Animal health and welfare in the livestock industry 2016 to 2024 - Strategy review

Theme 3: Welfare

Action 7: the Welfare Working Group will continue to make recommendations on how best to promote animal health and welfare, including suggestions for further research and voluntary initiatives.

Welfare Working Group and stakeholder engagement

The Welfare Working Group met prior the publication of this strategy in 2016, however its meetings were discontinued, as other means of stakeholder engagement were developed. Since 2016, our animal welfare policy team has continued to work closely with stakeholders to develop and deliver significant new legislation and policy across several areas. The policy team continues to oversee the delivery of service-level agreements with APHA and FSS to protect animal welfare on farms, during transport and in abattoirs. In addition, they liaise closely with APHA, FSS, Scottish SPCA and local authorities on specific issues as appropriate.

Legislative and policy developments

Changes to Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 and Animal Health Act 1981

The 2019-2020 PfG made a commitment to introduce new legislation to strengthen animal welfare measures, including increasing the maximum penalties for the most serious animal welfare offences to improve the enforcement of existing laws. This commitment was fulfilled through the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020, which received Royal Assent on 21 July 2020.

All provisions of the Act have been commenced, resulting in the following key outcomes:

• maximum sentences for serious animal welfare offences have increased from 12 months to 5 years’ imprisonment
• the six-month time limit for bringing prosecutions has been removed
• a claim of self-defence is no longer admissible in cases involving unnecessary suffering to a police service animal
• provisions are available for fixed penalty notice regimes to be specified in future secondary legislation
• a new approach has been introduced to allow authorities to swiftly resolve animal welfare cases by enabling the sale or rehoming of animals taken into care, without requiring a court order

Work has commenced on a review of animal health, welfare and wildlife legislation to be completed by April 2025.

CCTV in abattoirs regulations

The Mandatory Use of Closed Circuit Television in Slaughterhouses (Scotland) Regulations 2020 came into force on 1 July 2020. All areas of a slaughterhouse where live animals are present must now be covered by CCTV and all recorded footage must be retained for 90 days. The purpose of this legislation is to enhance animal welfare at the point of slaughter and improve the efficiency of enforcement and monitoring of welfare provisions.

Scottish Ministers provided assistance to each of the slaughterhouses located on the Scottish islands to support the purchase and installation of the required CCTV equipment.

Scottish Animal Welfare Commission and scientific input

Delivering a PfG commitment, the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC) was established in 2020 under section 36 of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, to provide advice on the welfare of protected animals. SAWC primarily focusses on wild and companion animals when providing scientific and ethical advice to government, but may also consider the welfare of farmed animals where there is a specific Scottish interest in a devolved policy area. One such example is a working group on the provision of abattoirs in Scotland for local slaughter. Another working group is examining the role of local authorities in enforcing animal health and welfare legislation.

The Commission assesses evidence and provides advice on:

• how the welfare needs of sentient animals are being met by devolved policy
• potential legislative and non-legislative measures to further protect the welfare of sentient animals
• research requirements to support future policy development

Twelve commissioners were appointed through an open recruitment process to serve in an individual capacity. An annual report, detailing how the Commission has delivered against its work plan, is laid before the Scottish Parliament and published.

The Strategic Research Programme (SRP) (described in Theme 1) also includes a number of projects on animal welfare research.

Welfare in farming practices

Farm animal welfare guidance

We develop guidance documents to help producers comply with the basic requirements of animal welfare legislation, while also providing good practice recommendations to further support animal welfare where appropriate. Following extensive discussions with a wide range of stakeholders, and after considering detailed comments from the UK Animal Welfare Committee, new guidance for the keeping of chickens was published in 2019. Guidance for laying hens and pullets followed in August 2020, and for pigs in 2023.

Lamb castration and docking

The UK Animal Welfare Committee (AWC) remains the main source of independent advice to Great Britain ministers on farmed animal welfare. Our animal welfare policy team provided the secretariat for an AWC working group on castration and tail docking of lambs, including the consideration of novel alternatives to the conventional rubber ring method.

