Animal Welfare Bill

I am grateful to the noble Duke for his points. Now that he has caught up with it, I hope all noble Lords have now seen the draft of the Mutilations (Accepted Procedures) (England) Regulations. As set out, certain methods of identifying animals are considered mutilations, and we propose to exempt them from the mutilations ban. If any of these procedures are considered controversial, the debate can be had later in some detail, as the noble Baroness admits. The regulations will have a full 12-week consultation after Royal Assent has been given to the Bill. I appreciate the point made about ear-tagging. The double-tagging process came in during my previous incarnation at MAFF. There is a European Council regulation, but I will not bother to read it out. Cattle, sheep and goats must be identified in a manner which can be read and, as the noble Duke said, that is very difficult with a tattoo. I fully accept that. The old metal tag was less prone to snagging in fences than the plastic tag—I have never heard a farmer complain about snagging with a metal tag—but, of course, they were not readable. The plastic tags are readable but are prone to snagging. The noble Duke said that this was a probing amendment, and I hope he has probed sufficiently to know that there that there will be extensive debates on this issue when we deal with the draft regulations, but that will be after Royal Assent. I am very glad that the commitment given at Second Reading was fulfilled before I turned up.