HSI UK does not believe that a licensing and inspection system can adequately protect the welfare of wild animals in British circuses, for the following reasons:

• A licensing system will not prevent new animals or new species of animals from being introduced.
  
  The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has made it clear that any licensing system needs to be ‘achievable’, and representatives of the circus industry have stated that they believe licensing could encourage more circuses to consider using wild animals, since the system would effectively legitimise their use;
• Licensing requirements will be necessarily generic, given the very wide range of species the circus industry could potentially employ;
• Inspections by their nature will be ‘spot checks’ and cannot possibly account for all the various situations in which circus animal may find themselves in different locations, during transit, training, or in winter housing (which may be overseas);
• Circuses often perform on private land, and there is no guarantee that private landowners will allow inspectors onto their land to carry out random inspections;
• A licensing and inspection system will create a lot of red tape and bureaucracy, which is contrary to the principles of the government’s own Better Regulation Executive’s aspirations.

In short, licensing and inspection will not protect the welfare of wild animals in circuses in Britain. Only a ban can achieve that.

HSI will continue to work closely with other like-minded organisations to persuade DEFRA ministers to abandon plans for licensing and inspection, in favour of the introduction of a complete ban as swiftly as is possible using the most appropriate legal and political means available.