Animal Welfare (Kept Animals)

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Trudy Harrison]

I cannot answer that question, but what I can say is that I was with Steve Tuckwell in Uxbridge, and he clearly cares deeply about animal welfare and the environmental improvement plan.

We will continue to take forward measures in the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill, successfully and swiftly, during the remainder of this Parliament. Having left the EU, we can and will ban live exports for fattening and slaughter. I am pleased to report that there have been no live exports of livestock from Great Britain for fattening or slaughter since 2020. People have long been rightly anxious for the export of farm animals such as sheep and young calves for slaughter and fattening not to start up again, so our legislation will make that change for good. We will take forward our plans to ban the import of young puppies, heavily pregnant dogs, and dogs with mutilations such as cropped ears and docked tails. We have already consulted on that, and a single-issue Bill will allow us to get on with cracking down on puppy smuggling.

I am pleased to inform the House that we launched a consultation just yesterday on the standards that must be met by anyone responsible for the care of a primate. As we have heard, the needs of these captivating creatures are extremely complex, and we saw in the media just yesterday how primates can be horrifically mistreated. By requiring all privately held primates to be kept to zoo standards, we will stop primates being kept as if they were pets.

There is much more besides, from publishing updated zoo standards later this year in collaboration with the sector and the Zoos Expert Committee, to considering primary legislative vehicles to take forward measures to tackle livestock worrying, and our wider work, including through the countryside code, to raise people’s awareness of how to enjoy walking their dog responsibly.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Trudy Harrison]

We are also taking forward measures to make it an offence to abduct a much-loved pet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

In their manifesto, three and a half years ago, the Government promised a single Bill that would crack down on puppy smuggling, ban live exports, protect sheep and other livestock from dangerous dogs, and ban the keeping of primates as pets—a Bill that I think pretty much everyone in this place would have been in favour of and voted for. The Government seem to have time on their hands; we will probably finish at about 6.30 pm today, and we stopped at 4.30 pm yesterday, so it is no excuse to say that the agenda is packed. Parliamentary time is clearly available, so there is no excuse for the Conservatives having failed to pass the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill that they promised in their manifesto three and half years ago, in the general election of 2019. We are told that all will be well—that the Bill will be broken up into bits and delivered over the next year. We will see.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Nearly 200 constituents have written to me about the Bill. They want it to happen, and are so worried that it will not. The plan is for the provisions to be put into private Members’ Bills, but given that Members, not the Government, decide what is in private Members’ Bill, and that there is no clear plan for how the measures will be apportioned to Members, I am not filled with confidence that this will get done before the next general election. Does my hon. Friend agree?