Illegally Tethered Horses
Debate between Lord Benyon and Madeleine Moon(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Richard Benyon
I know that my hon. Friend speaks regularly with his local authority, and I suspect that it will have a Traveller liaison or welfare officer, or dedicated staff who should be conveying their concerns on issues of animal welfare to the people involved. I assure him that our Department takes animal welfare extremely seriously; we talk regularly with the Local Government Association and I will happily raise his point to ensure coherence across local authorities, and the development of best practice.
Mrs Moon
One point is that responsible owners will have their horses passported. We are talking mostly about irresponsible owners who do not passport their horses, and it is therefore difficult to track ownership. In the Republic of Ireland, there is a requirement not only to passport a horse but to say where it will be lodged, and that gives people the capacity to track it. We have several passporting schemes, none of which are connected, and therefore it is difficult to track those passports.
Richard Benyon
I understand the hon. Lady’s point, and I will take it back to my colleague, the Minister of State who has particular responsibility for these issues, to see whether we can amend the horse passporting regime in the way she suggests.
I welcome the work done by the National Farmers Union task and finish group to gauge the scale of the problem, ascertain the best remedies under existing law, and identify where amendments to the law would enable the problem to be dealt with more effectively. Many dumped horses, however, are traded by people who tend to operate outside the law, so finding effective remedies will not be easy.
I assure my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer that I will seek more information about initiatives from around the country, and consider whether there is a role for central Government to improve, facilitate and evaluate those schemes to ensure that we understand the benefits of best practice. The aim would be to enable councils and other landowners to take better control of the situation. I also assure my hon. Friend that DEFRA Ministers will, together with colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Home Office, consider how we can secure a more joined-up approach to this matter across Whitehall.