Amendments to the Animal Health Act 1981: consultation analysis

Introduction

This report presents an analysis to the Scottish Government's consultation on amendments to the Animal Health Act 1981. The focus of the consultation was to gather views on strengthening animal health legislation by enabling secondary legislation to be made that would allow fixed penalty notices to be used in relation to appropriate animal health offences. The Scottish Government also sought to explore views and opinions on the Animal Health Act 1981 and what might need to be done to ensure primary legislation used to protect the health and welfare of animals from disease remains fit for purpose.

The consultation was launched on 3^rd October, ran for 12 weeks, and closed on the 23^rd December 2019. The consultation can be found at: https://consult.gov.scot/animal-welfare/animal-health-act-1981

The consultation provided an opportunity for all interested parties to scrutinise and comment on the proposals. The consultation was hosted on the Scottish Government Citizen Space consultation hub and the vast majority of respondents submitted their response via this portal.

The proposals were formulated into 3 specific questions and a summary of the responses are provided in this report.

The evidence gathered from this consultation will inform the legislation we will introduce to the Scottish Parliament for its approval.