Following Brexit, the UK established an Animal Sentience Committee to advise government on how policy decisions affect animal welfare. How such committees translate welfare science into policy is critically important.
Animal sentience committees represent a structural advance in evidence-based welfare policymaking. By institutionalising welfare expert advice within the machinery of government, they create accountability for policy decisions that affect animals - requiring ministers to explain how they have considered welfare impacts. The committee's effectiveness depends on the quality of its membership, the independence of its advice, the transparency of its engagement with government, and most critically the government's genuine responsiveness to its findings. Welfare science without policy application is academic; policy application without welfare science is arbitrary. The committee bridges these worlds.