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

Debate between Danny Chambers and Lisa Smart

3rd reading
Friday 4th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Chambers]

I very much appreciate that intervention from my hon. Friend. Yes, one important part of this Bill—which I will come on to—is biosecurity. There are a lot of diseases that we do not see in the UK that can affect humans as well, such as rabies and Brucella canis. There are also diseases such as distemper that affect other dogs; we do not see those diseases in the UK, but there is a risk of them coming in and becoming endemic. My partner Emma, who is here today, is an epidemiologist at the University of Surrey, studying diseases such as rabies in dogs and the risk of them transferring across borders. It is a very live issue.

Those who purchase an animal are often completely unaware of the smuggling process, which is devastating. When people go to buy a puppy, they are completely unaware that there is a reasonable chance that it has been smuggled in from abroad.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is laying out clearly the need for change. A number of my constituents, including Ann from Bredbury, Shannon from Marple and Ashley from High Lane, have been in touch to ask me to support him in his endeavours. People are staggered that some of these practices are not yet outlawed. Does he agree that some of his proposals in the Bill are closing loopholes that people already expect to be closed?

[Dr Chambers]

That is an insightful intervention from my hon. Friend. Yes, most people are shocked at the sheer scale of puppy smuggling. The Dogs Trust did a study looking at one of the online platforms with puppy adverts, and up to 50% of those adverts turned out to be for puppies that had possibly been smuggled in from abroad. In the last 12 months, one in five vets said they had treated animals that they believed had been smuggled from abroad. This is not a niche issue; it is a systemic issue within the pet trade, and these loopholes need to be closed.

Police Grant Report

Debate between Danny Chambers and Lisa Smart

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I rise today to address some of the urgent issues affecting communities across the country. Everyone deserves to feel safe in their home and while walking through their own neighbourhood, but for many people in the UK today, that is simply not the reality. The previous Conservative Government failed to keep our communities safe from crime by decimating neighbourhood policing, taking officers off our streets and leaving our communities far less safe. Our communities look to the Government to step up and fix this by properly funding the officers our communities need, not simply passing the buck to local police chiefs to put up people’s council tax instead.

My constituency of Hazel Grove, while undoubtedly the finest in the country, sees crime rates higher than any of us would want to see, and a force that is straining to give our community the policing it needs. In towns and villages like Marple or Romiley, shop workers are facing a surge in shop theft, with little expectation that the police will be able to respond effectively. For them it has become simply part of the job; that is unacceptable. In recent weeks in Romiley, a string of burglaries has hit small businesses, including a pet shop, a nail salon and even a charity shop. Small businesses are already struggling with rising costs, and many cannot afford to keep taking losses in this way.

The reality is that neighbourhood policing has been gutted. It is no wonder that 6,000 cases are closed daily in England and Wales without a suspect being identified, and that just 6% of crimes reported to the police result in a suspect being charged. The previous Conservative Government slashed over 4,500 police community support officers since 2015, leaving fewer officers to prevent and respond to these crimes. It is exactly those PCSOs who called on the small business in my patch to check in on them after they had been burgled, and exactly that sort of community policing that victims value.

One of the most persistent issues raised on doorsteps in my constituency is the scourge of illegal offroad bikes. Whether in Offerton, Heaviley or High Lane, residents are intimidated by this antisocial and often dangerous behaviour. Bike theft is yet another example, with local gangs targeting cyclists, especially teenagers. A resident from Hazel Grove recently shared their fears after two violent bike thefts occurred within just one week near Aquinas college and on Chester Road. In Marple, residents have reported bike muggings occurring in broad daylight; children have been threatened with knives, pushed off their bikes, and had their bikes and phones stolen. These are exactly the kinds of issues that community policing should be addressing, but after years of cuts, neighbourhood policing teams lack the officers they need to do their jobs effectively. If we are serious about tackling antisocial behaviour, we must invest in more visible policing, ensuring that officers have the time and resources to act on these concerns.

The Lib Dems have long championed the local approach, and we would ensure that more police are on our streets by scrapping the expensive police and crime commissioner experiment, and investing the savings in frontline policing instead. We have also been calling for a new national online crime agency that would take over on issues like online fraud and abuse in an increasingly complex online world, leaving more time for local forces to tackle neighbourhood crime.

In her opening remarks, the Minister rightly thanked our police officers and talked about the phenomenally difficult and valuable job they do. The mental health situation in our police force needs attention. Like so many—too many—in our society, too many police officers are struggling to access the mental health support they need. One of my constituents, Louise from Hazel Grove, got in touch with me about her son, who is just 21 years old. As a new police officer, in only one week he had to respond to multiple suicides and, in one particularly harrowing case, a man who had been hit by a train. The emotional toll of such traumatic incidents is immense, yet in his station, Louise reports there are no mental health first aiders, no formal support is offered, and there is no access to psychological assistance. When her son raised his concerns with his sergeant—at the time the only person available to listen—he was simply placed on restricted duties with no promise of further help. That cannot be the standard response to officers who are struggling with the mental health issues associated with their work. If we fail to support our officers’ mental wellbeing, we will see brilliant, well-trained professionals leaving the force, further weakening our ability to keep communities safe.

The Lib Dems have also been clear about our support for tackling rural crime. NFU Mutual’s latest figures estimate that the cost of rural crime increased by 4.3% year on year to £52.8 million in 2023, as criminal gangs targeted farmyards and fields, looking to cash in on continuing high inflation and ready resale markets domestically and overseas.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

As a vet I spend a lot of time driving around rural areas, working with families and livery yard owners in the Meon valley in Hampshire, and in Madam Deputy Speaker’s beautiful constituency of Romsey. Rural crime is a huge issue. It is common, expensive and difficult to tackle. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the provisional police grant report does not specifically mention rural crime once?

[Lisa Smart]

I am sure that my hon. Friend accurately represented your constituency, Madam Deputy Speaker; if we are creeping, let’s all get in on that!

I share my hon. Friend’s concerns about the lack of specificity on rural crime. The Minister and I have discussed questions about rural crime before over the Dispatch Box. She is right that neighbourhoods are different and that neighbourhood policing can approach rural areas, urban areas and suburban areas differently, but all forces should have a rural focus and specificity. My area of Mellor is much more rural than, for example, Offerton, and the crime profile of those areas will be different, so I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) strongly on that.

I urge the new Labour Government to set up an independent taskforce to produce a strategy on tackling rural crime and then to implement that strategy. My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) has pushed for that with a Bill he has presented to this House. The Government should also extend the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 to include GPS theft—that crime contributed to a loss of £4.2 million in 2023 alone—and to enforce stricter penalties for livestock-related offences.

The issues I have raised today are not isolated concerns; they are the direct result of a decade of Government cuts and neglect. When our police forces are underfunded and overstretched, criminals feel they can act with impunity and law-abiding citizens are left to suffer the consequences. We cannot and we should not continue to accept a police system where shop theft becomes routine, where young people fear for their safety just going about living their lives, where rural crime goes unpunished and where our police do not get the support they desperately need. Our officers deserve better support and our communities deserve the reassurance of visible, effective policing. I urge the Government to take these concerns seriously and to commit to real investment in neighbourhood policing, mental health support for officers, and stronger enforcement to keep our streets safe. Our communities across the country deserve nothing less.