And thank

you for inviting us.

The committee came into being under the Animal Welfare and in brackets Sentience Act 2022.

And as you rightly say, this was a little bit around the Brexit negotiations in one of those aspects.

But the whole concept of a group that could oversee government policy around animal welfare is something that had been talked about for about at least 12 years beforehand.

I mean, I recall it back in 2008 and other times.

So this has a long standing pedigree.

And that does sometimes people will do seem to say, breeding between the lines seem to think that, you know, you specifically, because of your background in farming, you know, you're too sympathetic maybe to farmers.