3. Statement by the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs: The Wild Animals and Circuses (Wales) Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:05 pm on 9 July 2019.

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Photo of Llyr Gruffydd Llyr Gruffydd Plaid Cymru 3:05, 9 July 2019

You mentioned loopholes earlier, and one obvious loophole that's been flagged up is that travelling circuses might be rebranded as some sort of mobile animal exhibition and I'm sure you're aware of that and I'd like to hear from you that you are addressing those issues through your proposed licensing scheme. The other thing I'd like to know, of course, is when do you anticipate a licensing scheme being enacted because not only am I agitating for this legislation to be implemented sooner, I would like to make sure that that licensing scheme is introduced as early as is possible as well.

You've already touched on this, really. I mean, there have been calls, of course, to ban all performing animals, and I'm certainly yet to be persuaded on that, but you do say in your statement that animals are sentient beings. So, I'm just interested in why you are differentiating between wild animals and other animals and whether this legislation is an opportunity, maybe, to broaden that proposal.

And, finally, of course, you note, I think it was in the explanatory memorandum that was published with the Bill, that nearly two thirds of responses to a previous consultation came from an online campaign. I've raised this in other contexts previously and I'd like to ask you whether you'd be willing to publish how many—not information about individual responses, but what percentage of all responses to the previous consultation were actually from Wales because I think that is an important consideration for us across all consultation. And whilst in some circumstances there will be very valid reasons for taking on board consultation responses from other countries, I'd like to understand what weighting in this particular context the Welsh Government is giving to those responses from outside of Wales. And, I think, as a matter of course and a matter of process, I think the Welsh Government should be making these statistics available. It shouldn't be an onerous task because I presume there is a database somewhere because you correspond back with those who have presented responses to consultations. So, it shouldn't be too onerous a task.