Scottish Animal Welfare Commission – Review of Scottish Government activity affecting the welfare of animals, as sentient beings

9. Discussion

The period covered by this report has seen some significant legislative developments that will have a direct positive impact on the welfare of animals in Scotland. The Scottish Government has met most of the commitments made in its 2023-2024 Programme.

In the wildlife arena, the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 introduces measures to address raptor persecution, often seen as a conservation issue, but birds of prey are sentient individuals and inevitably suffer – often considerably – when illegally killed by shooting, trapping or poisoning. The Act also bans the use of glue traps and snares, both of which have long been criticised for the severe suffering that they cause to target and non-target animals. SAWC congratulates the Scottish Government for pursuing a clear and evidence-based policy with regard to snaring, in particular, as this issue provoked considerable debate.

The Act also extends the investigative powers of the Scottish SPCA, enhancing the ability of its Inspectors to gather admissible evidence in cases of suspected wildlife crime. This will add a significant resource to those of Police Scotland and other agencies, and it is to be hoped that more effective enforcement will result in a reduction in offences against wild animals in Scotland. The grouse moor licensing provisions were not initially related to animal welfare but, as we have said in our summary of the Bill in section 3, advice on best practice must give adequate consideration to the welfare issues around all the wildlife control associated with grouse shooting. SAWC sees it as essential that the Moorland Management Best Practice group produce guidance on predator control as soon as possible, with input from animal welfare experts. Such guidance will be all the more important when the Act's provisions relating to the licensing of trap use, and associated training, are commenced in early 2025.

SAWC welcomes the development of the licensing scheme for the use of more than two dogs for flushing wild mammals to guns, as provided in the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023. SAWC recommended during the passage of this legislation that dogs should not be used at all in the pursuit of wild mammals, such as foxes, and hopes that the licensing scheme will yield information about the numbers of wild mammals killed and the manner of their despatch, which will be useful for further policy development.

Another long-running animal welfare issue, dating back many decades, is the export of live animals for slaughter and further fattening in overseas countries. The Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Act delivered on a long-awaited commitment to ban the export of live animals including cattle, horses, sheep, goats, pigs and wild boar for slaughter and fattening from Great Britain. The Scottish Parliament granted legislative consent in December 2023. The legislation followed a consultation on ending live animal exports in which 87% of respondents agreed that livestock should not be exported for slaughter and fattening.

There has been little or no export of live animals for slaughter from the UK for a number of years, but at its height the trade was said to amount to over a million live animals per year, often enduring lengthy journeys in appalling conditions. The implications for animal welfare of preventing a trade of this magnitude ever being re-established are profound.

While welcoming the resolution, or part resolution, of totemic problems such as live exports and the use of dogs to hunt wild mammals, SAWC notes – as it has done in previous years – that animal welfare issues are not the sole purview of the Scottish Government animal welfare and wildlife teams. Animal welfare is also regularly affected by policy decisions in other areas.

In aquaculture, for example, technical changes to the permitted discharge limits for the sea lice control emamectin benzoate are justified by the need to reduce the environmental hazards of pesticides, but may have consequences for the welfare problems of sea lice infestations in marine finfish cages.

Perhaps a more obvious example was the decision, early in 2024, that Scotland would adopt the same legislation as England to restrict the keeping of XL Bully dogs. This was a decision aimed at improving community safety in the wake of serious attacks by dogs both north and south of the border. Following the XL Bully "ban" in England, individuals started moving numbers of dogs to Scotland to avoid the restrictions and this understandably led to public concern. However, SAWC had already advised against adopting the same model of legislation and remains concerned by reports of dogs being abandoned or euthanised because it is impossible to re-home them. It also appears that there are few officers in Scotland qualified to type an XL bully and even fewer who are willing to do so.

As noted in our response to the Good Food Nation Plan consultation, SAWC would like to see Scotland being nimble and forward-looking in incorporating animal welfare into all relevant policy areas.

Having reflected on the occasional disconnect between government policy and animal welfare, SAWC has begun to consider whether animal welfare impact assessments should be carried out at the time of proposing legislation. These would be analogous to the environmental or business impact assessments that are already regularly published at the time of consultation and would allow stakeholders to understand the extent to which animal welfare implications have been explicitly considered. It is fair to say that animal welfare organisations made their views about the XL Bully restrictions very clear, but in other policy areas it appears that departments do not always see the need to evaluate the risks or to seek expert views. Areas where specific assessment of animal welfare impacts, based on a modern scientific definition of welfare, could usefully have applied this year include the National Outcomes, the Agriculture and Rural Support (Scotland) Bill and the Good Food Nation Plan.

Finally, while SAWC supports the progressive legislative agenda that has been pursued in recent years by the Scottish Ministers and their dedicated animal welfare officials, it is widely recognised that the effectiveness of these efforts is constrained by a lack of resources to fund enforcement, such as licensing of animal establishments. These matters will need to be considered when new legislation, placing additional requirements on local authorities, is contemplated. The SAWC local authority working group has identified significant concern across Scottish councils over new and pending licensing legislation, despite a willingness to support animal welfare measures where possible. With new Scottish Government spending controls announced in August 2024, it would be highly optimistic to predict that these difficulties will be resolved in the near future. SAWC will publish its review of local authority enforcement in the first half of 2025 and hopes to make constructive recommendations to support overstretched local authority officers, and the animals they are charged with protecting.