Pet Abduction Bill

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th May 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, noble Lords will know of my long-standing commitment to animal welfare. Soon after I joined your Lordships’ House, I secured the first ever debate here on the welfare of domestic animals. In campaigning on issues such as microchipping, electric shock collars, pet theft, pets in care homes and many others, I raised so many questions—principally about cats, I admit—that, in time, when I started going through the Division Lobby my noble friend Lady Anelay, then the Chief Whip, began to say “miaow” as she clicked me through. So it is a privilege, and a great honour, to introduce the Pet Abduction Bill today.

I am grateful to all noble Lords who are taking part in this debate. I look forward to their contributions, especially that of my noble friend the Minister. He and his officials have been incredibly helpful and supportive throughout the passage of this legislation. I am very grateful to them for their time and expertise. This piece of legislation will, I hope, soon take its place alongside many others placed on the statute book since 2010. The Government, with the support of the opposition parties, have a record of which to be proud. We are not just the people’s Parliament but the animals’ Parliament too.

I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Anna Firth MP, who introduced this Bill in the other place. She is passionate about animals—something which shone through as she piloted the Bill through with steely determination, eloquence and great emotion. She is a true champion of those who have no voice.

We are a nation of animal lovers. I am one of them, and I declare my interest as a cat owner. I must say that dogs have an equal place in my affection—looking to my noble friend Lord Holmes—but at the moment our flat is ruled over by adorable Destino, a fluffy ginger rescue cat. I also declare an interest as a patron of International Cat Care.

This Bill has government and cross-party support, for which I am most grateful. It enjoys the strong support of the admirable charities in the sector: Cats Protection, the Dogs Trust, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, Refuge, the RSPCA and many others that have campaigned long and hard to get to this point. I believe it also has strong public backing, as we saw from the excellent speeches in the other place during Second Reading, as many MPs set out the horrendous experiences of their constituents whose pets had fallen victim to this callous crime.

Tragically, it is a wicked crime that is increasing. There are no centrally recorded figures—something the Bill will rectify—but we do have some information from the charitable and insurance sector. Direct Line estimates that there is an average of 2,400 dog thefts a year—that is seven dogs stolen every day—and a Pet Theft Awareness report found in 2022 that cat theft had increased 40% year on year, and more than quadrupled since 2015.

Thankfully, some stolen pets find their way back to their owners, but not many. The recovery rate is only 12%, so the vast majority of the thousands of cats and dogs abducted every year are never seen again, something which a recent leader in the Times described as

“an ocean of human misery”.

The stories of the impact of pets being stolen are agonising and heartbreaking to read, even when there is a happy ending. Cats Protection has kindly sent me numerous examples, such as Betty, a much-loved Bengal who was stolen from her family when they moved home. Betty’s loving owners were frantic, setting up Facebook groups to find her, putting up posters and posting leaflets. Two weeks after she went missing, they found her being advertised on Gumtree. Thanks to clever detective work by her owners, Betty was eventually retrieved but in an extremely stressed state, with stomach problems and a twisted leg. She had clearly had a terrible time. So too had her family. For them, it was the worst three weeks of their lives, which they found absolutely horrifying.

However, more often than not, cats are not retrieved. Clooney was a young male seal-point Siamese, chipped and neutered, who disappeared from his garden in Norfolk more than 10 years ago. In the weeks that followed his disappearance, his owner described the emotional and tortuous days and nights spent searching for him, door-knocking with flyers, putting up posters and recruiting the help of a tracker dog in case he had been injured or worse. After finding no trace, the owner reported Clooney’s suspected theft to the police, twice, but, frustratingly, they dismissed her claims of theft. To this day, Clooney’s owner misses him dreadfully.

I have seen similar reports from my own county of Essex, such as the theft of Twiglet, a dachshund, who was snatched after a thief smashed a patio door to abduct her. Video footage showed the poor animal struggling to get away from her attacker. Her owner described the incident as her worst nightmare and said that it was like a member of your family being snatched out of your home. It was horrible.

There are countless other stories, but all with the same theme. A thread runs through them all, and it is this: our pets are very special to us; they are part of our family. They bring us joy and console us when we are down. We love them, and if they are stolen, the cruel person who has committed the crime is not just harming the animal and subjecting it to unbelievable stress and anger, they are destroying a family at the same time. The cats my husband and I have always had have lived indoors, so we thankfully never suffered from this horrible crime, but I know that if anyone ever abducted Destino or one of his predecessors, it would not just be heartbreaking and we would not have just got over it—there could never be closure. A part of us would have died at the same time. That is why this Bill is necessary.

