Tim Bonner in The Telegraph: "This clumsy attempt to pacify animal lovers has gone too far"

Last weekend, our Chief Executive Tim Bonner featured in The Telegraph, writing on the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill. This article first appeared on the Telegraph's website, found here.

Those who listened to the Queen's Speech in May would have noted how much of the Government's agenda is centred on animals. We are promised legislation on "kept animals" and on "animals abroad", but the first Bill in front of Parliament is the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill. The Bill is the Government's reaction to a vociferous online campaign criticising ministers for refusing to transfer EU legislation that recognises animal sentience into UK law.

The recognition of animal sentience and the consequent need for animal welfare laws is nothing new, and the sentience of many species of animals is a fact, not a principle or a matter of debate. Our Parliament first recognised animal sentience when it passed the Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act in 1822 and Britain has remained ahead of nearly every other country in the world in its protection of animals.

This new Bill, however, is something fundamentally different and would put the interests of animals above those of rural communities and the population as a whole. By creating a new statutory committee with the power to roam across all aspects of government policy and to rule on whether ministers have given "all due regard" to the welfare of sentient animals, the legislation risks having a chilling effect on ministerial decision making.

Critically, this impact is not restricted to legislation that directly effects animals. As the Bill is currently drafted, ministers signing off a bypass, a housing development or a trade deal will have to look over their shoulder and consider what the Animal Sentience Committee will make of their decision. In a country already struggling to build homes and infrastructure, this is a new mass of red tape that we could all do without.

There remain troubling and unanswered questions about the proposed committee. We do not know who its members will be and what experience they are expected to bring. We do, however, know that the committee "may" produce a report in relation to "any government policy" that "is being or has been formulated or implemented". Understandably, it is this detail which has ruffled feathers in Whitehall.

And given that the committee's remit also covers the entirety of government policy, it will need huge resources. It could look not just at wildlife management and farming practices, but also planning, trade, or where we source medicines for the NHS.

One thing that nearly every contributor to the debates on the bill in the House of Lords has agreed on is that it is badly drafted and that the role, scope and powers of the committee are worryingly unclear. If the Government is determined to push forward with what one peer has described as "an act of self harm", it needs to fix the glaring flaws in a potentially disastrous piece of legislation.