Thank you for contacting me about animal welfare.
I am proud that Britain has the highest standards of animal welfare in the world, and there have been no proposals to change the legislation that upholds them. I know that my colleagues in the Government want to draw more closely on the expertise of the farming industry, to ensure our farm animal welfare codes reflect the very latest scientific and veterinary developments.
I do, however, appreciate the concerns you have raised about the proposal to replace the existing statutory farm animal welfare codes, so I am sure you will be pleased to hear that in light of these views Ministers have given the matter further consideration. They have concluded that they can achieve this objective while retaining the existing codes.
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