UK Offence Report

The Welfare of Horses at Markets (and Other Places of Sale) Order 1990

UK Statutory Instrument 1990 No. 2627 — creates 1 criminal offence.

1offences created
0recorded in force
0revoked
Made
27 December 1990
In force from
1 March 1991
Extent
Not stated
Subject
Dogs, animals, hunting and wildlife
Made under
Animal Health Act 1981

Explanatory note

(This note is not part of the Order) — published with the instrument by the department that made it. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

This Order makes provision for the welfare of horses in markets. In a market it is an offence to permit an unfit horse to be exposed for sale (article 5), to cause or permit any injury or unnecessary suffering to a horse (article 6), to bring or cause to be brought there a foal unless it is at the foot of the dam or to expose it for sale separately (article 7), to handle horses in a particular way (article 8), to use excessive force to control any horse (the use of sticks, crops, whips, goads or certain other instruments is also prohibited) (article 9), knowingly to obstruct a horse or wantonly annoy it (article 10) or to keep there any horse which by reason of being clipped is insufficiently protected (article 14). The market operator must ensure that horses are properly penned (article 11) and that there is accommodation for unfit horses (article 16). It is the duty of the market operator or the person in charge of a horse to properly separate it from other animals and certain descriptions of horse (article 11) and to ensure that the horse is adequately provided with lighting and bedding. Duties are placed on the owner (or his duly authorised agent) or the person in charge of a horse to ensure that it is adequately fed and watered (article 12). It is the duty of the market authority to ensure that passageways and sale rings are constructed and maintained in a certain manner and that ramps for loading and unloading horses and covered accommodation are of a certain type and to provide certain facilities (article 15) including the supply of wholesome water and drinking devices. The Order also makes provision for the detention and treatment of unfit horses (article 17), for an inspector to mark, or cause to be marked, an animal for identification purposes (article 18) and for offences (article 19).

Offences created by this instrument

What Parliament said about it

Hansard was searched for this instrument by name and returned nothing. That is the ordinary outcome: an instrument laid under the negative procedure is usually never debated, and becomes law without a word said about it in either House.

How Parliament handled it

Parliament's Statutory Instruments service records procedure from May 2017 onwards, and this instrument predates it. That is a limit of the source, not a statement that nothing happened.

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