RSPCA (Prosecutions)
Hugh Bayley Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Simon Hart
The hon. Lady makes a useful contribution, but I hope she will forgive me if I say I will cover that point later. If I do not, I will take another intervention from her if she so wishes.
The RSPCA is a prosecutor that, in 2012, secured 3,000 convictions at a cost of £8.7 million. That is more than twice the number of prosecutions it brought in 2008, when it prosecuted 1,252 defendants for cruelty to animals, compared with the Crown Prosecution Service’s 240. The RSPCA is a prosecutor that makes claims to comply with CPS guidelines.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
I know that we are not going to agree on hunting, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that the RSPCA plays an extremely important role as a prosecutor in other cases, highlighting and enforcing the law in cases of animal cruelty?
Simon Hart
I will probably disappoint the whole House by not mentioning the H-word at all during my speech, but I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. Nothing I say today will in any way offer comfort to those who wish to break the law of the land; nothing I say will alter that. Anyone who might think there is some kind of scam going on here might be disappointed by my comments.
The RSPCA is a prosecutor that does politics in a big way. It needs to raise about £120 million a year to keep its engines running. The debate is about the conflict that arises when CPS criteria are applied in cases where the RSPCA might have a political or commercial interest.