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Animal Welfare Bill

I strongly support this amendment. I will be brief. Due to the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, greyhound welfare has improved enormously, which was not the case some years ago. When the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, was chairman of, I think, the British Greyhound Racing Board, he asked me to set up a veterinary advisory committee to do what we were doing for the racing industry; namely, the Veterinary Advisory Committee of the Horserace Betting Levy Board. Unfortunately, that never came off. There was a whole series of issues that could have been taken up, but the governing body of the British Greyhound Racing Board was not in agreement with that. I am delighted to see that things have moved on greatly in those intervening years. Without going into great detail, I would suspect that there are still quite a number of issues that need to be attended to which affect the welfare of greyhounds when they are racing, such as the maintenance and structure of tracks. More particularly, while the majority of retired greyhounds are well looked after, there are cases of appalling treatment of greyhounds and they are discarded like unwanted goods. Without more ado, I strongly support the clause proposed by the noble Baroness.