Animal Welfare (Kept Animals)

Anna Firth Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I rise in support of today’s motion to revive the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill. I hope that Conservative Members see that this issue stretches beyond party lines and will stand with us to improve the lives of millions of animals.

This year alone, hundreds of constituents have contacted me to call for more stringent animal rights. The Government’s introduction of the kept animals Bill two years ago was welcome. It included a wide range of long overdue measures, ranging from tackling the keeping of primates as pets to cracking down on puppy smuggling and banning live exports. I looked forward to the Bill’s progress and to working cross-party to ensure that it met its aims, but we now see that the Government were simply paying lip service to the millions who support those changes. Two years of delays and three Secretaries of State later, the Bill has been dropped for good, giving the green light to puppy smugglers and those who profit from such abhorrent practices—yet another broken Tory promise.

The 2019 Conservative manifesto was perfectly clear. It said, word for word:

“We will crack down on the illegal smuggling of dogs and puppies… We will end excessively long journeys for slaughter and fattening… We will ban keeping primates as pets”.

Like so many other promises, those commitments now lie in tatters.

Ministers now say they will take forward each part of the Bill separately but, after so many broken promises and no clear timetable, how do they expect the public to trust them to deliver? Two years ago, when the Bill was introduced, the Government

“committed to improving our already world-leading standards”,

but that is a far cry from the reality we see today. Under this Government’s watch, Britain’s proud record of being a leader on animal welfare standards is quickly diminishing. We are now falling behind Australia on banning primates as pets, behind the EU on ending the use of cages in farming and behind New Zealand on ending live exports.

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

Is the hon. Lady aware that, yesterday, we announced a consultation on banning primates as pets, which will enable us, through secondary legislation, to get that on to the statute book far faster than if we relied on the kept animals Bill? Does she agree?

[Gill Furniss]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. We already have a Bill ready to go. It is oven-ready. It reached Second Reading and was ready to go the full distance. Her party chose to put a stop to it.

That U-turn flies in the face of so many experts on the frontline tackling these issues. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has warned that the UK is

“facing the prospect of a dramatic downward spiral in animal welfare.”

It makes no bones about it: while this Government dither, animals suffer.

We are a nation of animal lovers. Polling shows that 80% of the public agree that animal welfare should be protected by the Government through legislation. Very few issues garner as much widespread public support as this one. It is therefore all the more baffling that Ministers would choose to turn their backs on all those who wish to see change.

The only people celebrating will be those who benefit from these terrible practices that will now remain legal. It just shows whose side this Government are on: not the millions of us who want to see an end to the abuse and mistreatment of animals, but those who continue to profit from puppy smuggling and other despicable practices.

I know the Minister and have every respect for her; we have worked together on a number of issues over the years and I know of her compassion. I only fear that she has been sent here today to defend the indefensible. I hope Members will send a strong message today that we are committed to ending animal suffering once and for all by voting in favour of the motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

Animal welfare is incredibly important to everybody in Southend and Leigh-on-Sea. Building on the incredible legacy of Sir David, the animal champion in this place, I have already been vocal on the issue of animal welfare. I have introduced a ten-minute rule Bill, known as Emilie’s law, to try to do something about the growing and horrendous incidents of dog-on-dog attacks. Emilie’s law, the Animal Welfare (Responsibility for Dog Attacks) Bill, seeks to address a key gap in the law. As things currently stand, a dog owner is not liable for any form of criminal prosecution when their dog fatally attacks another dog. I very much hope that the Government can find a mechanism for correcting this loophole in the law. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for his support, and I was shocked to hear the horrendous story in his own constituency.

I am also a patron of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation. I am incredibly proud of this Government’s record on animal welfare. I have been shocked to hear what Labour Members have been saying this afternoon. On farms, we have introduced new regulations for minimum standards for meat chickens. We have made CCTV mandatory in slaughterhouses in England. For pets, microchipping became mandatory for dogs in 2015. We have protected service animals via Finn’s law. We have banned the commercial third-party sales of puppies and kittens through Lucy’s law. In 2019, our Wild Animals in Circuses Act became law, and we have led work to implement humane trapping standards. We have also introduced the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021, extending animal cruelty sentences from six months to five years’ imprisonment, thanks to all the hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), who cannot speak in this debate. We also published an ambitious and comprehensive action plan for animal welfare in May 2021, which relates not just to farm animals, but to wild animals, pets and sporting animals. It has both domestic and international ambition.

Rather than backing those improvements, Labour Members are playing political games. Yet when we look at the devolved Welsh Administration, we can see that their record on animal welfare is shambolic. Let me give just one example. This year, we legislated to make cat microchipping compulsory to help reunite more lost cats with their owners. We are the only nation in the UK to have done so. The Labour-led Welsh Government have not announced any plans to follow our lead.

In conclusion, I shall be standing with this Government, and I look forward to helping them maintain their strong record on animal welfare. They have my full support and the support of all my constituents in Southend and Leigh-on-Sea.