On this day in vegan history · April 28, 2022
The Sentience Act Gets Royal Assent
Britain finally put something obvious into law: that animals, including the octopus on ice at the fishmonger, can feel pain.
The facts
- Royal assent
- 28 April 2022
- Introduced
- 13 May 2021, by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park in the House of Lords
- Scope
- All vertebrates, plus octopuses, crabs, and lobsters (decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs)
- Came into force
- 22 May 2023, when the Animal Sentience Committee was established
On 28 April 2022, the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 received royal assent in the United Kingdom, recognizing in law for the first time that animals are sentient and can experience pain and pleasure. The Act covers all vertebrates, and after a government-commissioned review found strong evidence of pain response in decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs, ministers amended the bill to add octopuses, crabs, and lobsters too. It also created an Animal Sentience Committee, a panel of experts with the power to scrutinize new government policy and report to Parliament if ministers fail to give animal welfare due regard. The law does not itself ban a single farming practice; it aims lower and more durably, at the people who write the rules those practices follow.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
An Act to make provision for an Animal Sentience Committee with functions relating to the effect of government policy on the welfare of animals as sentient beings.
Long title of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022
Source: legislation.gov.uk -
The science is now clear that decapods and cephalopods can feel pain and therefore it is only right they are covered by this vital piece of legislation.
Lord Zac Goldsmith, Animal Welfare Minister, 19 November 2021
Source: GOV.UK
Why it still matters
It was the first time UK law stated plainly that animals can feel anything at all, and it built a standing check into government itself, not just onto farmers or scientists, to answer for that fact.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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