8. Will the Minister make a statement on the welfare of pets? OAQ53236

Thank you. I updated Plenary on my plans to improve companion animal welfare in my oral statements in June and November last year. I'm committed to exploring options related to banning third-party sale of puppies and kittens and the consultation for this will be launched on 22 February.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. Earlier this month, I was delighted to take Andrew R.T. Davies in his capacity as your shadow to one of my favourite places in my constituency, and, at our meeting at the Bridgend Cats Protection adoption centre, the issue of landlords and residential homes not accepting pets came up again. Now, obviously, you know that that's a real well-being issue, particularly for older people, and also for animals themselves. Last summer, you told me that this was an important issue, something that Welsh Government do need to look at, and that you would make sure you'd start to have conversations about this. It's six months on now, and I wonder if you're in a position to update us on those conversations. 

I did have an initial conversation with officials around it. You'll appreciate I haven't got the powers to make sure that happens and, certainly, there are care homes that do allow it, but there are equally care homes that don't allow it. So, I haven't taken it any further forward, but I absolutely agree, and, certainly, having just become—well, my daughter, not me—the owner of a puppy that we took into a care home to see a relative at Christmas, you can see the pleasure that such things bring to people, but, as you say, when somebody moves into a residential or nursing home and they do have a pet, that can obviously cause significant problems. But perhaps you'd like to invite me to the Bridgend Cats Protection league as well.

In July last year, you said that you weren't minded to follow through with the concept of an animal abuse register for Wales. I'm taking it hard, but there we go, I'll try and move on. But, in that statement, you said that you would look at alternative measures—the RSPCA led that taskforce—you said things in relation to better information sharing between law enforcement, health professionals and animal shelters and organisations. So, could you give me an update on what you're doing from that piece of work?

In other correspondence or oral questions, you seem to be sympathetic to ideas to look at policies in relation to if somebody abuses an animal that they may then transgress by abusing humans. I've not seen as much progress from you as your sentiments indicate in this Chamber, so I'm trying to understand what you're doing on that as well, because we can be stopping perpetrators of domestic abuse if we get them at that early stage. 

Two things come to mind straight away. I did have a discussion around this with police officers who are members of the rural crime team up in north Wales. I spent a couple of days with them last year, and this was an area that we discussed and wondered if there was anything further we could do. You will be aware of the work that the RSPCA led on for me, and I do absolutely understand your passion for this. I've also had a discussion and a couple of presentations that the chief veterinary officer arranged for me around what we can do. Certainly, there's a level of work that's done now with vets when they're training to identify, if an animal is brought to them and they're concerned about how that animal was injured, there are questions to be asked and perhaps places they can signpost themselves to for further information. I do think, within the veterinary profession themselves, they are taking this work forward also.

Thank you, Minister.