Pet Abduction Bill

George Freeman Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anna Firth]

It is absolutely being taken into account; I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point. There is no discrimination between cats and dogs when it comes to the penalty—they are being treated equally. It is only the way in which the offences are framed that is different. I absolutely take the point, and hope to illustrate it in more detail later.

Let me complete the story. Two cats reappeared, although one, sadly, reappeared dead on the road, and the other two are still unaccounted for. These tales abound wherever we go. Debbie Matthews, the daughter of the late, great Sir Bruce Forsyth—the only host, in my opinion, of “The Generation Game”—

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Didn’t he do well?

[Anna Firth]

Didn’t he do well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Firth]

I share my hon. Friend’s interest in that area. Of course, those are questions that I have asked myself, and I think the answer is twofold. First, the police will have to assign a unique identifier to this separate offence, so we will finally be able to see the scale of the offence and which police forces are taking it seriously and enforcing the law on it. Of course, it would not be logical to suddenly find that pet theft is happening in only one or two counties but not in others—the degree might vary, but the offence is happening all over the country. Making it compulsory for the police to assign a unique identifier will, in itself, lead to greater enforcement.

The other point, which my hon. Friend does not directly touch on, is the sentencing for this offence. He will know that there have been many attempts to strengthen the sentencing guidelines, but he will also know, as a lawyer himself, about the separation of powers and that that is not a role for this place. However, by having a separate offence, there will be separate sentencing guidelines. I hope he is assured by that.

[George Freeman]

I strongly support the Bill and hope to catch Madam Deputy Speaker’s eye a little later.

On the point about the obligations and the legalities, I am reminded of a good friend of mine whose dog strayed on Hampstead Heath, was picked up by somebody, tied on a railing with a piece of string, and then stolen. Will my hon. Friend, and/or the Minister remind the House about the current differential obligations for dogs and cats, and what one is bound in law to do if one finds a dog or a cat at the moment, and under this Bill? What are everyone’s responsibilities?

[Anna Firth]

My hon. Friend raises a very important and interesting point, which we could discuss because there are already obligations on the statute book, as he knows. I will come on to deal with some of the points he has raised.

I want to turn next to the purposes of the Bill. The golden thread running through this Bill is that dogs and cats are sentient beings. They are not mere property; animals and humans can and do form emotional bonds and there is a devastating impact when animal abduction takes place, both on people and on pets. That needs to be properly reflected in our criminal law.

Hon. Members will know that the theft of a cat or dog is already a crime under the Theft Act 1968 and the Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969, but under those Acts the sentience and intrinsic value of animals is not recognised. So currently, in sentencing, a stolen rescue labrador is treated as no different from a stolen power tool, mobile phone, or computer—indeed, the theft of a labrador is probably treated as lesser since computers and smartphones are often of high value and considerations of financial value run through the Theft Act.

Pets are of course not mere property; we have heard many examples of that already in this debate. This Bill will create two specific offences of cat abduction and dog abduction in England and Northern Ireland. So if a pet is abducted, that will not be treated in the same way as the theft of a watch or a mobile phone or a power tool, all of which can easily be replaced. They might be worth a lot of money and replacing them might be inconvenient, but the item itself is not affected by the crime, whereas a pet is. The Bill recognises that pets are family, not property, and the trauma suffered by both the owner and the pet when the pet is abducted is very significant, and it is the intention of the Bill to allow the courts to consider this impact on both the owner and the welfare of the animal when deciding on the penalty.

The second issue the Bill addresses is that pet theft and abduction do not currently have a unique identifier in crime datasets. That is why it is so difficult to identify the number of pets stolen every year: it is impossible to distinguish in many police records between the theft of an inanimate object and the theft of an animal. Of course, some dogs and cats will be taken as part of a burglary or a robbery, so the fact that an animal has been involved will not be mentioned at all in police records.

In preparing for this Second Reading debate I issued freedom of information requests to all 45 territorial police forces in the UK asking for the number of pets stolen each year since 2019. The responses I received perfectly articulate the problem we face. As of this morning I had received responses from 30 of the police forces, but 12 of those 30 told me that they are unable to provide the information requested as their records do not distinguish theft of pets from general theft of objects. That means that I have only been able to compile for myself information on the covered areas, making up around 29% of the population of the UK. By introducing this unique identifier, we will help the recording of the crime and see the true extent of it.

