Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 9 October 2019.
Thank you for that indicative timeline, and I look forward to receiving the letter, Minister. One thing that is crystal clear is, sadly, enforcement agencies—and I talk of local authorities here—have been hollowed out over many years, especially in trading standards departments, and whilst we might wish to put regulation in place and laws in place to stamp out this practice, unless they're enforced on the ground, they will be meaningless. In the meeting that the chief veterinary officer will be having with local authorities that you indicated in your first response to me, will the capacity issue be addressed? And will there be an overall assessment of what local authorities can achieve, because I've had it highlighted to me where there is good practice in certain local authorities, and in other local authorities there is no practice at all? And surely what we need is a unified approach so we can get the gold standard across the 22 local authorities that we have here in Wales. So, can you confirm that that will be on the agenda when the chief veterinary officer meets local authority representatives and, above all, the Welsh Government will undertake a piece of work to understand what is required on the enforcement side to make sure that these enforcement rules can be implemented in local authority areas?