Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Official Report 691KB pdf

---

Subordinate Legislation

---

Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2021 [Draft]

At item 2, the committee will take evidence on the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2021. The regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure and I refer members to paper 2. I welcome Mairi Gougeon, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands, and her officials, John Nicolson, policy manager for the animal welfare team, and Grant McLarty, solicitor. I invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement.

Good morning. I am happy to appear before the committee today to discuss this amending instrument, which makes some minor amendments to the 2021 licensing regulations, which were approved by the Scottish Parliament in February and came into force on 1 September. As the amendments that are proposed are not contentious and they are monitored both in terms of their impact and their scope, I will keep my opening remarks brief. The amendments that are being considered today amend the conditions that are applicable to two out of the six licence types that are available under the 2021 licensing regulations, namely animal rehoming licences and animal welfare establishment licences. Other types of licence are unaffected.

The change that is specific to animal rehoming activities is the removal of the prohibition on the supply of kittens—that is, cats under six months old—as pets if they are not bred by the licence holder. That change will permit persons who hold a licence to engage in animal rehoming activities, including foster carers working with animal welfare charities, to rehome kittens. The need for the change was brought to the attention of the Scottish Government during discussions with Cats Protection on the development of detailed guidance for local authorities. Given the significant issues with the unlicensed puppy trade, we do not propose to remove the corresponding prohibition on the supply of puppies, which applies to holders of a licence to engage in animal rehoming activities, as to do so would, no doubt, encourage those involved in that trade to attempt to use animal rehoming as a cover for their unlicensed breeding and dealing activities.

Stakeholders also brought to our attention during discussions on the development of guidance for local authorities that there would be merit in mirroring certain safeguards that are included in the conditions applicable to rehoming activities in those that apply to animal welfare establishments. Accordingly, these amending regulations will prohibit holders of a licence to operate an animal welfare establishment from supplying unweaned mammals, mammals weaned at an age at which they should not have been weaned, non-mammals that are incapable of feeding themselves and puppies, kittens, ferrets and rabbits aged under eight weeks. Although it is very unlikely that a holder of an animal welfare establishment licence would supply such an animal, we have agreed that the inclusion of the additional conditions is appropriate and merited, as it further safeguards the welfare of particularly vulnerable animals.

I hope that the committee will agree that, although the changes that we seek to make to the 2021 regulations are relatively minor in nature, they are important because they remove a restriction that has the potential to impact on the rehoming activities of Cats Protection, given its routine use of foster homes as part of its rehoming activities. It also brings forward some additional protections for particularly vulnerable animals under the care of those operating animal welfare establishments.

I will be happy to take any questions that the committee may have.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. I am delighted that the first piece of legislation that the committee is dealing with is about kittens. As you say, though, it may be minor but it is nonetheless important for animal welfare. Do members have any questions?

Onekind and Cats Protection have raised the possibility that the amending regulations may enable rehoming to be used as a cover for illegal kitten trading. Will any measure be put in place to monitor this situation and ensure that illegal kitten trading does not increase as a result?

I thank the member for raising that concern, but I would say that we are proposing this amendment only because it came to light through discussions with Cats Protection as we were developing the guidance for local authorities. We did not have any objection to making this amendment to the regulations, but, of course, we want to monitor the situation to make sure that there are no adverse impacts. We are in regular engagement with animal welfare stakeholders and with other organisations, too, so we would be in close contact if any issues came to light. Certainly, from what we have proposed so far and from discussions with Cats Protection and other animal welfare stakeholders, this is an amendment that has been welcomed.

I have a very quick question. Could you widen out what you said in answer to Ariane Burgess’s question about the level of consultation and who the consultation was with?

Obviously, a consultation was undertaken when we were introducing the licensing regulations, but some of the issues that we are looking to address today came to light only when we were developing the guidance for local authorities and working with our animal welfare stakeholders. We have been working closely with them through this process and in developing that guidance. That is why we are bringing the amending regulations forward today to address those issues. Although there was no formal consultation on the amending regulations, we are in close engagement all the time so that we can identify such issues and address them.

The regulations do not appear to do anything to halt the trading up of kittens, which often happens when individual kittens are offered for resale on the internet at a higher price, with people posing as the owners of the parents of the cat, as if they have bred the kittens. Do you foresee any further amendments to the licensing regulations to clamp down on that form of trading?

Again, that is something that we would monitor closely, but I would say that the licensing regulations that we introduced and which came into force on 1 September modernised the whole licensing system. They made it more robust, so I think that we have gone a long way in trying to tackle some of the issues that have been experienced, but of course this is something that we will continue to monitor. As I said in previous responses, we are continually in close engagement with animal welfare stakeholders, so, if other issues emerge that we need to consider, we will, of course, look to do that.

12:15  

Can you tell us how you will be monitoring this system and looking at the question that Finlay Carson just asked you? If animals are not chipped, it is possible for them to be traded on and upsold in that way.

As I have said, we have proposed these amendments as a result of the engagement that we have had with animal welfare stakeholders in developing the detailed guidance for local authorities. We work closely with the likes of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. We have worked with it in developing training and a toolkit that can be used. We will, of course, monitor this closely. We are in regular engagement with the SSPCA, Cats Protection and other animal welfare charities and organisations, so, of course, through that regular engagement, we will pick up on any issues that there are. We also have the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission, which deals with particular issues. I just want to assure members and the committee that we are in close contact with all our stakeholders in the hope that we can pick up any early issues that emerge through this process. The licensing regulations that we introduced and the amendments that we are proposing today have been welcomed by those stakeholders.

Do members have further questions? As there are no more questions, we move to item 3. I invite Mairi Gougeon to move motion S6M-00997.

Motion moved,

That the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee recommends that the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2021 [draft] be approved.—[Mairi Gougeon]

Motion agreed to.

Finally, is the committee content to delegate authority to me to sign off our report on our deliberations on this affirmative SSI?

Members indicated agreement.

That completes consideration of the affirmative instrument. I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for attending today. We now move into private session.

12:18 Meeting continued in private until 12:20.