Draft United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 (Exclusions from Market Access Principles: Glue Traps) Regulations 2025

Neil Hudson Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 General Committees

[Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Stuart. I thank the Government for bringing forward this important statutory instrument, and I compliment the Minister on her advocacy for animal welfare—she is obviously highly informed from her former role in the animal welfare charity sector.

We should be very proud in this country that the UK is a world leader in animal welfare. The previous Conservative Government took extensive and proactive action to improve animal welfare. For example, we banned the export of live animals—including cattle, sheep, pigs and horses—for fattening or slaughter with the Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Act 2024; we increased the maximum prison sentence for animal cruelty from six months to five years with the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021; and we enshrined animal sentience into UK law with the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, thereby establishing the Animal Sentience Committee, such that any new legislation must pay due regard to animal welfare.

I was delighted to co-sponsor the Conservative-initiated and drafted Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Act 2025, and to support the passage of the again Conservative-initiated and drafted Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Act 2025, which was brilliantly steered and led through Parliament by my hon. Friend the Member for Chester South and Eddisbury, and Baroness Coffey in the other place.

On the instrument that we are looking at today, the last Government gave their full support to the groundbreaking private Member’s Bill introduced by my friend and former colleague Jane Stevenson, the former Member for Wolverhampton North East, which became the Glue Traps (Offences) Act 2022—I too was very pleased to support that Act. That vital piece of legislation bans the use of glue traps in all but exceptional circumstances, when they can be used only by licensed professional pest controllers. This is similarly controlled in Wales with the Agriculture (Wales) Act 2023; it takes glue traps out of the hands of amateurs and ensures that they are used only by professionals when absolutely necessary—when there is a risk to public health or safety, and there is no satisfactory alternative.

Many Members may remember the powerful debate during the passage of the 2022 Act in which we heard—as we have heard again today from the Minister—the extreme suffering that can be inflicted by these glue traps. They are indiscriminate and can ensnare wildlife, including birds, and also, horrifically, domestic pets. As a veterinary surgeon, this is something I feel passionately about.

This instrument seeks to enable the measures included in Scotland’s Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 to come into force, specifically the provisions to ban the supply of glue traps through selling, exchanging for a consideration other than money, giving as a prize or otherwise making a gift of them, or otherwise making glue traps available. Can the Minister clarify whether the UK Government are planning to make provisions for England to follow suit on this? If this is the direction the Government are heading in, what assessment has she made of the effectiveness of alternative methods of rodent control in upholding the highest public health and food safety standards? Furthermore, will the Minister engage and consult the pest control industry so that it is not kept in the dark about this process?

As the Minister will know, the provisions in the Glue Traps (Offences) Act 2022 came into force at the end of July 2024. Since then, the British Pest Control Association and the National Pest Technicians Association have written to the Government to highlight issues they have been experiencing with the licensing regime and enforcement of the legislation. On the issue of enforcement, the Government have said that comprehensive briefings for wildlife crime police officers are available on the National Wildlife Crime Unit’s DISC hub. Does the Minister appreciate that the issue is not that the content does not exist, but that there is no requirement for officers to read or familiarise themselves with it?

Finally, glue traps remain available and legal for use in Northern Ireland. Will the Minister raise that with the Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs so that animal welfare standards can be promoted across the entire United Kingdom by such measures as the banning of damaging and horrific glue traps?