Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

In our home, pets are not property; they are members of the family. There is Geoffrey the tortoise, whose sole aim in life seems to be to find the most obscure and inaccessible corner of the room to sit in for the day. The back of the fireplace is his perennial favourite, and crawling in there to retrieve him has become an evening ritual in our house. We then have Florence, Vera and Coco. They are alpacas, although someone who happened to wander into their paddock with a handful of carrots could be forgiven for thinking they were dealing with a shoal of piranhas. Then there is the newest member, Sergeant Wilson the donkey, whose mission is to eat the world—even if it does involve getting his head stuck in the fence while trying to reach for the raspberry canes.

Many of my constituents have been in touch with me to express their concerns about pet theft over the pandemic, so I started a Rushcliffe pet theft survey to listen to people’s views: 96% of people told me that they were worried about pet theft; 30% said that they had been, or knew someone who had been personally affected by it; and 90% have taken extra precautions to ensure that their pet is not stolen. There was varying support for different measures to help to tackle pet theft: 44% wanted tougher sentences; 22% wanted to create a separate offence; 17% wanted more regulation on pet selling; and 15% wanted more support from the police. So I am pleased that the pet theft taskforce will be addressing all those points and considering the issue in its entirety, including causes, prevention, reporting, enforcement and prosecution.

There are a number of fundamental issues to think through. Should we be thinking of pet theft as theft at all, or is it close to abduction? So many contributions here tonight have talked about pets as members of the family. What about the animal cruelty element? At present, if someone causes an animal to suffer in the course of stealing it from the owner, they can be prosecuted under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. But are not all acts of wrenching a pet away from the family who love and care for it an act of animal cruelty? What about sentencing? We already have a maximum term of seven years, yet it rarely seems to be used in the case of pet theft.

So I welcome the opportunity to debate these issues tonight, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and other right hon. and hon. Members for the amendments they have tabled that have enabled us to discuss the matter. I will not be supporting any at this stage because I think we need to see the result of the pet theft taskforce first, so that we have the data that we need to make the best decisions and ensure that we have strongest tools we need to deal with the people who want to steal our pets. I look forward to seeing the results in a couple of weeks’ time and to Ministers taking strong action to implement the taskforce’s recommendations in this Bill in the autumn. We owe it to our pets to make sure that we get this right.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab) [V]]

I wish to speak to new clauses 20 and 21 in my name, which refer to specific penalties for two road crimes.

Every year in this country, 1,700 people are killed and 26,000 seriously injured on our roads. It is the biggest killer of young people between the ages of five and 29 and there has been a feeling not just in this House, but particularly among the families of road crime victims that the penalties for road traffic offences often do not fit the crimes and that road crime is not treated like real crime.

The Government promised a full review of road traffic offences and penalties in 2014, but that has yet to happen. The Bill introduces small but welcome changes to the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving and a new offence of causing injury by careless driving, but it leaves a number of serious flaws in our traffic laws in place and my amendments would address two of the most glaring ones.

First, on the failure to stop and report an accident—more commonly known as hit and run—for which the maximum sentence is currently only six months, just one of the many cases raised by road safety and motoring organisations to Members of this House was that of the Cornish postman Ryan Saltern. He was killed by a hit-and-run driver, who received just a four-month sentence and a 12-month driving ban. My new clause 20 proposes a maximum sentence of 14 years where a driver fails to stop and exchange details or report the collision to the police in cases where they knew, or ought reasonably to have known, that a serious or fatal injury had occurred, or might have occurred.

New clause 21 addresses the issue of exceptional hardship. This is a plea that road criminals can often make to avoid losing their licence. From 2011 to 2020, there were 83,581 cases where drivers were let off a driving ban by pleading exceptional hardship. When Christopher Gard hit and killed cyclist Lee Martin in 2015, it was the ninth time in six years that he had been caught using a mobile phone while driving. He had been convicted and fined six times and sent on two driver retraining courses. He should have been disqualified, but magistrates had repeatedly accepted his plea that a ban would cause him exceptional hardship. He kept his licence, and Lee Martin was killed.

Courts have accepted a range of problems, such as not being able to do the school run or damage to a relationship, as exceptional, and as a plea against disqualification that has brought this cause into disrepute. My new clause requires that a court should regard hardship as exceptional if, and only if, it is significantly greater than the hardship that would arise if the same qualification were imposed on a large majority of other drivers. It is vital that the Government fulfil their seven-year promise of a full review of traffic offences. In the meantime, these are two modest improvements to two of the most egregious areas, where most reasonable people agree that all too often, the punishment does not fit the crime. I do not intend to push the amendments to a vote, but I hope the Government will accept them, if not here, then in the other place.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

Keeping people safe and secure is a priority for any Government, particularly this one. That is why I am delighted to speak in this important debate. I am fortunate to live in Devon, which enjoys the second lowest crime rate in the country. Crime continues to fall, in no small part thanks to the excellent work of the Devon and Cornwall police, and our excellent police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez. However, even in my remote rural constituency, concerns about an increase in pet theft are growing. As a dog owner, indeed a pet lover, I can only imagine the distress of losing my four-legged best friend. This is not the first time I have raised this issue in the House, and I am delighted that the cross-Government pet theft taskforce has been launched, better to understand and tackle the issue.

While crime may be low in Devon and Cornwall, in the past three years there have been 256 reports of dog theft, yet just two people have been charged. I am pleased that the maximum sentence for dog theft is already seven years, but that is no deterrent if no one is prosecuted. Understanding that disjoint is vital, and I hope that the taskforce will come up with a solution to increase prosecution rates and deter further canine crimes. Locally, our police and crime commissioner has highlighted issues regarding how dog thefts are reported. Classing such thefts as merely theft of property is a contributory factor to low prosecution rates, but there are many others. Unfortunately, the taskforce will not report until later this summer, but I am delighted that its policy recommendations may be made in the Lords, before the Bill returns to the Commons, to ensure that it adequately reflects what is truly needed. We are a nation of animal lovers, and it is vital that our animal companions are as safe and secure as their owners.

We are also a nation of shopkeepers. Some of the reports I have heard about the abuse received by retail workers, particularly during the pandemic, are horrifying. It is unacceptable that key workers, who have gone to work throughout the pandemic to ensure that we could access the items we needed, have been treated in this way. I warmly welcome our review into this area, which found that not reporting offences, and wider concerns about how the police handled those reports, were and are important issues that need addressing. I understand that Lords amendments may be considered, if required, to ensure that such offences are treated with the seriousness they rightly deserve.

I support the detailed analysis of such issues by the Ministry of Justice, to ensure that amendments, if needed, are tabled when the data are fully available, rather than being like many of the knee-jerk Opposition amendments, which frequently are poorly thought through, and in many cases seek to reduce sentences for those who commit crimes, rather than ensure that criminals see the justice they deserve.