Animal Welfare Bill
Monday, October 17, 2005
ILPH welcomes publication of Animal Welfare Bill
The International League for the Protection of Horses (ILPH) has welcomed the publication by Defra of the Animal Welfare Bill.
Chief Executive John Smales commented: “The fact that organisations such as ourselves can now take action to prevent a horse from suffering rather than having to wait until it has actually suffered is one of the biggest steps forward in animal welfare in a long, long time. We also welcome the news that the penalties for animal abusers are to increase significantly. We hope this will have a major deterrent effect.”
“Any legislation is useless if it is not enforced and we believe that a system involving government trained inspectors and enforcers is essential. We will be studying the detail with care to see how the issue of enforcement is being dealt with. We were concerned that an inadequate system of registration for livery yards might be introduced as part of this Bill. However we understand that Defra will be introducing secondary legislation that will require the actual licensing of livery yards. We welcome this and hope the legislation will be sufficiently strong and require regular inspections when it appears.”
