Pet Abduction Bill

James Wild Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 19th April 2024 Commons Chamber

Amendment 9 would give the word “keeper” the same meaning in the Bill as it has under the Microchipping of Cats and Dogs (England) Regulations 2023. Again, that is a sensible and modest amendment. Amendment 10 is a probing amendment to tease out from the Government what is happening in dealing with cat abduction. When they set up their taskforce, it recommended that dog abduction should become the subject of the pet abduction legislation and that at some future stage references to cats and other pets could be made. When I think of other pets, I think particularly of our old next-door neighbour—sadly, she has died—who was a great lover of tortoises and had lots of them. She was the subject of a cruel theft of her tortoises and I hoped that in due course tortoises would come within the scope of this legislation, as they can do under the provisions of clause 3.

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I declare an interest, as a cat owner—my cat is called Hetty. Part of the reason that cats have been provided for specifically in the Bill, a move I supported, was the excellent campaign run by Cats Protection. The briefing I have received from Battersea shows that there were 379 pet cat thefts in 2022 . I am not sure of the equivalent figure for tortoises, but I suspect it was a lot smaller.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I suspect that the incidence of theft of tortoises is much higher, if we look at the percentage of thefts in the relative populations. My hon. Friend says there were only 379 cases of cat theft, and my understanding is that there are 10.5 million cats, so if we work out the percentage of cat owners who find that they have been deprived of their cat, I suspect that it is much lower than the percentage of tortoise owners who find that their tortoise has been abducted.

However, I think what my hon. Friend’s point shows is that, in the context of 10.5 million cats, 379 thefts is hardly a really serious issue. He is a cat owner; I am not—my family are dog lovers, but the two are not necessarily incompatible. I recognise the importance of microchipping cats. Obviously, this legislation will not get on to the statute book until after the microchipping of cats has become mandatory, and until there are criminal penalties if that is not complied with.

I am proud to have visited the premises of the Cats Protection League in my constituency, in Ferndown, which is a very important centre for the rehoming of cats, and that is one of the great tasks that that important charity undertakes. I am not against cats, but I tabled this amendment to test the Government’s thinking. The original taskforce set up to look into these issues reached the conclusion that dogs should take precedence, but the Government subsequently gave way because of behind-the-scenes lobbying by interest groups—not as a result of public consultation—and supported the extension of the legislation to cats.

The taskforce’s advice was to start off with dogs and then extend the measures to cats. All I am doing is, in a sense, repeating what the taskforce said. The essence of my amendments 10, 11 and so on is that they would enable cats to be included at a later stage under the provisions of clause 3, thereby bringing the Bill into conformity with the recommendations of the pet abduction taskforce. If the Government do not want to do that—I understand why they may not—then so be it, but I still think that is worth exploring in debate. That is why I tabled the amendments, including amendment 13, which is consequential on the removal of clause 2, as are amendments 14 and 15.

The next amendment on the amendment paper is amendment 19, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West, who promotes the Bill. She says:

“This is a technical amendment to ensure that it is clear how the commencement of clauses 1 and 2 operates in so far as those clauses extend to England and Wales (rather than just in relation to England).”

Who could possibly object to that? However, when Back Benchers bring forward legislation and do not get it drafted by Government lawyers, there is always something faulty with it, and Ministers delight in saying at the Dispatch Box, “We agree with the intent, but the wording is inadequate.” The question I throw out for debate and discussion is this: why did the Government lawyers who drafted the Bill for my hon. Friend not get it right in the first place? Why did they leave it until so late in the day before insisting that this amendment, and Amendment 20, be included in the Bill? When she addresses her amendments, I hope that she can explain the background to that situation. It shows that instead of being all-knowing and beyond criticism, Government drafters have some of the same frailties as Members of the House when trying to draft legislation, even with all the expertise that the Public Bill Office is able to bring to bear when assisting us in that task.

