Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to bring forward this important set of regulations which introduce a new system of local authority licensing of activities involving animals in England. The regulations form part of an important package of reforms that the Government are delivering to improve animal welfare.

These regulations meet the Government’s manifesto commitment to continue their review and reform of the pet licensing controls and specifically to update the licensing system for dog breeding, pet sales, riding establishments and animal boarding establishments. They also modernise the system for animal exhibits, which are currently regulated under the Performing Animals Act 1925. The current licensing and registration system that covers these five animal activities is outdated and complex. The new regulations create up-to-date minimum welfare standards for these five activities in England, while streamlining the system for both local authorities and businesses. We have worked closely with stakeholders from the sector, animal welfare organisations, local authorities and veterinary bodies in drafting these regulations and are very grateful for their support, in particular the work of the Canine and Feline Sector Group and the Equine Sector Council for helping to co-ordinate this.

One of the key issues with the current licensing system is that the animal welfare standards with which businesses are required to comply have not been updated for many years. The schedules to the new regulations include detailed animal welfare standards for each of the activities that have been developed in close consultation with stakeholders. These will ensure that anyone who receives a licence for dog breeding, selling pets, boarding dogs and cats, hiring out horses or keeping or training animals for exhibit will need to meet these new minimum welfare standards. This should help to drive up animal welfare standards across all of these sectors.

Many people and organisations have been calling for more restrictions to be placed in particular on the breeding and selling of dogs, where it is felt that there are unscrupulous businesses that breed dogs in poor conditions for maximum profit. The regulations address this issue in a number of ways. We are making changes to the definition of dog breeding so as to ensure that the regulations capture both large-scale dog breeders as well as smaller-scale dog breeding businesses. Under the new regulations, anyone who is in the business of breeding and selling dogs will need a licence. In addition, breeders that are not classed as a business will also need a licence if they breed three or more litters a year and sell any of them. Overall, this will ensure that more breeders are captured under the regulations and will need to comply with the high animal welfare requirements set out within them. They ensure that we can crack down on unregulated backstreet breeding.

It is important to acknowledge the sad fact that many unsuspecting potential buyers are providing a lucrative market for rogue dog breeders and animal dealers who work illegally outside the licensing system. The regulations therefore include a number of measures that will help consumers to identify these rogue traders and make more informed decisions when purchasing an animal. No licensed breeder or pet seller will be able to sell a puppy, kitten, ferret or rabbit which is below eight weeks of age. In addition, we have ensured that the recently updated welfare codes for cats and dogs carry the same requirement, so that no one should be separating puppies or kittens from their mothers before eight weeks of age unless there are genuine welfare reasons for the mother or the offspring.

Following the excellent work undertaken by the Pet Advertising Advisory Group, we have placed a number of the PAAG voluntary minimum standards in the regulations. Licence holders are now required to publish their licence number on all adverts, including online adverts, so that consumers can check this with the relevant local authority to make sure that it is a legitimate business. Adverts will also have to include a photograph of the animal and state its country of residence and origin. All licensed businesses will also receive a risk rating from one to five stars, based on the welfare standards that they adopt and their compliance record. This is a similar system to the one used in the food hygiene rating scheme.

For puppies, there is an additional requirement for any sale of a puppy to be completed at the premises where the puppy was bred, to make sure that the purchaser sees the puppy and the conditions that it has been kept in before making the final purchase. All licensed breeders can only show a puppy to a prospective purchaser if it is together with its mother, unless separation from the mother is necessary for welfare reasons. All licensed pet sellers are also required to provide purchasers with information about how to care for the animal they are buying. These measures will ensure that consumers are able to make more informed decisions when buying an animal, and are better able to care for it once they have taken it home. This is particularly important for more exotic species such as reptiles.

Many people are concerned about the increase in the online sale of pets. Currently, the legislation is not clear on whether or not these businesses require a licence, and so enforcement is inconsistent across the country. Under the new regulations, all commercial sales require a licence, including those that take place online. All of these businesses will have to comply with the minimum welfare standards set out in the regulations. These measures will ensure that the licensing system is consistent and fit for purpose in this modern age.

The licensing system is run by local authorities and funded by full cost recovery, so there is no financial burden on local authorities. Licences can be issued at any point in the calendar year, which will help to spread the workload across the year. The maximum licence length that can be issued is increased from one to three years, with longer licences going to businesses with earned recognition. This should reduce the workload for local authorities, allowing them to spend more time on enforcement of unlicensed businesses and on the less compliant businesses.

This will also reduce the burden on good businesses, such as those that operate to a particularly high standard of animal welfare and those associated with a body accredited by UKAS—for example, breeders in the Kennel Club’s assured breeder scheme. Such businesses will already be exceeding the requirements of the regulations and so will be able to achieve longer licences for a lower fee. This clearly also provides an incentive for businesses to improve welfare standards.

We recognise that the implementation of these regulations will be crucial to their success, and so local authority inspectors will be required to undertake specific training on licensing and inspection. This will ensure that they are suitably qualified to undertake inspections for all of the animal activities covered by the regulations. To that end, the City of London has worked with the pet industry to develop a syllabus for a level 3 training course for animal activities inspection, which inspectors will be required to attend. Local authorities will be able to recoup all their reasonable costs for this training from the licensing regime.