The offences themselves will cover the taking of a cat or a dog, but also the detaining of a dog. Cats and dogs are the most commonly kept pets in our country. It is now estimated that over a quarter of all adults own one or both of those pets, so dogs and cats seemed the appropriate place to start, but the species are different, and are treated differently in the Bill. The detaining offence, which we have already talked about, does not apply to cats, as they generally have more freedom to roam without their owners. The Bill is not intended to punish incidents where there has been no malice or ill intent in looking after a cat that has voluntarily come to another person’s home. Many of us will have read the children’s book “Six Dinner Sid”, in which Sid the cat has his dinner at six different houses on the same street.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Firth]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I cannot be prescriptive today about how that will be demonstrated, but I can assure her that there would have to be evidence. The court could not take distress into account without some reasonable evidence. Sometimes, that evidence will be self-evident. Sometimes, it will be provided by owners or passers-by. I am not suggesting that it would have to be expert evidence, but there should be some evidence for the court to look at.

Finally, I pay tribute to all the organisations that have been involved in getting us to this stage. I have mentioned the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation; I should also like to mention Cats Protection, the Dogs Trust, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, Refuge, Iain Dale and LBC, and of course Southend’s own Tilly’s Angels, and thank them for all their invaluable support and engagement with the Bill.

If the Bill is enacted, we will have better protections for our pets, we will have offences that duly recognise that our pets are sentient beings, we will be better able to record and track pet abduction, we will have a better deterrent, and I hope we will see a prosecution rate greater than 1%, which is what it is now. Pets are valuable and much-loved members of our family. They ask little of us in return for their love and loyalty—

[George Freeman]

Not cats.

[Anna Firth]

Except in the case of some cats, pets ask little other than that we keep them safe. They deserve our support and protection. I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for their support.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to you for your long-standing work on animal welfare issues in this House over the years. I will be brief, as I know there are a number of very good private Members’ Bills waiting to be heard today.

I want to speak on behalf of the people of Mid Norfolk, and on behalf of Tosca, our 14-year-old cat, and Jassy, our two-year-old fox red Labrador. It is a joy to have their names in the Official Report. The pets of this country need us to act on their behalf, just like the many people who, in a civilised society, need parliamentarians to speak for them, including the children who cannot vote and all those who need us to take their interests seriously.

More importantly, for all those who have suffered the appalling trauma of pet abduction, it is not a victimless crime. For many people in this country, the abduction or theft of their pet is every bit as serious, if not more serious and traumatic, than the loss of a wallet or the other things that the police generally think of as more serious crimes. I pay tribute to my great friend, the hon. Member for Southend West (Anna Firth), for introducing this Bill and securing Government support. I also thank the Minister for her support. This enlightened Government are working with Back Benchers on both sides of the House to put in place good legislation that the people of this country want.

Our late, great friend, the former hon. Member for Southend West, David Amess—whose shield stands proudly behind his successor—would have been to the fore on this Bill. He was a great champion, as the current hon. Member for Southend West is, of pets and animal welfare.

My dear friend Marika had a beautiful miniature pinscher, which is just about the smallest dog possible. The dog became lost in the undergrowth on Hampstead Heath and somebody found him. Strangely, rather than take this tiny dog—a puppy—to someone or look for the person who had obviously lost him, this person decided, in their haste, to tie the puppy to a railing with a piece of string and abandon him. After an hour of searching, when Marika was told that the dog had been seen, she rushed to the railing to find him stolen, and the puppy’s body was found just off the North Circular 24 hours later.

Five years later, the trauma is ongoing. Marika will be distressed to be reminded of it, but I know she wants me to raise the case, which she has also raised with her local MP. She is delighted that the Bill is being debated on the Floor of the House and that the Government are supporting it.

I am conscious of time, so I will not rehearse the excellent arguments about the legalities. I simply want to take this opportunity to invite the Minister to remind those listening that the Environmental Protection Act 1990—I defer to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland), the former Lord Chancellor and Solicitor General—made it clear that anyone who finds a stray dog has a duty in law to make sure it is returned to a person in office or to the police. The person who decided they were too busy to take Marika’s dog to the park wardens at Hampstead Heath, or to anybody, and tied it up and abandoned it actually committed an offence. It is really important that people understand that as citizens, we all have a duty to dogs. Today’s Bill strengthens that obligation, as well as the criminal sanctions against those who do not exercise their responsibilities and who commit this appalling crime—against pets, but every bit as appallingly, against the people who love their pets and suffer the trauma.

I want to briefly highlight some excellent work going on in Mid Norfolk, and some of the terrible stories that I have seen in my work. Cats Protection in Longham—the Opposition Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), will know it well as a former candidate in Mid Norfolk—does brilliant work on rehoming and microchipping. I am really delighted to see the microchipping framework extended in this Bill. I also want to highlight DogLost in Norfolk and Suffolk, which does great work. My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) supports that organisation; it has 25,000 members, which speaks to the importance of this issue across our part of the world and across the country.

