Thank you for your email on the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill which I am pleased to be able to inform you completed all its parliamentary stages on 14th March and should now become law. 

The UK has consistently led the way on animal welfare. For example, the UK pushed for a recognition of animal sentience to be included in Article 13 of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 and, in addition, recognised in law that animals can feel pain and suffering through the Animal Welfare Act. 

Now that the UK has left the EU, this country has the opportunity to go further by making sure that all Government departments consider animal sentience in policy, covering all vertebrate animals from farm to forest. This Bill, enshrines in domestic law the recognition that animals are sentient. 

This Bill will create an expert Animal Sentience Committee to review the efficacy of policy decisions in regard to animal welfare. The relevant minister must then respond to reports via statements to Parliament. Ministers would need to demonstrate that the needs of animals have been considered in relevant policy decisions. This reform covers England and policy areas that affect the whole of the UK. 

These reforms also underpin the Government’s Action Plan for Animal Welfare, which contains upwards of forty valuable reforms. I know that this Government is committed to maintaining the very highest standards of animal welfare. 

The increasing scientific knowledge of how and when animals feel pain is continuing to emerge and that is why decapod crustaceans, such as the crab and lobster, and cephalopod molluscs, such the squid and octopus were included in the Bill. 

Nobody wants to see any unnecessary to animals, particularly to farm animals and pets. The wide ranging nature of the Committee which was set up under this Bill to look into these matters and make recommendations to the Government will be able to look into problems as they emerge.