Amendment 21 links back to my new clause 1, which would make the commencement of the legislation contingent on the necessary guidance having been issued. From discussions I had with the ministerial team, it seems that is the intent, but the amendment would put that in the Bill. Amendment 16 is consequential, and I have already referred to amendment 20, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West.

That is a quick run-through of the amendments. I hope it will generate a proper debate and discussion, and enable people who take an interest in the matter to become more familiar with the issues around microchipping, including the importance of ensuring that cats and dogs are microchipped, the burden on the enforcement authorities, and the deterrence that microchipping provides against those who are minded to engage in the theft of pets. I hope those issues can be shared more widely across the country. There is a lot more detail behind the Bill, but there is no need for me to go into any more of that at the moment. If the Government cannot accept new clause 1, I hope they will be able to provide undertakings that its measures will be implemented voluntarily.

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[Anna Firth]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. She is absolutely right. Whether someone’s cat is a mongrel, a rescue cat or a stray cat that they have rightly adopted and looked after, or—I have just checked Hansard—a £5,000 Bengal cat, to the owner they are a member of the family, and they deserve the same protection. Merlin and Marmalade deserve exactly the same protection as my precious Cavapoochon, Lottie.

[James Wild]

The House of Commons Library helpfully prepares a brief for these debates and it refers to Pet Theft Awareness, which conducted freedom of information requests across a number of forces. Some of the biggest forces, including Greater Manchester and others, did not respond, but taking the figures from the Metropolitan police and applying them at the same percentage rate, we get a figure of around 1,500 cat thefts a year, rather than the 500 or so that were referred to.

[Anna Firth]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that more accurate information to the Chamber and illustrating that we are talking about a figure in the thousands for cats, just as for dogs. If we were to remove cat abduction from the Bill, as per the amendments from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, we would be sending a clear message that cats do not matter as much as dogs. That would be wholly wrong. It would certainly be met with a great deal of resistance from my constituents in Southend West.

While I am on the subject of cats, I would like to correct the record. It has come to my attention that, in Committee on Wednesday 31 January, responding to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Dover about indoor pedigree cats such as ragdolls, I inadvertently misspoke. When speaking about extending some of the dog provisions to holding indoor cats, I said that clause 3 should enable further provisions to be made, but that is not the case. The enabling power in the clause relates only to the abduction of animals commonly kept as pets other than dogs and cats. I want to make that clear. However, as I said clearly in Committee, and as I assured hon. Members then and now, clause 2 already applies in relation to the taking of a ragdoll cat.

The amendments would exclude certain categories of dog. Although amendment 8 acknowledges that dogs can temporarily be exempt from microchipping requirements for medical reasons, it does not recognise that puppies do not have to be microchipped until they are eight weeks old. Were the amendment to be accepted, a person taking or detaining puppies would be entirely exempt from the offence of dog abduction, yet we know that high-value puppies may be the subject of organised crime. Yesterday, I consulted the police and crime commissioner for Essex, Roger Hirst, about the Bill, and he reminded me—as an Essex MP, you may recall this case, Madam Deputy Speaker—that a litter of blue merle French bulldog puppies, valued at £100,000, in nearby Basildon was stolen in its entirety, in a clear case of organised crime. To exclude puppies from the Bill would be another extremely retrograde step.

The amendment would have the same effect in relation to dogs that have been imported into England by their keeper for a holiday of less than 30 days, as the 2023 regulations do not require them to be microchipped. It would also exclude certain working dogs, such as police and Army dogs, that do not have to be microchipped until they are three months old; they would be unprotected before then.

In addition, there is a risk in relying on a definition laid down in secondary legislation that is crucial to the interpretation of the Bill. There is a risk of unintended consequences in the application of the offences were the secondary legislation to be amended. Furthermore, the Microchipping of Cats and Dogs (England) Regulations do not apply in Northern Ireland, which has its own microchipping legislation. As a result, if the amendment were made, the abduction of most dogs in Northern Ireland would be excluded from the scope of the dog abduction offence—another backward step.

