Sale of Puppies

Emma Little Pengelly Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Westminster Hall

[George Eustice]

There were prosecutions. Actually, some 700 puppies were seized in the course of three years for being under the age of 12 weeks. When we were looking at the issue around a year ago, I asked officials whether there was a pattern of it being a small number of individuals, but generally speaking it was a diverse range of individuals often doing one-off trades rather than high-velocity trades. Others are using different people to bring animals in. It is difficult to discern a pattern of it being, for example, a small number of people who are very difficult to challenge. There have been prosecutions in the past, including through Operation Bloodhound a couple of years ago. I understand there have also been prosecutions related to some of the interventions.

[Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)]

The Minister might be aware that we increased the sentencing powers for judges two to three years ago in Northern Ireland. Will he undertake to examine the roll-out and the effectiveness of that change in Northern Ireland and so consider whether he should increase sentences across the UK?

[George Eustice]

We have made it clear that our intention is to raise the maximum penalty for animal cruelty offences—the most sickening offences that take place—to five years. As part of our work on that, we will of course want to look at the approach taken by other parts of the UK and any lessons we might be able to learn from that.

We published a draft Bill in December. It will allow the courts to set realistic sentences for the extreme cases of animal cruelty that I know sicken all right-minded people, including every Member participating in this debate. We will seek an appropriate opportunity to bring forward the legislation to make that change.

I want to touch briefly on another contentious issue, which is the use of electronic training collars for dogs and cats. This is another area where we have been doing some work. We have recently completed a public consultation on a proposal to ban the use of such devices. It closed on 27 April, and we received around 7,500 responses, which we are analysing. There was a very high response rate, and the consultation sparked passionate views on both sides of the containment fence. We will consider those representations and announce further steps in due course.