Animal Welfare Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene; I have two reasons for doing so. First, she has repeated what she said before my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) intervened on her, which is that her new clause would give the Secretary of State power to designate those animals that may not be kept in circuses. In fact, it would do the opposite. It assumes that no animal may be kept in a circus, unless the Secretary of State designates it. That is an important distinction, which I hope the hon. Lady will not glide over, because her new clause would ban the keeping of poodles in a circus.