Written evidence submitted by Battersea Dogs and Cats Home (AWB0020)

Battersea’s response to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee inquiry on the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill

About Battersea Dogs & Cats Home

Established in 1860 to care for abandoned animals, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home aims to never turn away a dog or cat in need of help. We reunite lost dogs and cats with their owners; when we cannot do this, we tend to their medical needs and care for them until new owners can be found. We accept any breed of dog or cat, at any age, including those with serious medical and behavioural problems. Our expert team of dog and cat care professionals and veterinary staff give the animals in our care the best possible chance of a fresh start in a happy new home in the UK, or even further afield. There is no time limit on how long an animal can stay with us until the perfect new owners are found.

Battersea’s non-selective intake policy means that we often see dogs and cats come to us that have been through the worst kind of cruelty and mistreatment. We see animals that have been abandoned, brought into this country illegally, denied essential medical treatment, physically abused, starved, overused for breeding, and even used in dog fighting. We campaign to address the animal welfare issues we face in our work.

Key statistics

• Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020 we helped over 3,000 dogs and cats across three centres: 1,796 dogs and 1,653 cats. Intake was lower than usual in 2020 due to the pandemic. By comparison, in 2019, we helped over 5,000 dogs and cats at our centres including 3,213 dogs and 2,476 cats.
• Battersea received 212 dogs and 130 cats from other animal rescues across the UK in 2020, equivalent to 11% of total intake.
• Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, we had an average of 247 dogs and 120 cats at any one time on site or foster.
• Battersea's Lost Dogs & Cats Line received 1,902 calls about lost dogs and cats, and 1,821 calls about stray animals that had been found last year. We helped reunite 345 dogs and cats with their owners.
• The Battersea Grants programme which began in November 2018 has to date indirectly helped 43,100 animals worldwide.

Executive Summary

• Battersea welcomes the Bill which will acknowledge vertebrate animals as sentient beings in law.
• The Bill allows for the creation of a dedicated Committee to scrutinise Government policy. However, in the wording of the Bill there is little information on the membership, independence, resourcing, powers, and accountability of this Committee. In short, the detail is insufficient to know whether the Committee will be able to deliver its intended outcomes.
• The Bill appears to place the duty for considering the impact of Government policy on the new Committee, with no direct legal duty on Ministers to consider the welfare of sentient animals. However, it is not clear how binding on Ministers its findings will be.
• The Better Deal for Animals Group, of which Battersea is a member, propose that the Bill includes a new Clause requiring the Government to create an Animal Sentience Strategy.

1. Will the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill ensure that animal sentience is properly taken into account in both new and existing Government policy in England?

Battersea welcomes the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill (the Bill). It is an important piece of draft legislation that, if worded correctly, will acknowledge vertebrate animals as sentient in law. It is imperative that animals are recognised as sentient beings, with the capacity for both suffering and joy, and that their health and welfare needs should be reflected when planning legislation or Government policy. Every area of human life impacts on the natural world and the animals within it, so this duty of care should extend to all Government policy areas - not just central Government Departments.

The Bill as it is currently drafted has an all-encompassing scope. All UK Government legislation and policy will be within the remit of this Bill, meaning that animal welfare should be a consideration in the creation and use of policy across Government. This Bill specifically focuses on three major themes:

• Creating an Animal Sentience Committee (ASC)
• Recognising that vertebrate animals are sentient beings
• Requiring cabinet members (Ministers) to respond to ASC reports in Parliament.

All three themes are welcome; however, the Bill is lacking detail, particularly on the creation, membership, powers, and accountability of the ASC (See question 2). The wording could be improved to ensure animal sentience is paid all due regard by Ministers, as in the current wording there appears to be no legal duty on Ministers to consider the welfare of sentient animals directly.

The current wording of the Bill, under Clause 2 (2), requires the ASC to report on whether the “government is having, or has had, all due regard to the ways in which the policy might have an adverse effect on the welfare of animals as sentient beings.”[1] As such, the vast majority of responsibility for the Bill and for ensuring animal sentience is given due regard appears to be deferred from Government Ministers to the ASC, making the ASC accountable instead of Ministers and individual Government departments. However, the ASC does not set policy and so its relationship with Government is confusing.

This Bill replaces the provisions and the duty within Article 13 of the Lisbon Treaty,[2] no longer binding on the UK, recognising animals as sentient beings and requiring EU member states to “pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals”. This placed a duty on the UK Government directly to pay full regard to animal sentience over several policy areas. As previously stated, this differs from the Bill where this duty is deferred to the ASC. The ASC, however, does not have the same direct power as the Government to affect policy change, rather it is to scrutinise and make recommendations to Government. This raises the question of accountability and how Government decisions can be legally challenged, particularly in potential cases where the Government may not accept the ASC’s recommendations, or for Government policy that has an adverse effect on animal welfare.

