Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD) [V]]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, I welcome and support this Bill, which will increase sentencing for animal welfare offences from six months to five years. It has been ably introduced today by the noble Lord, Lord Randall, and I commend him and Chris Loder in the other place for all they have done on this matter.

In January 2017, when I first asked in this House what plans the Government had to increase penalties for animal welfare offences, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, replied that the Government had no current plans to increase the maximum penalties for those offences. It is thanks to campaigning across parties and in civil society—I pay tribute to the work of the RSPCA, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home and others—that those arguments, already being made again today, have led the Government to reconsider. I thank them for that.

As I say, the case has been made powerfully and I am not going to repeat it. But we are all human and I felt a fair degree of emotion—indeed, abject horror—when hearing of some of the cases which have been making a mockery of our sense of justice. The noble Lord, Lord Randall, mentioned some of them, but the one that really turned my stomach was of a man torturing a hedgehog by cutting off its limbs and covering its face with candle wax. He received just 26 weeks’ imprisonment. It is right that this Bill will introduce an appropriate level of punishment for the crime and that our important principle of justice will be upheld.

There is, however, more we can and should do for those abused and ill-treated animals who survive these appalling cases and are rescued by animal welfare centres and organisations in England and Wales. At present, these organisations rehome those animals, but they have to wait until the court proceedings are completed to do so. In Scotland, they have agreed to introduce a law allowing rehoming after 20 days.

The Minister would be surprised if I did not always ask for yet more to protect animals. I would not dream of prejudicing this important legislation in clearing its final parliamentary hurdles. However, I hope that once the Bill is safely on the statute book, the Government will turn their attention to this matter and introduce legislation to stop the delays, often of months and sometimes years, which prevent abused and ill-treated animals getting a second chance of a loving and permanent home.