Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 23rd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend, I support a strong legislative framework and good laws, having attended the same university as him, the University of Dundee—Queen’s College as was. Does he agree that the Bill still represents a step-change in the way that we treat animal welfare in this country and that any improvement in the sentencing framework has to be a positive thing?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Obviously, I accept that raising the maximum penalty from six months to five years is quite a dramatic change, although it is significant, as is clear from the notes, that the Government could have doubled it from six months to one year if they had implemented section 281(5) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. That could have been done years ago. It still has not been done and perhaps the Minister will address that issue in her remarks.

I am not suggesting that the Bill is not better than nothing, but I am suggesting that it is being used to suggest that there will be a lot more people sent to prison as a result, and the reality of the policy is that there will not be any more people sent to prison, but that those who are sent to prison will be sent for longer periods. That is what it says here. That will be very welcome and the increase in the maximum penalties will be part of the deterrent process, but how many more people will be sent to prison? We know that they say the cost will be £500,000 per annum. As it costs about £45,000 a year to keep somebody in prison, we are talking about between 10 and 12 persons in prison per annum as a result of the Bill.

[Chris Clarkson]

I thank my hon. Friend for indulging me a second time. To use the technical legal term, I believe the best way to see whether that would actually happen is to “suck it and see”. I have some sympathy for what he says about a legislative impact assessment. If he wants to bring forward a private Member’s Bill on that, I would be inclined to speak to it.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Well, that is another one on the agenda for the next Session of Parliament, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I will just conclude by saying that there is another element to this: the Sentencing Council guidelines for dealing with animal welfare offences. They say that a period of imprisonment should be merited only in the most serious offences. My concern about the Sentencing Council guidelines—perhaps the Minister could address this, too—is that they constrain the ability of magistrates in particular to impose the penalty that they think is appropriate, having regard to all the circumstances. If this House decides, as it wants to do today, to impose a maximum sentence of five years, is it reasonable for the unaccounted people who deal with the sentencing guidelines to bring in guidelines that suggest that there should not be many penalties of five years imposed by the Crown courts? So we have a real problem: the legislature has ceded control, or a significant part of control, over sentencing to the Sentencing Council.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on introducing this important Bill. As a fourth-generation farmer’s son and a lifelong advocate for animal welfare, I do not believe that the Bill could have found itself a better champion, and neither could Poppy.

I strongly agree with colleagues who have articulated the view that more stringent sentencing will act as a greater deterrent against animal cruelty. The maximum five-year sentence will become one of the toughest punishments in the world, bringing us in line with countries such as Canada, New Zealand, Ireland and India, and will further enhance the United Kingdom’s reputation as a world leader in animal welfare—a badge that we should wear with pride. My hon. Friends the Members for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson) have articulated the link between animal abuse and domestic abuse and violence. It is important to bear it in mind that in supporting this Bill we could also be stopping that behaviour in the future.

We are a nation that is proud of being known for our affection for animals. I assure my hon. Friends that the Bill has my full support and, judging from my inbox, that of my constituents in Heywood and Middleton. They are clear that there is no place in our society for cruelty to animals, and those who choose to inflict terror on animals should be met with the full force of the law. It was a great shock to me—this has been referred to by many other hon. Members, but I believe it worth repeating—that in 2019 the RSPCA investigated more than 130,000 complaints of cruelty to animals and secured only 1,678 convictions.

This Bill sends a clear message that the inhumane treatment of animals has no place in a civilised society. It builds on the excellent measures introduced in the Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Act 2019, which made it an offence to cause unnecessary suffering to service animals, and addresses the concerns raised by the Finn’s law campaign. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) pointed out that this is an urgent matter for his constituents; it is an urgent matter for mine in Heywood and Middleton, as evidenced by the amount of biro on what was a very long speech.

One of the earliest proponents of animal rights, Jeremy Bentham, said that

“the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”

Ending the cruel and inhumane suffering of animals must surely be one of the yardsticks by which we judge the civility of our nation. I believe that the Bill goes some considerable way to achieving that goal.