The Scottish Government’s final opinion on the implications of castration and tail docking for the welfare of lambs was published in September 2023 and has since prompted detailed discussion on how to implement the recommendations for legislative change with other UK administrations and industry stakeholders. This has included close collaboration with manufacturers of new devices and major retailers to explore opportunities for encouraging the uptake of less painful methods and supporting further field trials. Funding has been secured for a small trial of short scrotum castration, to be carried by Livestock Health Scotland in 2025.

Protection of livestock on farm

The Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2021 came into force on 14 November 2021. This increased the maximum available penalty for allowing dogs to chase or attack livestock to 12 months’ imprisonment and/or a fine of up to £40,000, and granted new powers to Police Scotland to seize dogs for examination by a veterinary surgeon.

In 2021, we published guidance for veterinary surgeons – as part of the Protocol for examination of dogs in connection with livestock worrying – on collecting evidence from dogs that may be presented to them by the police following a livestock attack.

Turning to animal welfare in poultry farming, a commitment made in the 2022 PfG and after discussions with the poultry sector, a consultation on phasing out cages for laying hens was issued in 2024. A call for evidence on the use of cage for gamebirds and quail was also launched, which led to further constructive engagement with the gamebird sector. A separate PfG commitment to consult on phasing out farrowing crates has not yet been progressed.

Welfare in transport and trade

Animal transport legislation

The UK Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) – now known as the Animal Welfare Committee (AWC) – published its opinion on the Welfare of Animals during Transport in April 2019. In response, the Scottish and Welsh Governments issued a joint statement committing to consult on the recommendations outlined in the FAWC report. Following a full public consultation, we published a summary report in October 2021, which provided detailed insights into public and industry perspectives on proposed improvements to animal welfare during transport.

As part of this work, we facilitated a FAWC working group visit to Aberdeen in 2018, where the group gathered evidence from industry stakeholders on livestock transport in Scotland – particularly focusing on the vital ferry routes from the Northern Isles, which use the cassette system^[1].

Scottish Ministers have agreed in principle that animal welfare legislation relating to transport should, where possible, be developed on a Great Britain-wide basis. To support this, the three Great Britain administrations consulted with stakeholders from both industry and the welfare sector to consider potential future legislation. Scottish Ministers have committed to this approach, with the important proviso that rural and island communities in Scotland will not be placed at a disadvantage.

Following specific FAWC recommendations in this area, we commissioned research from SRUC in 2023, to monitor the welfare of livestock transported on Northern Isles routes in a range of weather conditions. Overall, the findings indicated that the cassette system was generally working well, although some areas for possible improvement were identified.

Live exports and legislative reform

A regular trade in male dairy calves from an assembly centre in Scotland to Spain via Ireland continued until 2018. This route was monitored by researchers from SRUC and IRTA (Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries) in Spain, as part of a Scottish Government-commissioned project investigating the welfare outcomes of these journeys. This route stopped when P&O Ferries refused to allow calves on the ferry to Larne, following publicity about the journey and welfare concerns raised by campaigning groups. Exports then continued via Dover until the trade ceased in 2019. Since then, increased use of sexed semen and greater rearing of dairy-cross calves for beef within the UK have helped alleviate the issue of surplus male dairy calves.

In response to a Parliamentary Question in March 2021, we confirmed that exporting livestock for slaughter or fattening outside the UK involves unnecessarily lengthy journeys, and that these activities can be undertaken within the UK instead, allowing journeys to be avoided or reduced. We therefore committed to working with other UK administrations to seek to end the unnecessary export of livestock for slaughter or fattening to countries outside the UK.

The response also noted that the we fully recognise the vital importance of traditional patterns of livestock movements, within island and remote rural communities. It reaffirmed a commitment to protecting the needs and interests of Scottish farming and crofting by ensuring that appropriate livestock movements across Scotland can continue.

In support of this position, legislative consent was granted for the UK Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Act 2024, which came into force in July 2024. The Act now prohibits the export of livestock and horses for slaughter, or fattening for slaughter from or through Great Britain to countries outside the British Islands.

Lesson identified: drawing on evidence and advice from the SAWC and the UK AWC, we should continue to explore, develop and deliver ways to protect and improve the welfare of livestock throughout their lives.