Commentary on provisions of Act Section 5: Interpretation
This section defines the animals to which the Act applies, and stipulates that this definition may be amended by the Secretary of State by means of statutory instrument, which would need to be approved by both Houses of Parliament.
	Subsection (1) defines an "animal," for the purposes of this Act, as any vertebrate other than Homo sapiens (e.g. birds, dogs, cats, reptiles); any cephalopod mollusc (e.g. octopuses, squid) and any decapod crustacean (e.g. crab, shrimp). All animals defined in this subsection are therefore considered to be sentient for the purposes of Section 2(2) and (4) and will be within the scope of the Committee’s consideration.
	Subsection (2) allows this definition of an "animal" to be extended by the Secretary of State by regulations. If the Secretary of State considers that a certain type of invertebrate (other than decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs) is sentient, then he or she may exercise the regulation-making power to apply the provisions of this Act to that type of invertebrate.
	Subsection (4) specifies that these statutory instruments can be made only under the affirmative resolution process. This means that both Houses of Parliament must actively approve any changes for them to become law.
	Subsection (5) gives meaning to the terms "vertebrate" and "invertebrate". These are the meanings given by section 1(5) of the Animal Welfare Act 2006, namely ""vertebrate" means any animal of the Sub-phylum Vertebrata of the Phylum Chordata and "invertebrate" means any animal not of that Sub-phylum".