Correspondence

Animal Sentience Committee: animal welfare strategy for England 2025

Published 30 March 2026

The Animal  Sentience  Committee warmly  welcomes the Government’s animal welfare strategy 2025.  

The  strategy clearly  demonstrates  a desired direction of travel  and commitment of government to protect and improve the welfare of all sentient animals  with the aim that ‘every animal will experience positive welfare throughout their life’ and ‘to ensure as many animals as possible have the highest welfare standards at every stage of their life’. 

The  strategy  identifies a number of  specific  policy  areas and  priority  actions to promote  animal welfare.  The committee will  consider,  over time,  the specific proposals as they are developed. 

In terms of ways of working, the strategy  refers  to  both current and possible future government legislation to tighten regulation, emphasising  the critical role of  effective enforcement, highlighting  the  need for greater support for animal owners and  the importance of partnership working with all  stakeholders  through  consultations. 

The  strategy accepts the difficulty in achieving universal adherence to the regulatory regime. We are pleased to note that the Strategy is committed to strengthening enforcement mechanisms.  

The strategy  commitment to champion  animal welfare in international  forums and with international agencies is well noted and can only be done by leading by example. We note the intention to consider the implications of trade and to protect UK producers from unfair competition.  

The strategy undertakes to make a step change in animal welfare by 2030 which is a  challenging  time scale. 

In a situation of limited resources,  the strategy  would benefit from  reference to a clear (evidenced) assessment of the most pressing animal welfare issues for  selection of  priority  policy  areas. 

The committee notes that there are few clear KPIs associated with the strategy. This is an opportunity to address and identify and measure welfare outcomes in a recognised manner  and would be important to enable proper scrutiny. 

There is an opportunity within this strategy  to promote  greater consistency and integration across the animal sectors.  

The committee questions whether current  legislation is fit for purpose to achieve the aims of the strategy. For example, the Animal  Welfare  Act could be updated to  include  protection of all sentient animals,  including decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs. The circumstances under which  wild animals are protected could be clarified. There is also a need to consider whether the concept of ‘unnecessary suffering’ is fit for purpose especially in the context of the legitimacy to cause suffering.  

The importance of compliance, monitoring and enforcement are noted in the strategy.  The committee will consider how government  will  strengthen and support this important  area. The  committee’s recent report on enforcement, as referenced in the  strategy,  questions whether  the current regulatory system in this regard  is  sufficient and whether adequate resources will  be available for effective monitoring and enforcement.  

Welfare labelling in relation to food products is an important element of the food strategy as well as the animal welfare strategy. The power of the market to improve animal welfare in farmed products  cannot be harnessed without a credible system of welfare food labelling which allows consumers to make informed decisions in relation to their preferences for higher welfare products.  

Linked to this,  the strategy’s  intention to consider whether overseas produce has an  unfair advantage or presents ethical concerns in relation to animal welfare and to protect sensitive sectors is an important step.  Protection  against unfair  advantage of overseas produce  with lower welfare standards would help to better incentivise producers to adopt higher welfare standards and reassure consumers. 

The committee  noted that  a  number of  the policy initiatives  in the strategy  refer to welfare principles that, if applied to sentient animals more generally, may better demonstrate  greater due regard for animal welfare.    

These include:  

• Extension of the pet breeder registration scheme,  responsible sale and ownership could include all pet animal types and potentially other kept  (sentient)  animals.  

• The strategy notes that positive reward-based training is widely regarded as the preferred method of dog training. Why is there a need to consult on electric dog collars?  Training aids that involve punishment/cruelty to any  animal  should not be used  and positive reward-based methods (only)  should be promoted.  

• The strategy offers an opportunity to phase out  mutilations  across  all sentient  animals to  achieve  consistency of policy.  

• Where mutilations do take place,  there is similarly an opportunity to  widen the principle of the Animal Welfare  Committee’s recommendations on the use of pain relief in sheep to procedures performed on other sentient animals.  

• Protections against extreme breeding mentioned in the strategy could be more widely  applied to all sentient  (kept)  animals.  

• In relation to “removing the use of intensive confinement systems”, consideration could be given to other animals.   

• Consideration of the concept of a ‘closed season’  is an opportunity to consider and extend this approach to other wild animals as well as hares.  

• The review of traps could include all types of traps for all purposes relating to sentient animals. 

• A ban on fur imports could be extended beyond cats, dogs and wildlife.  The ASC looks forward to the publication of  the  AWC report on the fur trade.  

• The review of penalties for wildlife cruelty could be expanded to include  review of  penalties  for  cruelty to all sentient animals to ensure  both  consistency  and  adequate deterrence.  

• In relation to decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs, there is a need to address how these animals are protected more widely.  

• The strategy’s desire that wild animals should experience  good welfare and not  be  subjected to suffering could include gamebirds at all stages of their lives.  

The Animal  Sentience  Committee welcomes and recognises the significance of this  animal  welfare strategy. The strategy  offers an opportunity to safeguard the welfare of animals in the medium and long term. It also offers an opportunity to work with stakeholders in partnership to deliver its ambitious  aims, not just through the use of  legislation and enforcement but by using the market and other mechanisms to incentivise best practice.  

The  committee looks  forward to  reviewing detailed plans for taking the various elements of the strategy forward.