This week, I’ll be part of the Committee scrutinising the Wild Animals in Circuses Bill. It follows an opening debate on the Bill which I was pleased to speak in earlier this month, having campaigned and co-sponsored legislation on the issue for many years. In my remarks I focused on the Government’s recurrent answer to me that we couldn’t introduce the legislation because of our membership of the European Union. However, that’s simply not true – Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Scotland, Slovenia and Slovakia have all introduced a ban. I’m happy we are now legislating, but it’s long overdue and the EU shouldn’t have been used as an excuse. You can read more about the Bill here: https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchB…/…/SN05992