Domestic Animals: Welfare

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Black, for securing this important debate. I declare my entry in the register of interests. Britain is a nation of animal lovers. Animal welfare is also an important issue for councils, which in some areas have not received sufficient funding from central government to enforce the Animal Welfare Act. This has moved the responsibility to charities such as the RSPCA. Councils work in partnership with the RSPCA and in many areas are reliant on it for enforcement of the Act.

The other place produced a report in November 2016, Animal Welfare in England: Domestic Pets, which made several recommendations. Many of those were in included in the SI debated on 27 March in this Room, when the Government updated the animal welfare regulations. I have been lobbied, as have other noble Lords, by Battersea Dogs Home and the Dogs Trust about third-party sales. A consultation under way on this subject closed on 2 May. Despite it being early days, is the Minister able to indicate the preliminary outcomes from that consultation?

A recommendation from 2016 that the RSPCA should no longer be involved in acting as a prosecutor of first resort when there are statutory bodies with a duty to carry out that role has resulted in the Government giving the RSPCA two years to set its house in order over its prosecutions policy. How is the review of that policy progressing?

A further recommendation for the Government to set up a register of those convicted of animal cruelty offences who had also been disqualified from keeping animals was rejected in favour of public access to police prosecutions. I note that a petition was launched by the Daily Mail that year. I wonder how many people find it easy to access the police prosecutions lists and whether the Government are thinking of reviewing their decision.

The regulation and licensing of dog walkers has been raised previously. Dog walkers and grooming premises are not currently licensed. There is a National Dog Walking Register website, which gives advice about pet insurance and a list of dog walkers in one’s area, but there is no statutory licensing system. A second website on dog walking indicates that some local authorities may require a dog walker to have a business licence, but this is by no means widespread. Can the Minister say whether there have been complaints about dog walkers and whether licensing is necessary?

I support the comments of previous speakers on puppy farming and deliberate animal cruelty, and look forward to the Minister’s response.