There is no doubt in my mind that banning wild animals from travelling circuses is the right thing to do. It was certainly part of the Plaid Cymru manifesto in the last election. The exploitation of wild animals for that end is unacceptable. Of course, we know that the attitudes of society have changed. A number of pieces of research and opinion polls show that. We know that 45 nations across the world have introduced a ban or restrictions to that end.

It is disappointing, and I echo previous comments, that the Government has taken so long to get to this point. Mention was made that we are behind the curve. Well, we were ahead of the curve, as the first part of the UK that was eager to legislate in this area. But, as it happens, we will now be the final nation nation in the UK to succeed in doing so. And, of course, as we've already heard, there was suggestion from the Chair that the Bill almost didn't receive consent in the environment committee to accept the general principles underpinning the Bill at Stage 1. It was only by a hair's breadth that the committee agreed to do that.

I voted in favour of allowing the Bill to proceed and I will do so again today, despite the fact that the Minister had made very heavy work of justifying why the Government has used ethical grounds for legislating in this area. Again, as we heard from the Chair, if it's unethical to allow wild animals to perform in travelling circuses, well is it therefore unethical for them to perform in other circumstances? Why only travelling circuses? Although there isn't a static circus in Wales, there's nothing to say that there won't be in the future.

The Government says that animals displayed for the purpose of entertainment in locations other than circuses will be regulated, and that's a good thing. But not on ethical grounds—it's on animal welfare grounds. The Minister failed to explain the rationale why one group of animals is protected on ethical grounds and another on animal welfare grounds—indeed, the same animals in different contexts in certain cases. But there we are. One witness told us that ethics have to be universal or they fail to be ethics. That's a suggestion of the quandary that certain committee members found themselves in.

But, having said that, we do have a Bill before us. It is very narrow in its focus, which will impact 19 animals—not 19 species, but 19 animals only. But I do think that we need to thank everyone who contributed to the evidence. We need to amend and improve the Bill, and the evidence that we've received was very strong from both sides and required a certain amount of balancing. And I want to pay tribute to everyone who has campaigned tirelessly for such legislation. I will refer specifically to one individual who is a constituent of mine and is here today, Linda Joyce-Jones, who has been in the vanguard in terms of this campaign and has campaigned tirelessly to achieve this objective. And I hope we will be a step further following this debate this afternoon. 

But we need to improve the Bill, as I've said, and that's become clear from the evidence that we've received. The Minister referred to this earlier: although wild animals won't be allowed to perform, they will still be allowed to tour with circuses. That isn't acceptable in my view. The touring and being kept in those conditions is as much part of the problem as the performance itself. And that is something that I would be eager to see the Government amending and correcting.

We need to strengthen the enforcement powers to include police powers, such as those that exist in Scotland. Now of course that would require consent from Westminster, but I do believe that we need to do that now whilst we are legislating on the issue, so that that power is in place should it be required in the future. We should also be able to ban offenders from keeping wild animals for particular periods in order to prevent reoffending. I would like to see the Government incorporating that into the Bill too. Now, the Government's intention is for this legislation to come into force on 1 December of this year. When the Bill was laid back in July and when we discussed the Bill last time in this Chamber, at that point I asked the Government whether it would be possible to bring it into force earlier. The Minister at the time said that she was very open to considering that and I would like to hear whether she is still of that view. Because I know on a practical level it might mean a great deal of work, but I would be eager to see a ban coming into force rather than us seeing another summer of wild animals travelling throughout Wales in these travelling circuses. So, let us implement this legislation urgently in order to prevent the use of wild animals in travelling circuses this year and not have to wait another year.