3.2 pm
Animal Welfare Bill
3:30 pm
Ben Bradshaw (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Exeter, Labour)
I urge my hon. Friend to leave some us flexibility to achieve what he and other members of the Committee want through a code of practice, which would be quicker than secondary legislation. As I emphasised earlier, that would be perfectly possible. In the end, it may be quicker to have a legally enforceable code of practice under the welfare offence. I beg him not to tie my hands too much because insisting on secondary legislation might take longer than a code of practice.