Welfare of Young Dogs Bred for Sale

Jim Fitzpatrick Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) on securing this important debate. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry). I thank colleagues at Dogs Trust and Battersea dogs and cats home for their briefings and, like my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), who is also my colleague on the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I want to concentrate on the trust’s briefing on the illegal importation of puppies into the UK under the pet travel scheme.

Since the introduction of the scheme, Dogs Trust has found that it is being used as a cover for the illegal importation of puppies for commercial sale. In 2014, the trust’s undercover investigation, “The Puppy Smuggling Scandal”, found evidence of puppies being brought into the UK for sale via PETS from both Lithuania and Hungary. Despite changes to the scheme in December 2014, including the requirement for member states to carry out non-discriminatory checks, the problem continues, with the second investigation in 2015, “Puppy Smuggling: The Scandal Continues”, identifying that the changes have not been the deterrent that they were intended to be, with the trade continuing from Lithuania and Romania.

Dogs Trust tells me that it is conducting a pilot scheme with Kent trading standards to pay for the quarantine costs of any puppies that they seize at the border, in the hope that that will disrupt the trade. Last year, more than 3,000 dogs were imported into the UK from Hungary under PETS. From Lithuania, 2,000-plus dogs were imported, and more than 2,000 were also imported from Romania. However, those figures represent only the dogs that have been declared. The trust cautions that many more undeclared dogs are entering from those countries and others.

Despite the trust’s work to raise awareness of this illegal trade, it is concerned that little progress is being made in tackling the problem. This is a very important point, to which I would like the Minister to respond: during the pilot, it has not received any details about the puppies that are handed over to it and, as a result, it does not know whether the pilot is disrupting the trade because it is unsure where the puppies have come from and how they have been found. Dogs Trust would like to know, first, what assessments the Government have made of the Dogs Trust pilot quarantine scheme and, secondly, how effective the Government believe that that scheme has been at disrupting the illegal importation of puppies under PETS.

Dogs Trust makes four recommendations. First, if there is to be real progress in tackling the ever growing problem of illegally imported puppies, the UK’s key agencies need to share intelligence. Secondly, visual checks, as raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge and others, of all dogs entering Britain will help to ensure that they are healthy, not underage and match the information given in their passport. Thirdly—this was also raised by colleagues previously—there should be immediate sanctions such as fixed penalty notices or on-the-spot fines that are large enough to act as a deterrent for those found to be illegally importing puppies. Fourthly, there should be a crackdown on vets who supply fake pet passports, through work with the veterinary regulatory authorities in the countries that import puppies into the UK.

Battersea raises a number of points, mostly on domestic matters. It welcomes the consultation launched in December 2015 by DEFRA and the progress that has been made, but it raises a number of issues and statistical anomalies to which I hope the Minister might be able to refer. The Minister is held in high regard—he knows that—and we would be very grateful for his responses. We look forward to his comments and those of other Front Benchers.