This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Animal Welfare Act 2006, a landmark statute that codified the main legal protections for animals in England and Wales. Yet, while the Act has been transformative, its full potential remains underutilised due to persistent issues with legal interpretation and enforcement.
Two provisions are particularly critical. First, the prohibition on causing 'unnecessary suffering'. While straightforward in principle, its application has been inconsistently interpreted. Practices that clearly cause pain, stress, or injury, such as breeding chickens for unnaturally rapid growth or dogs and cats to meet aesthetic standards, and the use of animals in entertainment or sport in ways that compromise welfare, persist because they are considered 'necessary' under traditional or commercial assumptions. Yet, legal precedent has held that commercial benefit cannot justify cruelty. The law exists to prevent suffering, not to accommodate entrenched practices.
Second, the requirement to meet animal welfare needs is often under-enforced. Animals are entitled to appropriate environments, diets, social contact, and the ability to express normal behaviour. Yet interpretation is inconsistent: farmed animals are often confined in restrictive conditions, social companion animals may be left alone or kept in conditions that prevent natural behaviours, such as the stretching for a snake or flying for a bird. Notably, Foie Gras was banned under the Act’s requirement to provide a suitable diet, demonstrating that the law can and has been applied effectively, but somewhat arbitrarily and inconsistently.
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At The Animal Law Foundation, we have shown how legal interpretation can deliver tangible outcomes. We secured guidance on farmed fish welfare in Scotland, ensuring the law that protects them is understood and applied across their entire life cycle. We also persuaded the government to work with veterinarians to reduce pig tail docking, after making the case that vets were likely authorising illegal mutilations, with data showing that docking is being authorised in around 85% of cases, despite it being illegal on a routine basis. And after years of advocacy arguing that it is illegal to boil lobsters alive under the current law, we achieved a landmark victory with the government agreeing with our interpretation that it is indeed unacceptable under the current law.
These examples highlight a crucial legal point: common practice is not law. Courts, regulators and practitioners must interpret statutes as written and intended, applying protections to all animals consistently, not allowing tradition or profit to dictate legal outcomes.
The government’s newly published Animal Welfare Strategy further underscores the link between statutory interpretation and policy outcomes. Measures such as phasing out cages or banning live boiling are explicitly enabled by existing legal provisions under current law. The strategy can succeed with clear interpretation or the use of statutory powers under the Act.
For lawyers, legislators and enforcement bodies, the lesson is clear: statutory protection of animals is only as strong as its interpretation and application. As we mark 20 years of the Animal Welfare Act, it is time to reaffirm the legal principle that suffering cannot be justified by profit or tradition, and to ensure that the Act is applied rigorously, consistently, and across all species.
The law works when it is used correctly. Now is the time to put animals back into the Animal Welfare Act.
Edie Bowles is executive director at The Animal Law Foundation
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