Animal Welfare (Exports)

That is an important point. The commissioner told me that one of his key priorities was to enforce the existing EU regulations across all of Europe, because there are quite a lot of inconsistencies. Despite my dislike of gold-plated EU regulations, I believe that, in this instance, it is the gold-plating that enables us proudly to maintain our tradition as a country that stands up for animal welfare across the board. However, we need to encourage the Minister of State to be much more forthright towards countries that adopt different standards.