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Animal Welfare Bill

I support the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, in her amendment. However, there is yet another group of animals being left out: farm animals kept in domestic premises. I remember a lady coming to try to buy a lamb from us because she wanted to take it for walks and keep it in her sitting room. We refused to let her have it, for obvious reasons. Lambs are meant to be out in the fields and, eventually, to be eaten or breed. We have a neighbour who keeps sheep, with between 14 and 24 rams in a field of three and a half acres. He neglects them, and has been fined for not looking after his animals properly. Every year, we have to get them out when they get fly-blown and, in the winter, when they are not fed. They are full-blown rams and, in the autumn when they ought to be with ewes, he gets away with not looking after them properly because he says that they are pets. I know that the RSPCA and the trading standards people get incredibly frustrated by this behaviour. People keep pigs in houses as well. Pigs are not meant to be in houses; they are meant to be rooting about outside. We need to make that distinction as well.