Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 25th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to be able to speak in this debate tonight and a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who is a proud champion for animal welfare on the Opposition Benches. I also want to echo the comments made on both sides of the House about our late friend Sir David Amess. I can think of no better tribute to him than this Bill passing through on to the statute book quickly and being a proud voice for the animals of the United Kingdom.

I declare a strong interest in this Bill as a veterinary surgeon, and I very much welcome it and all its intentions. Important action can come forward from it on primates, on livestock worrying and on zoos, but I want to focus my comments this evening largely on the movement of animals. As has been mentioned, the Bill needs to be clearer on some of the specifics. We need to go further in some areas as well. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), has just published a report on the movement of animals across borders, in which we looked at a lot of these issues. First, I would like to cover small animals. As has been mentioned, puppy smuggling is an abhorrent crime that needs to be stamped out, and I look forward to the Bill working towards that. We have seen an increase in this awful trade during lockdown and we need to stamp it out at all costs.

I welcome the comments about heavily pregnant animals. It is difficult to judge how heavily pregnant a dog is. It is currently illegal to import a dog during the last 10% of pregnancy, which is difficult to judge, so we should start looking at the last 30% to 50% of pregnancy.

The Select Committee has heard harrowing evidence of heavily pregnant dogs being shipped into the country, sometimes with fresh laparotomy wounds from a caesarean section, which is dreadful and really needs to be stamped out. We need to take strong action, and I would welcome it if the Bill could provide clarity.

As has been mentioned, we need to increase to six months the minimum age at which animals are transported. I agree with colleagues on both sides of the House about wanting to see that in the Bill, as it would help to reduce this dreadful trade of puppy smuggling.

It will also help if we reinstate the rabies titre checks and increase the post-rabies vaccination wait time to 12 weeks, which would be a win-win for the health status of the animal and will indirectly help on the age limitation. We need to look at those areas.

It is important to set a limit on pets per vehicle, and I welcome the discussions on reducing the limit from five to three. Dogs Trust surveys have shown that 97% of owners have three or fewer dogs, so it would be a sensible change.

I welcome the dialogue on banning the importation of animals that have been mutilated. We have talked about ear cropping and tail docking. In the past year, six in 10 small animal vets have seen dogs with cropped ears. We also have to consider popular culture, the media and celebrity lifestyles, which have a role in not normalising cropped ears.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As the hon. Gentleman is a vet, does he share my concern that the most popular dogs at the moment, flat-faced dogs such as pugs and various types of bulldog, have been bred to have deformities? He is talking about mutilation after a dog has been born, but does he share my concern that we should not encourage people to buy dogs that are very unhealthy because of how they have been bred?

[Dr Hudson]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point. Brachycephalic dogs have become increasingly popular, and people need to be educated about the risks such animals sometimes suffer later in life.

The Disney-Pixar film “Up” is a favourite of mine but, looking closely, some of the Dobermans in that film have cropped ears. We need to address the subliminal normalisation of such procedures in culture.

We must not forget cats, which have been mutilated, too. Just as dogs are being cropped, cats are being declawed, and my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton will back me up when I say that that must also be stamped out.

There have been increased reports in the UK of diseases such as canine brucellosis, babesiosis, leishmaniasis and echinococcus. Some of these diseases have zoonotic potential, so I urge the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to increase the pre-import health checks on animals coming into this country. We also need to reinstate the tick and tapeworm treatments for animals coming in, as this will protect the travelling animals and the animals in this country, and it will also indirectly protect people.

Not one horse has been moved legally to the continent of Europe for slaughter, but the Select Committee has taken evidence that it is likely that thousands of horses have been illegally transported for slaughter in Europe. We need to make sure the Bill covers that. The evidence is troubling, so we need to stamp it out. Simple measures such as improving equine identification and moving to a digital ID system would help.

I want to move on to the export of livestock. I welcome the measures to stop the movement of animals for slaughter or for fattening for slaughter but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton said, we need to make it clear that the movement of breeding animals is outwith the frame of that part of the Bill.

We also need to make sure that we work with all the sectors to improve the conditions for animals as they are transported. It is important that animals are slaughtered as close as possible to where they were reared, which fits into the idea of eating locally produced, sustainable food.