Animal Welfare Bill

This seems to clarify the issues of devolution. Will the Minister tell us what effort the devolved Administrations are putting into drawing up their own welfare codes, and whether their codes will simply be improved versions of our own? Of course they might run things differently—that is the nature of devolution—but on issues such as circus animals, for example, it would be strange if an animal could be kept and allowed to perform in one part of the UK but not in another. Obviously, we hope that the codes will be based on science rather than on local sentiment. If the Welsh Assembly draws up a better welfare code than ours in England, I hope that we will be nimble enough to ensure that we reap the benefits, just as the Assembly will have done from the initial work that DEFRA is putting in.