Animal Welfare Bill

The noble Baroness is quite right. As long ago as July 2004 the draft Animal Welfare Bill contained the specific offence of performing an operation on a protected animal,"““without due care and humanity””." The current Bill does not contain this offence as we have concluded that performing an operation without due care and humanity will necessarily cause an animal unnecessary suffering and can be prosecuted under the cruelty offence. Should there ever be any cases where unnecessary suffering is hard to prove, the welfare offence may instead have been breached. It is therefore unnecessary to have a separate specific offence of performing a cruel operation on the face of the Bill. Of course the Scottish Parliament is free to legislate as it wishes—that is what it is all about—but that is the legal advice we have received and the reason why such a clause is not in this Bill.