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Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Answer

Mr. Dismore: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on progress with consultation on the draft Animal Welfare Bill. [199492] Mr. Bradshaw: The initial stage of the Animal Welfare Bill review involved a public consultation which ran between January and April 2002 to which Defra received some 2,500 replies. A copy of the analysis of the consultation can be found on the Defra website, www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/welfare. Between October 2002 and January 2003 Defra officials organised some 19 stakeholder meetings at which approximately a hundred interest groups were represented. Since the stakeholder meetings, officials have organised working groups made up of a range of interested parties which have helped to inform our work on proposed secondary legislation under the Animal Welfare Bill. The work of these groups on secondary legislation will continue should the Bill be enacted and draft secondary legislation will be subject to public consultation in the normal way. In addition to public consultation carried out by my Department, between July and October 2004 the House of Commons' Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Committee conducted pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill and this included inviting interested parties to provide written and oral evidence on the draft legislation. EFRA hope to publish their report on the draft Bill shortly. All told, about four hundred organisations have been consulted on the draft Bill. A Bill will be introduced when Parliamentary time is available.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

199492; 428 c795-6W

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Animal welfare Public participation

Legislation

Draft Animal Welfare Bill

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk