Wales must confront its animal welfare enforcement problem

Mike Hedges – MS for Swansea East

Wales is often proud of its reputation as a nation that cares about animals. Our countryside, our farming heritage, and our communities are deeply connected to the animals that share our lands.

Wales has established itself as a genuine leader in animal welfare, with the Welsh Labour Government passing a series of landmark laws in recent years.

In 2024, Wales became one of the first nations to mandate CCTV across all areas of slaughterhouses where live animals are present – a transparency measure long called for by welfare advocates, while also introducing enforcement regulations for the UK-wide ban on live animal exports for slaughter.

Most recently, in March 2026, the Senedd took the historic step of banning greyhound racing entirely, making Wales the first country in the UK to do so.

But caring about animals must mean more than having laws written on paper. It must also mean ensuring those laws are properly enforced.

Recently, I attended a discussion in the Senedd organised by the The Animal Law Foundation on what experts have termed “The Enforcement Problem”.

The phrase describes a simple but troubling reality: when laws exist but are rarely enforced, their protective power disappears.

The evidence presented was sobering.

Across Wales there are 34,777 farms, yet only 4.67% are inspected for welfare compliance. That means the overwhelming majority of farms may never be inspected.

At the same time, there is just one inspector for every 657 farms. Even the most dedicated inspector cannot realistically oversee so many holdings effectively.

Complaints about potential welfare breaches are another crucial safeguard. But even here the system is strained.

More than a third of complaints raised about animal welfare never result in authorities inspecting the situation on the ground.

Even when inspections do happen and inspectors identify problems, enforcement action is far from guaranteed.

Data suggests that formal enforcement action is taken in less than a quarter of cases where non-compliance is found, and prosecutions occur in less than 1% of those cases.

Perhaps most concerning of all, over half of Welsh local authorities that detected non-compliance during inspections did not take any formal enforcement action at all.

Taken together, these figures paint a picture not of a lack of legislation, but of a system that struggles to ensure the rules we already have are actually followed.

And this should be cause for concern for Wales.

Law protecting animals in Wales do exist. Animals are protected under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which prohibits acts that cause unnecessary suffering, and species-specific regulations such as the Welfare of Farmed Animals (Wales) Regulations 2007, which set minimum welfare standards. Further protections apply during transport and at slaughter.

But laws alone do not prevent cruelty – enforcement does.

Investigations in Wales in recent years have uncovered disturbing cases of animal mistreatment, reminding us that failures in oversight can have real and immediate consequences for animal welfare.

It is important to be clear: effective enforcement should not be seen as a threat to good farming, but as a way of ensuring that those who follow the rules are not undermined by those who do not.

So what needs to change?

First, enforcement bodies must have the resources and capacity required to carry out meaningful inspections. When inspectors are responsible for hundreds of farms each, meaningful oversight becomes extremely difficult.

Second, there must be consistency in enforcement across Wales. If some authorities detect breaches but take no formal action, it risks creating a system where compliance depends on postcode rather than the law.

Finally, we need greater transparency and accountability so that the public and policymakers alike can understand whether the system is functioning as intended.

Animal welfare should not be a political dividing line. It is a shared value across Welsh society.

Wales has taken important steps in recent years to strengthen animal protection. But if we are serious about those commitments, we must now ensure the laws we already have are properly enforced.