Ministers are expected to back a proposed amendment to the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, extending its protections for vertebrates to shellfish and cephalopod molluscs, The Times reports.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has commissioned a review of whether there is evidence that decapod crustaceans and cephalopods are sentient but it has not yet been completed.

However, a number of peers have backed widening the definition of “animal” as the bill makes its way through the House of Lords.

Speaking in a debate last month, Conservative peer Baroness Fookes said: “I have been shocked by some of the treatment of animals such as lobsters, crabs, and squid, in the way they have been stored and very often killed.

“There was one horrible example of a supermarket tightly wrapping a live crab in single-use plastic — a double abomination so far as I am concerned — and lobsters are still plunged alive into boiling water.

“I understand that there are perfectly good stunning machines which could do this job humanely.”

Conservative peer Lord Randall of Uxbridge added: “I was initially rather sceptical about the position of decapod crustaceans, including lobsters, crabs and crayfish, and cephalopods, including octopus, squid and cuttlefish. However, more recently I have come to the opinion that these should be included.”