To deal with this potential deficiency of Government accountability in the Bill, the Better Deal for Animals group,[3] of which Battersea is a member, are proposing the Bill includes a new Clause requiring the Government to create an Animal Sentience Strategy. This cross-Government strategy would set out how the Government plans to legally have all due regard to animal sentience, through the use of animal welfare impact assessments and independent research.

This Clause also focuses solely on the “adverse effect on animal welfare”. This wording does not account for the fact that sentient beings are capable of both negative and positive sensations and therefore does not provide the ASC with the opportunity to advise on areas where policy could be improved to benefit animal welfare. Clause 2 (2) should be amended to allow for both adverse and beneficial effects to be fully considered by the ASC.

2. Are there sufficient safeguards to ensure that the proposed Animal Sentience Committee will be (a) independent (b) have the necessary expertise and (c) have the necessary powers to be effective?

The creation of the ASC through Clause 1 is a welcome step to provide expertise to scrutinise Government policy. However, as currently drafted there is little detail on the ASC’s membership, independence, resourcing, powers, and accountability. To ensure the ASC is effective, clarity would be required within the Bill on these aspects.

Battersea recommends the following:

• To ensure the ASC has sufficient safeguards, the Bill should be amended to include

defined requirements for the membership of the Committee, including numbers, independence from Government, and the required expertise.

• For the ASC to be accountable and provide trusted scrutiny of Government, it should be fully independent. This is currently not covered by the Bill. This would include the establishment of an expert Chair, and a dedicated Secretariat.
• To ensure the ASC is able to fulfil the duties set out in the Bill, provisions should be made to ensure it is sufficiently resourced.
• In scrutinising a wide range of policy, the current discretionary duty created by the Bill should be amended so that there is a clear duty on ASC to scrutinise all policy. Given the breath of policy the ASC will have to scrutinise it should also have the power to call expert witnesses and review documented evidence to aid them in delivering evidence-based recommendations to Government.
• It is currently unclear how the ASC will be accountable in its work and recommendations. A way in which this could be achieved is by adding a requirement for the ASC to provide an annual report to Parliament on its work.

3. Are the proposed requirements on the Government to respond to an Animal Sentience Committee’s report sufficient?

The Bill as currently drafted requires relevant Ministers to lay a response to the ASC report before Parliament within three months of the report being published. This implies that Parliament will have oversight of the relevant Minister’s decisions and potential policy changes based on the ASC’s report. However, the Bill does not specifically state what process Parliament can use to scrutinise the Minister’s response, and what action the Minister may have to take as a response to Parliamentary scrutiny.

The Bill does not provide the ASC the facility or option of directly responding to a Minister’s response on their report. Such a mechanism would provide the ASC with the opportunity to ensure animal sentience is fully considered. It is not clear, therefore, what regard the Ministers have to give to the recommendations of the ASC reports and what oversight there is apart from laying the response before Parliament. Further detail within the Bill is recommended on the scrutiny process to ensure the reports of the ASC are fully considered and, where applicable, animal welfare is prioritised in Government policy.

In short, we would like to know whether the ASC can change Government policy if it finds it runs contrary to animal sentience.

4. How does the proposed Animal Sentience Committee compare to similar bodies, such as the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission?

The ASC is unique in terms of expert bodies that provide information to governments. The ASC is designed to specifically to scrutinise existing and developing policy across multiple Government Departments, as to whether they are “having, or has had, all due regard to the ways in which the policy might have an adverse effect on the welfare of animals as sentient beings.”

This appears to subtly differ from existing expert advice groups such as the Animal Welfare Committee[4] and the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission,[5] which have much wider remits to provide expert evidence to governments on policy that affects all animal welfare, rather than a specific focus on sentience. They are also designed to work directly with governments to provide expert advice in the development of animal welfare policy.

This subtle distinction between existing expert advice bodies and the ASC, which is designed to scrutinise policy rather than provide expert advice in the development of or review of policy, is an important one. This shift of focus from advice body to scrutiny body requires the ASC to be independent so that recommendations are seen as fully impartial.

5. Is the Government correct to limit the scope of the Bill to vertebrate animals?

Battersea, as a dog and cat welfare organisation, does not take a view on this question.

July 2021

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