Tim Bonner: Animal Welfare Bills feature heavily in Queen's Speech

On Tuesday the Queen opened parliament for the 67th time in her reign with a Queen's Speech which outlines the government's programme. In it she announced no less than three Bills dealing with animal welfare. An Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, a Kept Animals Bill, and an Animals Abroad Bill. These bills will tackle issues from live animal transport, to pet theft and cat microchipping. They also present a significant challenge for the Alliance, firstly in dealing with a small number of government proposals which could have an adverse impact on rural activities, but more seriously because they will present an opportunity for our opponents to pursue their agendas by presenting amendments to Bills to attack trail hunting, shooting and wildlife management.

Dealing first with the government's plans it has produced an Animal Welfare Strategy which provides details on the content of the Bills. The 'animal sentience' issue is much misunderstood, but the government's proposals will essentially bring over from EU law the responsibility for ministers to consider the welfare of sentient animals when making policy decisions. The Bill will create an Animal Sentience Committee in parliament to look at and report on government decisions.

As it has signalled for some time, the Government also intends to ban the import of hunting trophies from endangered animals, but the wording - which is specific about removing any threat to "the conservation status of species abroad" - suggests the measures will not impact on deer management in the UK.

The plans also include consideration of the introduction of a close season for brown hares. Last month we were also openly critical of the government's priorities in focussing on a close season, whilst refusing to engage on our proposals on tackling the scourge of hare poaching. Interestingly the government now says that it will bring in "legislation to crack down on the illegal practice of hare coursing". The plan also includes a review of snaring and an examination of the use of cages in poultry farming, which will also have implication for the use of some pheasant laying units and partridge boxes in game farming.

The response of animal rights groups is, predictably, that none of this goes far enough and that there is not enough focus on its pet obsessions of hunting and shooting. At the top of the list of demands of a coalition of 50 organisations are "banning the intensive breeding of 'game' birds" and "banning trail hunting on government-owned land and strengthening the Hunting Act by introducing an offence of recklessly hunting a wild mammal".

We can be absolutely certain that such groups will use any opportunity they can find to attack our interests through the progress of all these Bills, even at the expense of the real animal welfare gains the government is promoting.

For the Labour party, in particular, this will also be a moment where it decides whether the rhetoric of listening to rural communities and learning from past mistakes is followed up by actions. Or whether it reverts to its default position of bashing the countryside.

This all signals an interesting and very busy parliamentary agenda for the Alliance. We will be alert to every danger and ready to take every opportunity. Your support will be critical in this and I know you will be ready to take action when and where it is needed.