Let me explain why. At the moment, the taking, abducting or detaining of someone else’s beloved pet is classified alongside the theft of mere objects, such as a garden tool, a pair of cufflinks or a smart phone. It is treated in law under the Theft Act 1968 and the Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969 in exactly the same way and is punished in the same way. Yet the abduction of a pet is absolutely not the same because pets are not mere property. We do not have an emotional bond with a power tool that someone steals from the garage. A watch being stolen may be annoying, but it does not destroy a family’s life. If a thief takes your laptop, it is upsetting, but you do not lie awake at night in pain and anguish or look out your window every day, possibly for the rest of your life, wondering where it is and how it is being treated. In short, there is a stark gap between how the law views and values domestic animals and how the public does. The devastating impact that animal abduction has on pets and people needs properly to be reflected in criminal law, and that is what the Pet Abduction Bill does. For the first time, the law will recognise the profound difference between pets as sentient beings and inanimate objects.

I shall say a little about how the Bill will work. It creates two new criminal offences of the taking or detaining of a dog and the taking of a cat from someone’s lawful control. The two provisions, the dog clause and the cat clause, are quite rightly different, in that the dog clause expressly applies the provision where a person either detains a dog or takes it, whereas the cat clause refers only to taking. This recognises the fact that, unlike dogs, cats roam without their owners. They enjoy mixing with other households, and probably getting fed at every house in the street. One of the first cats that we ever met was a sweet little tabby—we used to call him Gregory—who sat outside the flat where we lived and often came in for a stroke and some water, and then would be on his way. This Bill is not intended to punish behaviour such as that, where there has been no malice or ill intent in looking after a cat that voluntarily visits you.

The Bill includes defences of lawful authority and reasonable excuse. It also introduces tough penalties of a fine and/or up to five years in prison, a term which is comparable with provisions for animal welfare offences under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and the Welfare of Animals (Northern Ireland) Act 2011. The sanctions will lay down a vital marker that the abduction of beloved pets will be punished appropriately. At the moment, the Bill covers only cats and dogs, but there are enabling powers in it so that it can be amended to cover other species of animals if the need arises. The Bill applies to England and Northern Ireland only, as these issues are quite rightly matters for the devolved Governments. I hope they will implement similar legislation, so that this crucial animal welfare measure covers the whole of our country.

One other important aspect of this Bill is that it will help the police to collect accurate data on pet theft, which does not currently exist. I have in the past asked Parliamentary Questions on this subject, but I have never been able to receive a proper Answer because pet theft is recorded by the police simply under the category of property. As a result of this legislation, pet abduction will have a unique identifier in crime datasets that will allow us to uncover the scale of the problem.

This Bill is long overdue. The status of pets as mere property and inert objects rather than intimate members of a family and treasured companions was put on the statute book when I was four years old. I turn 60 in the summer, and this Bill becoming law would be the best birthday present I could have. It is a short, simple Bill, but its implications will be far-reaching in protecting animals and their owners. It shows that society will not tolerate the abduction of cats and dogs, and the value we place on them, by enshrining their special position in our society in law. It shows that Parliament understands the needs of animals, giving a voice to the voiceless in the most powerful way possible, by changing the law to protect them. I hope this Bill will enjoy support across the House and make speedy process to the statute book. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken and for their strong support. I am particularly grateful to my noble friend the Minister for signalling the Government’s resolute backing for the Bill and to the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Hayman, for ensuring that it has strong cross-party support. Our House has always spoken with unanimity of voice on this animal welfare issue.

This has been a hugely constructive debate on a subject of great importance to any individual or family who owns a beloved cat or dog. My noble friend Lord Blencathra raised a number of very important issues, which I would be delighted to talk about further. I do not think that I will enter into the collar and bells debate—not least out of deference to Sid and the mice—but I am bound to say that I think I probably agree with him. I hope that my noble friend is reassured by the comments from my noble friend the Minister on the inclusion of other species in the Bill and the scrutiny that would be necessary.

My noble friend Lord Holmes made a very passionate speech, as always. On the issue of sentencing, of course, emotionally, I absolutely agree with him. There are many in this House who, when it comes to issues of animal cruelty or abduction, would, frankly, want to throw away the key. However, I think we have the balance right in ensuring that the maximum term of imprisonment under the Bill aligns with the maximum term for animal welfare offences under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and Welfare of Animals Act (Northern Ireland) 2011.

I agree very much with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, that it is very important that these powers are actually used. We do not want this legislation just to sit on the statute book; it is there to make a difference to families and to animals. It is important that the police—an issue that my noble friend Lord Blencathra raised—take it seriously and use the powers contained in this legislation.

As I have said, this Bill is, I believe, long overdue. I hope that we can now get it on to the statute book without delay. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.