It is important to recognise that the abduction offences in the Bill are deliberately framed around the broad concept of lawful control. By not using terms like “keeper” or “owner”, the Bill recognises that different people have lawful control of our dogs at different times. By changing the wording as proposed in amendments 3, 5 and 9, a person taking a dog so as to remove it from the lawful control of a dog walker, for example, would not be committing an offence. I do not believe it is right for a dog to be afforded different levels of protection in law according to the individual the dog happens to be with at any given time. We know that dogs are commonly abducted from parks or gardens, when they may well be under the lawful control of a dog sitter, a dog walker, or another member of the family. Why should a dog that is stolen or abducted in those circumstances be dealt with differently? I do not believe that it should be, and think most people in this country would agree.

In summary, I believe that abducting a dog is an abhorrent crime—I think we can all get behind that idea —regardless of whom the dog was taken from, and exactly the same is true for cats. Although I am of course sympathetic to the underlying intention of amendments 3, 5 and 8 to 16, they move the Bill far away from its intended spirit. We simply cannot create a two-tier system in which only microchipped animals are in scope of the legislation. Given that the legislation implicitly recognises that cats and dogs are sentient beings, it is absolutely not right for only those that are microchipped to be protected, so I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch not to press those amendments. I will leave it to the Minister to address my hon. Friend’s new clause 1 and amendment 21.

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[James Wild]

I echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) has said about Sir David. Like other Members, I strongly welcome this legislation. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) on her work. I am pleased that her Bill has made it to this stage, with wide-ranging support in North West Norfolk and, obviously, across the country.

The Bill introduces new criminal offences in relation to the taking or detaining of a dog or cat from the lawful control of any person. As I mentioned in an intervention, I declare an interest as the owner of a cat, Hetty, and I pay tribute again to the Cat Protection League for its successful campaign, which I supported, to ensure that cats are in the Bill, in clause 2, along with dogs.

Someone found guilty of abducting a dog or a cat under these new offences will be liable to a maximum of five years imprisonment, a fine, or both, which is a significant step forward and aligns with animal cruelty offences covered by the Animal Welfare Act 2006. I am pleased that the Bill includes an enabling power to allow these provisions to be extended to other animals commonly kept as pets—a bid has been made for tortoises already in the debate.

Pets are stolen for many reasons: because of the breakdown of relationships, or for breeding, resale, extortion or even dog fighting. Those thefts have a traumatic effect on the owners and the pets, so it is right that pet theft is tackled through the creation of specific offences. The origins of the Bill are in the work of the pet theft taskforce, which recommended the creation of the specific offence of pet abduction, which is being implemented through this legislation, because the Theft Act itself was not proving effective.

There has been discussion during the debate about the scale of the problem. The taskforce concluded that reliable data on pet theft was limited. The most accurate figures that I could find for my area, Norfolk, was through an FOI response from Norfolk police, which showed that, between 2019 and 2023, 40 cats and 85 dogs were recorded as stolen. Overall, Battersea reports around 1,300 dog thefts and nearly 400 cat thefts in 2022. That is likely to be significantly underreported, for obvious reasons. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West mentioned, it is about the individual cases; there do not need to be tens of thousands of cases for this to be important legislation. However, I welcome the Bill’s intention to improve the recording and monitoring of these offences.

When we legislate and pass important powers such as these, it is important that they come into effect rapidly, so I welcome the amendment that my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) secured in Committee, which set a date for the legislation to come into effect three months after Royal Assent.

In 2019, the manifesto that I was proud to stand on committed to improving animal welfare standards, and this Bill delivers on that commitment. As a nation of animal lovers with a proud history of championing and taking action on animal welfare, the Government have already passed a host of measures, including CCTV becoming mandatory in slaughterhouses, compulsory microchipping and tougher sentences for animal cruelty.

To conclude, around a third of households own a dog, and a quarter of households have a cat. We need to protect these family members, and this legislation does just that. I therefore commend my hon. Friend for her hard work in bringing the Bill forward, and I look forward to supporting it through its final stages.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.