Oral Answers to Questions

Jason McCartney Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking through the criminal justice system to tackle pet theft.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

14. What steps his Department is taking through the criminal justice system to tackle pet theft.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)]

The Government recognise the deep distress that is caused when a pet is stolen, and the pet theft taskforce carried out a thorough investigation of this issue. Its excellent report, published earlier this month, contains a comprehensive set of recommendations that will allow us to tackle this issue head on.

[Jason McCartney]

As a fellow animal lover, Mr Speaker, I know that you, like me, will appreciate the extreme distress that the theft of a much loved family pet can cause, particularly with over 2,000 pet dogs reported as having been stolen last year. These measures cannot come soon enough, so can the Justice Secretary confirm how soon they will be brought forward to tackle pet theft?

[Robert Buckland]

I reassure my hon. Friend that we are already working on the new proposed offence of pet abduction and that work is already under way with many of the other recommendations stemming from the report, such as the review of microchipping and improvements in the recording of these offences. This will continue and I remind the House that the recommendation of the pet abduction offence is leagues better than the weak amendment proposed by Labour.