Personally, I want to highlight Alex Dann of Dann’s Ice Cream in North Tuddenham, who had his dog Patch stolen from beside his ice cream van. He had not lost him, neglected him or left him: while he was serving customers ice cream, somebody stole his dog, and it was reported in the excellent Eastern Daily Press. Rita and Philip Potter also had their Labrador Daisy stolen—I could go on. This is not a victimless crime: it is a crime that causes huge trauma. Pets are doing a huge social service for us all; many people rely on their pets, not just for the glories that they bring to daily life but to help them with mental health conditions, loneliness and a whole raft of conditions that cause huge pain. I am not suggesting that pets should be brought under the provisions of the Department of Health and Social Care, or funded for those purposes, but we should at least acknowledge that they are doing hugely important and good work, which makes the crime of pet theft all the more appalling.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I will not test your or the House’s patience any further. I just want to put on record my support for this Bill and for my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West, and my joy at seeing all parties in this House come together in support of something that the public will be delighted to see Parliament putting in place.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Opposition Front Bencher.

Pet Abduction Bill

George Freeman Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for considering my Bill and being in Committee today. Before we get into the meat of the Bill, I would like to say a number of thank yous. In particular, I will take the opportunity to thank Baron Douglas-Miller, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), my right hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood and all the officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as well as Anne-Marie Griffiths in the Public Bill Office, for all the support I have received to get to this point.

I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal, my hon. Friends the Members for West Dorset, for Darlington, for Dover, for Mid Norfolk, for Wolverhampton North East and for Bury North and the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty for taking time out of their busy mornings to be here. Finally, I must thank Debbie Matthews of the Stolen and Missing Pets Alliance, Dr Dan Allen from Keele University, Toni Clarke and the rest of the team at Pet Theft Awareness, the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, Cats Protection, the Dogs Trust, Battersea Cats and Dogs Home, Refuge and of course Southend’s very own Tilly’s Angels and Ann Cushion for their invaluable support and engagement with the Bill.

I welcome the Government’s support for the legislation. This Government have taken huge strides in extending animal welfare, and the Bill marks another big step in the right direction. We heard many passionate and cross-party speeches in support of the Bill on Second Reading, with many stories from Members about their and their constituents’ pets. Those stories show so clearly how much our pets mean to us and our constituents, and what a cruel and sickening offence pet abduction actually is. The current law treats the abduction of a pet as if it was the theft of property, goods or an inanimate object, which does not reflect the position that pets now have in our society and the fact that they are sentient beings. We also know that we do not have easily accessible records of the unlawful taking of pets, because of the ways those crimes are recorded. Solving that is a key part of my Bill, in order to make it easier to address the issue and ensure that pet abductions are recorded separately.

I will not repeat everything that I said in the Chamber on Second Reading, but I will repeat this: Britain is a nation of animal lovers. Pets are part of our families; they make a house a home. The distress caused to not just the animal but the family when one of our beloved pets is suddenly and unlawfully taken from us is heartbreaking, which is why reform of our laws in the area is so long overdue and much needed. The new offences of pet abduction that the Bill introduces will focus on dogs and cats, but there are enabling powers in the Bill to extend the offences to other species of pet animals in the future, where appropriate, by way of regulations.

I will now run through the clauses and their effects. Clause 1 deals with dog abduction, making it an offence for a person to take or detain a dog, thus removing it or keeping it from the lawful control of any person, or from any person who is entitled to have lawful control of it, such as a dog walker, a dog sitter or a vet. Both the person and the dog need to be in England or Northern Ireland at the time that the dog is taken or detained for the offence to be made out.

There are a number of safeguards and exemptions, which are set out in the Bill. First, the pet theft taskforce heard evidence that a majority of reported pet theft cases involved domestic disputes between partners and the Bill does not seek to criminalise that sort of case. Therefore, subsection (2) sets out that no offence is committed where a dog is taken or detained from a household where the dog had entered that household after the two people had started living together. Subsection (3) sets out that it is a defence for a person to show that they had lawful authority or a reasonable excuse to take or detain the dog. Again, such a person would include a vet or dog sitter.

Subsections (4) and (5) provide specific defences in relation to stray dogs in England and unaccompanied dogs in Northern Ireland, taking into account the statutory requirements that exist in the two jurisdictions. For example, members of the public who find and take possession of a stray dog in England have a duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 either to return it directly to its owner or to take it to the local authority of the area in which it was found.

Therefore, any member of the public who retains possession of a stray dog for more than 96 hours—four days and four nights—and neither returns it to the owner nor takes it to the local authority could be, in theory, in scope of the offence of pet abduction. However, there is of course the fall-back defence of “reasonable excuse”, to ensure treatment on a case-by-case basis and to ensure we do not inadvertently criminalise well-meaning behaviour.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this Bill, which has such strong cross-party support. I raised on Second Reading what happens and what the obligations are on people when they come across a dog that has become separated from its owner, as happened to Marika Cobbold, who has written widely about this issue. Her puppy was picked up by somebody on Hampstead heath. That man texted her on the mobile number on the dog’s tag, but was then in such a hurry that he left the dog tied with a piece of string to a railing, from which it was then stolen. I believe that that man had an obligation to do something rather better than to leave the dog tied to a railing, and I just wanted to make sure that this Bill will not inadvertently undermine the obligation on people to ensure that, if they find a dog, they take it to somebody and make sure it is in good care.

