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Animal Welfare Bill

Can the Minister, in adding to the list, consider the position of alpacas and llamas? At the moment, they are outside being considered as farmed animals, although there are a lot of alpacas in our country. I know that when the foot and mouth outbreak occurred, there was great concern because people did not know where the alpacas and llamas were—particularly the alpacas. I think that it was a Mr O’Connor who contacted me at the time with the concern, which I passed on to the Minister’s predecessor, that there were lots of alpacas around that could well be carrying disease but there was no registration or knowledge of where they were. That is not relevant to this clause but it gives me a chance to raise the matter. Certainly, with regard to disease and disease control in the long term, the issue of alpacas and llamas should be taken into account, which I do not think is currently the case.