Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 5th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support this long-overdue Bill and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Trees, on skilfully steering it through this House. My noble friend Lady Fookes has asked me to say how much she wishes she had been able to be here—she is at a long-standing event for the War Widows’ Association—and that she, too, supports the Bill.

I want to talk specifically about the plight of cats and kittens being smuggled into the country. I declare an interest as patron of International Cat Care. I am also grateful to Cats Protection and Battersea for their tireless work in this area. I declare an interest as a cat owner, as I know is the Minister, proud owner of Sid. The commercial market for cats has been changing over the last few years. Cats Protection’s Cats and Their Stats report for 2024 revealed a significant rise in the number of pure bred and pedigree cats in the UK. For the first time, the number of these cats acquired over the last year has overtaken the market for moggies like my own, with significant consequences because of the increase in the smuggling of such cats from abroad. According to the Cats Protection survey, 4% of the cats acquired in the 12-month survey period were from abroad. That is an astonishing 65,000 cats and kittens.

As any cat owner knows simply from a visit to the vet, travel is very traumatic for most cats, particularly for very young ones. It causes severe stress, in turn causing serious clinical symptoms. Yet far too many cats are being transported or smuggled into this country in distressing conditions, often many in a vehicle at the same time. This Bill will help tackle the problem by banning the import of kittens under six months and of pregnant cats in the last one-third of their gestation period, and reducing the number of cats that can enter in a single motor vehicle to five. That is still a large number and, ideally, I think that number should be three per vehicle, which is still a significant number and would not impact in any way on the vast majority of UK cat owners. Perhaps the Minister can explain why the number was set at five, not three.

The result of all that will not just be an improvement in the welfare of imported cats; it will, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Trees, protect humans from imported diseases. Cat smuggling is known to be a public health risk, with some diseases being zoonotic: they can spread from cats to humans, with potentially fatal consequences. We need to ensure we avert that risk.

I have often raised the issue of the horrendous impact on cats of mutilations undertaken for cosmetic or designer purposes. One important aspect of this Bill is to ban the importation of cats with mutilations, particularly those that have been declawed, a barbaric and painful procedure. As noble Lords know, declawing is illegal here, and we must deter any market interest developing in bringing such benighted animals to the UK.

If I have one problem with this Bill, it is that it is enabling legislation, requiring national authorities to make regulations and opening up the possibility of endless consultation and delay. That has become an issue with the Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023, the subject of an Oral Question earlier this week. The Minister heard the concern of noble Lords across the House about the delay in implementing it. Two years on from its reaching the statute book, we are stuck in a doom cycle of consultation and delay, highlighting the problem of enabling legislation, We also encountered problems under the last Government with the regulations concerning electronic shock collars, inexplicably delayed before the general election. Nothing has been heard of that since, and cats and dogs are still suffering needlessly. The same thing must not happen to this legislation. I ask for a commitment from the Minister to implement it with the maximum possible speed and not to allow it to become victim to the same problems that have affected other animal welfare laws. With that caveat, I strongly support this Bill and wish it well. Let us get it on to the statute book unamended as soon as possible.

Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I am determined to look at what makes the biggest difference. The whole essence of my approach to animal welfare is what makes the biggest difference, where are the most animals suffering abuse, and what can we do to try to reduce that. Those are the criteria we are looking at.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I had the privilege of taking this legislation through this House, with the support of the Minister. I am profoundly disappointed that, two years after it reached the statute book, it has not been implemented, letting down the 150 charities which campaigned for it and the animals it would protect. Does the Minister recall the terrible fate of 20 year-old Andrea Taylor, who was violently killed on a visit to the Nongnooch resort in Thailand when an elephant which had been brutalised charged her? She is one of the many tourists killed or injured because this legislation is not yet effectively in place. Is it not unacceptable that until this law is implemented by regulation, tragically, there will be more Andrea Taylors?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I congratulate the noble Lord on sponsoring the Bill; I was very happy to support him. I point out that it may be two years since the legislation, but I have not been the Minister for two years. That is not to say that it has not been some time. I have met campaigners and stakeholders, and I am determined to take this through. It is, unfortunately, proving to be more complex than I would have liked, and I am absolutely aware of the tragic case he talks about. That is why we need to work not just on the legislation but more broadly than that. People can still buy these holidays online, advertised from other countries. We need to look not just at the legislation we can bring forward through this particular Act but much more broadly.

Domestic Animals: Welfare

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve the welfare of domestic animals.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare my interest as a patron of International Cat Care.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on his new job. The Government will end puppy smuggling, address puppy farming by tackling low-welfare dog breeding practices and consider whether more should be done to protect the welfare of companion animals. We are supporting some key measures in Private Members’ Bills and have already met with key companion animal stakeholders as the first steps in delivering on our commitments and developing an overarching approach to animal welfare.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her Answer and for her passion for and enduring commitment to animal welfare. Does she agree that too many cats are being bred commercially without adequate safeguards to protect their welfare? Increasingly, unregulated, unlicensed, unscrupulous owners are raising cats with extreme, exaggerated features to sell as fashion accessories without any concern for the terrible harm to the animal. So-called bully cats, for example, are bred without fur, which predisposes them to painful skin disease, and their genetically shortened legs can result in joint abnormalities and agonising arthritis. Will the Minister join me in condemning the practice of breeding for deformity, which causes unacceptable suffering and distress? Will she commit as a matter of urgency to regulating cat breeding in order to ban such activity?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, the licensing of activities involving animal regulations requires anyone in the business of breeding and selling cats to have a licence, and they must meet statutory minimum welfare standards. The noble Lord makes some very good points about recent practices that are not acceptable. Defra has been working on a post-implementation review of the regulations, which will be published shortly. We are also carefully considering the recommendations in EFRA’s report on pet welfare and abuse, and the Animal Welfare Committee’s opinion on feline breeding, which will also be published soon.