[Anna Firth]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is exactly why I have reiterated the obligations in England on a person who finds a dog in just that scenario. They are still under the duty set out in the 1990 Act either to return the dog to its owner or to take it to the local authority.

[George Freeman]

Excellent.

[Anna Firth]

I hope that puts my hon. Friend’s mind at rest.

[George Freeman]

Thank you.

[Anna Firth]

Subsection (6) provides that, in relation to the three safeguard defences or exemptions set out in clause 1, as long as sufficient evidence of the defence is established, the burden will move on to the prosecution to disprove the defence beyond reasonable doubt.

Regarding the penalties for these offences, a dog abduction will be a triable offence either way. Conviction on indictment will carry a maximum term of five years’ imprisonment or a fine, or both. Summary conviction in England and Wales carries a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding the general limit in a magistrate’s court, which is currently six months, a fine or both. Summary conviction in Northern Ireland carries a penalty imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months, a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or both. Lastly, subsection (8) of clause 1 includes definitions for “taking” and “detaining” for the purposes of the clause.

We come on to clause 2, which deals with cats. Cats have been added following a lot of work by the pet theft taskforce and the all-party parliamentary group on cats. It makes it an offence for a person to take a cat in England and Northern Ireland so as

“to remove it from the lawful control of any person”.

While the taking of a cat can be an offence, detaining a cat will not be, thus reflecting the different behaviour, with cats being more free-roaming than dogs. That definition also avoids criminalising well-meaning behaviour where a person looks after a cat that they thought was stray, abandoned or lost. That is the “Granny Meow” difference, which was much discussed on Second Reading.

As with clause 1, subsection (2) creates a mirror exemption, identical to the case of dogs, to exclude from the scope of the offence domestic disputes over the custody of a cat between partners going their separate ways. Again, as with clause 1, subsection (3) sets out a mirror defence of

“lawful authority or a reasonable excuse for taking the cat”

and again, as with clause 1, the cat abduction offence is triable either way and the penalty provisions are identical to that of dog abduction. There is no hierarchy or difference between dogs and cats.

Clause 3 is the enabling clause, which enables other animals commonly kept as pets to be protected at a later date. Clause 3 gives a power to the appropriate national authority in England or Northern Ireland to amend the Bill to extend the offences in clause 1 or 2 to include further species of animal commonly kept as pets. The power may be exercised when there is evidence that there is a significant increase in incidents of unlawful taking or detaining of animals of that species.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Firth]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal for tabling this amendment. I particularly thank her for her expertise, which has been of great value to me in bringing the Bill forward, and for her contribution on Second Reading, which was much appreciated. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) for making a firm commitment at the Dispatch Box on Second Reading that the offences will be commenced in England within three months of Royal Assent, which has been repeated and endorsed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood this morning. I welcome this amendment, it has my full support, and I am grateful to the Minister for his full support as well.

Clause 6 sets out how and when each provision in the Bill comes into force in Northern Ireland. It provides for clause 1 on dog abduction, clause 2 on cat abduction and clause 4 on consequential provision of sections 1 and 2 to come into force by order made by DAERA. Clause 6(3) sets out that clause 3, which contains the Bill’s enabling power to extend the offences to other species, and clauses 5, 6 and 7 will come into force on the day on which the Act is passed.

Clause 6 also provides a power for the Secretary of State and DAERA to make transitional or saving provisions in connection with commencement and to include different provision for different purposes. Clause 7 sets out the short title of the Bill. It will be known as the Pet Abduction Act 2024. Finally, I thank all Members for their contributions—

[George Freeman]

May I just give my hon. Friend the opportunity to make clear to those listening and reading what the police will understand as a result of this Act about changes to their powers? What will forces around the country be able to do in three months that they have not been able to do until now?

[Anna Firth]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is absolutely right; the proof of the pudding will be in the enforcement of the Bill. The police need to now know that there will be two separate offences of cat and dog abduction, that these will have a unique identifying crime number and that these offences must be enforced. We expect the police to use their powers to investigate and bring these cases forward and get proper sentences when someone’s dog or cat is abducted. By having a separate recording system, we expect every police force to be recording these offences so that we can look across the piece and see which police forces are taking action and which are not. It is therefore vital that the police are clear about the new powers and use them.

Finally, I thank you, Sir George, for chairing this Committee. I thank the Minister, and I thank the hon. Member for West Dorset for his steady and reassuring presence. I thank hon. Members who have spoken, and I give perhaps even bigger thanks to hon. Members who have not spoken.