Every year on 4 October FOUR PAWS celebrates World Animal Day. This year, we spent the days leading up to and during it at the Labour and Conservative Party Conferences, reminding the Government, MPs and policy makers why animals matter as sentient beings; to our health, our climate, our economy, and to us the British public. 

Last month Liz Truss entered our highest office as our new Prime Minister She now has the opportunity to deliver for animals by continuing to improve our national and global record on animal welfare, in line with both the commitments laid out in DEFRA’s 2021 Action Plan for Animal Welfare and the public’s expectations. 

At both conferences we have been meeting with MPs and urging them to prioritise the Kept Animals Bill, which will ban live animal exports, tackle puppy smuggling and ban the keeping of primates as pets amongst other important issues. This Bill should now be top of the list for the new Environment Secretary Ranil Jayawardena MP, and that’s exactly what we said when we met with both the Secretary of State and the new Minister for Environment, Scott Mann MP, earlier this week. The Bill has been making its way through Parliament since November 2021, and was finally scheduled for its Report Stage and Third Reading on the 19 September but cancelled due to the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, so we are eagerly awaiting its return once Parliamentary business resumes next week. 

We were delighted to also meet with the Shadow Secretary of State for DEFRA, Jim McMahon MP and the Shadow Animal Welfare Minister, Ruth Jones MP, and look forward to continuing to work with them both on the raft of animal welfare issues that need their attention. 

As the resignation of Liz Truss throws the country back into political turmoil, it is more important than ever that one of the first matters of the day for the new Prime Minister is to deliver the Kept Animals Bill. 

We urgently need your help to secure 100,000 signatures on this petition to save this piece of legislation.  

The Kept Animal Bill proposed:

✅ An end to live farm animal exports

✅ A crackdown on puppy imports  

✅ The licensing of primates as pets in England