirs, there is the capacity in the regulatory bodies to actually supervise and make sure that the protections that we aspire to put in place, that are rightly demanded of us by our voters, can be policed out there in the industry and in the pet sector.

So, that's why I call on the Chamber to support the amendment that the Conservatives have put down this afternoon, because it doesn't look at Wales just in isolation, it looks across the UK as a whole, and seeks to make substantial improvements not just in farmed livestock, but in the pet environment as well, which is a critical area of concern for constituents.