Clause 11 - Licensing or registration of activities involving animals
Animal Welfare Bill
10:30 am
Ben Bradshaw (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Exeter, Labour)
Many of us would like to see all the codes of conduct and the secondary regulation initiated as soon as possible, but that is clearly not feasible. There is a capacity issue here. I suspect that, later this morning, we shall debate the codes of conduct and under which parliamentary procedure they should be dealt with, and there will be choices about how onerous or easy a system we want. There is always a trade-off between speed and scrutiny.
One reason why the code of conduct for greyhounds is not in the first tranche is that we want time to see whether the good work that is taking place on a voluntary basis in the industry—the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) referred to it—actually works. We have always said that, if it does not, we would not rule out the need for proper regulation and licensing in the future.