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Back to Legal Overview

Challenging Section 58

The government claims MBR Acres is exempt from animal welfare law. Here’s why they’re wrong.

Important: This page presents legal arguments based on publicly available legislation. Some arguments are untested in court. This is not legal advice.

Animal Welfare Act 2006, Section 58(1):

“Nothing in this Act applies to anything lawfully done under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (c. 14).”

Section 58(2):

“No power of entry, inspection or search conferred by or under this Act, except for any such power conferred by section 28, may be exercised in relation to a place which is specified in a licence granted under section 2C of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (licensing of undertakings involving the use of animals for scientific procedures).”

Section 58(3):

“Section 9 does not apply in relation to an animal which— (a) is being kept at a place specified in a licence granted under section 2C of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, and (b) is being so kept for the purposes of, or in connection with, an activity mentioned in section 2B(2) of that Act that is pursued at that place in the course of carrying on the undertaking authorised by the licence.”

Current text, as amended from 1 January 2013 by S.I. 2012/3039. Section 58 on legislation.gov.uk

In plain English

Section 58 does three things. It takes anything lawfully done under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (ASPA) outside the Animal Welfare Act 2006 (AWA). It stops Welfare Act inspectors entering an ASPA-licensed establishment. And it switches off the section 9 duty of care for animals kept there for a licensed activity — which, under ASPA section 2B(2), includes breeding dogs for use in regulated procedures. Together, these put MBR Acres — a facility that breeds beagles for sale to laboratories — largely outside the Animal Welfare Act.

But Section 58 is not a blank cheque. Its words limit it — “lawfully”, “for the purposes of” — and section 4 (unnecessary suffering) is not switched off by subsection (3) at all. There are serious arguments that it does not provide the blanket protection the government claims.

MODERATE

Section 2(1) of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 defines a “regulated procedure” as “any procedure applied to a protected animal for a qualifying purpose which may have the effect of causing the animal a level of pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm equivalent to, or higher than, that caused by the introduction of a needle in accordance with good veterinary practice.” A qualifying purpose is experimental, scientific or educational (s2(1A)). Breeding becomes a regulated procedure only for genetically altered lines that may suffer as a result (s2(3B)).

Breeding dogs is not a regulated procedure. It is a natural biological process.

What MBR Acres actually does

MBR Acres breeds beagles and sells them to laboratories. They do not conduct any scientific experiments. The animals at MBR Acres are not undergoing regulated procedures — they are being bred, housed, and transported. These are activities of animal husbandry, not scientific research.

The day-to-day reality

The daily care of breeding dogs at MBR Acres — feeding, cleaning, housing, veterinary attention — is ordinary animal husbandry. It is indistinguishable from the care provided at any other commercial dog breeding operation. There is no rational basis for exempting this from the Animal Welfare Act simply because the eventual buyer is a laboratory rather than a member of the public.

The honest difficulty: ASPA does license breeding itself, as an establishment activity (s2B(2)(b)), and Section 58(3) names that activity when it switches off the duty of care. So the argument is not that breeding is unlicensed. It is that ASPA’s protective machinery — harm-benefit analysis, severity limits, the 3Rs assessment — is built around regulated procedures, and none of it applies to the years a breeding bitch spends at MBR Acres.

Breeding is not a regulated procedure. Whatever harm at MBR Acres is not lawfully authorised under ASPA stays inside the Animal Welfare Act — section 4 unnecessary suffering included.

STRONG
MODERATE
MODERATE
DEVELOPING

Section 58 has never been properly tested in court. The government’s interpretation — that it provides a blanket exemption for commercial breeders — is just that: an interpretation. Here are the legal avenues available to challenge it.

A

FOI Litigation

Legal action to force the release of inspection reports for MBR Acres. If the facility is compliant, the public has a right to know. If it is not, Section 58 may not apply.

B

Judicial Review

A judicial review of the government's blanket interpretation of Section 58. The courts could rule that Section 58 does not exempt commercial breeding operations from the Animal Welfare Act.

C

Animal Sentience Committee Petition

A formal submission to the Animal Sentience Committee arguing that the government's application of Section 58 fails to give due regard to animal welfare as required by the Sentience Act 2022.

D

Parliamentary Amendment Campaign

A campaign to amend Section 58 to explicitly clarify that commercial breeding operations are not exempt from the Animal Welfare Act, regardless of who they supply.

E

Private Prosecution

If evidence of welfare failures at MBR Acres can be obtained, a private prosecution under the Animal Welfare Act could directly test whether Section 58 provides immunity.

The law is not settled. The arguments are strong. What is needed now is the will to test them.

In short

Section 58: questions people ask

What does Section 58 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 say?
Section 58 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 has three live subsections. 58(1): "Nothing in this Act applies to anything lawfully done under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986." 58(2) bars Welfare Act powers of entry, inspection or search at an ASPA section 2C licensed place, except section 28. 58(3) disapplies the section 9 duty of care for animals kept at such a place for a licensed activity, including breeding.
Why is MBR Acres exempt from the Animal Welfare Act?
MBR Acres in Wyton, Cambridgeshire holds an establishment licence under section 2C of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 to breed beagles for laboratories. Section 58 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 therefore removes the section 9 duty of care for its dogs and blocks Welfare Act inspectors from entering. Welfare there is regulated instead by Home Office licence conditions and the 2026 Code of Practice.
Does Section 58 cover everything that happens at MBR Acres?
No. Section 58(1) of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 only exempts what is lawfully done under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. Anything done at MBR Acres outside the terms of its ASPA licence, or in breach of it, is not "lawfully done under" ASPA, so the section 4 offence of causing unnecessary suffering can still apply. That word, "lawfully", is the strongest limit on the exemption.
Is breeding dogs for laboratories a "regulated procedure"?
Generally no. Section 2 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 defines a regulated procedure as one applied for an experimental, scientific or educational purpose that may cause pain at least equal to a needle insertion; breeding counts only for genetically altered lines that may suffer. But breeding beagles for laboratories, as MBR Acres does, is a licensed establishment activity under section 2B(2), and Section 58(3) of the Animal Welfare Act names it.
Has Section 58 ever been tested in court?
As far as this campaign is aware, no court has ruled on how far Section 58 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 shields an ASPA-licensed breeder such as MBR Acres. The arguments on this page, including the meaning of "lawfully done" and the purpose test in Section 58(3), are untested. Possible routes include judicial review, a private prosecution under section 4, or an amendment to the Act.
What happened at Green Hill, the Marshall BioResources beagle farm in Italy?
Green Hill in Montichiari, Italy, was a beagle breeding facility owned by Marshall BioResources, the parent company of MBR Acres. It was seized in 2012. On 23 January 2015 the Court of Brescia convicted three people responsible for it of mistreating and killing animals, in a case that recorded 6,023 dog deaths between 2008 and 2012. The convictions were upheld on appeal in 2016. The Green Hill story.

This analysis presents legal arguments based on publicly available legislation. It does not constitute legal advice. Some arguments are untested in court. Independent legal counsel should be sought.

Gallery

Inside the Facility

These are the dogs Section 58 strips of the protections every other dog in England and Wales takes for granted.