The regulations have been drafted in consultation with stakeholders from the industry, animal welfare organisations, local authorities and veterinary bodies, and we are very grateful for their assistance. The regulations are proportionate and targeted and will help to improve animal welfare across a number of sectors. For these reasons, I commend the regulations to the Committee. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and his officials for their time and explanations regarding this SI and for his comprehensive introductory remarks. I declare my interest as a district councillor. It is now two years since Defra’s initial consultation on this important issue and I welcome moving it forward.

This SI covers a number of domestic animal welfare issues that are of great concern to the public, including the breeding and selling of animals, animal boarding establishments and, as the Minister said, the hiring out of horses. While it is essential to ensure that animal welfare is paramount, I welcome the introduction of requiring only one licence instead of the two previously needed. This is a sensible cut in bureaucracy. The Minister has provided assurances that those working in the sector have been consulted in the form of the equine, feline and canine organisations and that the Government have been working closely with them and with vets. A licence lasting up to two years instead of being renewed every year will be welcomed, as will the risk-based approach to the length of the licence and the ability for it to be given at any time during the year, not just at the year end.

My colleague and noble friend Lady Parminter has raised the issue of puppy farming on a number of occasions inside and outside the Chamber, and was extremely concerned that there should be adequate regulation of this often very distressing industry. Defra launched a call for evidence on the third-party sale of puppies and kittens on 8 February. This consultation will close on 2 May and we look forward to its results. We would be grateful if the Minister could give us an indication of when the results might be published.

We welcome the restriction of the number of litters that a bitch may have to one a year as a great step forward. The prohibition of the sale of a puppy—as well as kittens and other animals—below the age of eight weeks, and the need for a puppy to be shown with its mother by breeders prior to sale, will also be welcomed by those legitimate breeders and owners who have the best interests of their animals at heart. Similarly, the detailed restrictions on the size, height and type of boarding kennels and catteries should ensure that domestic animals can be left by their owners, in confidence that their pets will be well looked after during their absence.

As a local councillor, I am aware that local authorities are under tremendous pressure with budget restraints. I fully support the move to allow them to have full-cost recovery for their work in granting licences, as well as being able to raise fees for reasonable enforcement. In the past, it has not always been possible for the cost of extra work passed to local authorities to be recouped in this way. There will, of course, need to be an adequate number of suitably qualified inspectors to ensure that this legislation is properly enforced. I welcome the comments that the Minister made about the new qualification. I understand that it will take three years to meet the necessary standard and that vets on the list of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons will carry out some of this work.

While Defra is going to publish guidance, this will not be available until the regulations come into force. Does the Minister believe that this will give enough time to local authorities to be prepared to issue the new licences in an efficient and responsive manner?

I fully support the measures covered by this SI but I have one concern. Part 4 of the schedule, which covers the hiring out of horses, does not appear to cover riding for the disabled. While the regulations cover the welfare of animals in a commercial operation, they do not apply to those which operate on a charitable basis. I would be grateful if the Minister could reassure us that if establishments which offer riding for the disabled are operating not on a charitable basis but as a business, they will be covered by this new legislation. That apart, I believe that this is a great step forward and look forward to its implementation eagerly.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the intent behind the regulations. As he says, the proposals provide a long overdue update on a number of aspects of the regulations about keeping and selling animals as pets, which, as he says, are well out of date. We welcome much of the content, which would improve the licensing requirements of owners, breeders and sellers alike. I might have been guilty of this, but while we have used the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee reports to criticise the department, it is also worth placing on record its unusual praise on this occasion in drawing the regulations to our attention. It says:

“We commend Defra on a well-judged and informative”,


Explanatory Memorandum. I echo that and say well done to the staff.

We welcome the new licensing approach, which encourages businesses to become low risk through delivering high standards, with those that conform being able to have licenses for a longer period, rather than having to reapply each year. That seems to make sense. However, it is important that this flexibility is used for the right reasons and that it is not just seen as an easy option for local authorities that do not have the staff or the resources to visit premises only every two or three years. It is important that that high standard underpins all this and that it is not traded off for financial constraints. We also welcome the obvious thing of having one standard licence rather than multiple licences. Again, that is good common sense, but we have some concerns about the application of the licensing system, which I will come back to shortly.

In addition, we have campaigned for a long time to require puppy sales to be completed in the presence of the new owner, for a ban on the sale of puppies and kittens under eight weeks old, and for the licensing threshold for dog breeders to be reduced, so we welcome all of those developments. However, as the Minister knows, we very much regret that the opportunity was not also taken in these regulations to ban the third-party commercial sale of puppies and kittens. Indeed, it is not really clear how many of the other improved welfare standards that underpin these regulations can be enforced while third-party sales continue, many of which happen under the radar and are not properly regulated.

The reality is that, as the noble Lord said, there has been a huge rise in online sales of puppies and kittens fuelled by “rogue traders”—I think that was his expression—which are often overseas and are sadly renowned for having poor welfare standards. This all has a knock-on effect. The poor animals that are traded on this basis have health and behavioural problems associated with long journeys, often travelling many hundreds of miles in unhygienic conditions, and often with premature separation from their mothers, who themselves are often kept in exploitative and inhumane puppy farms abroad. There have been numerous whistleblowing cases where we have seen examples of this—in particular in eastern Europe, but they come from all sorts of places across the continent.

I still do not feel that the measures before us address this problem. The noble Lord was talking about curtailing adverts. Obviously those sorts of measures are welcome, but we are still seeing that illegal trade taking place. I do not see that it will be dealt with until we have that third-party commercial ban. We believe that it is time to stamp out this trade, which is why we support such a ban. However, the fact that the Government have now issued a separate consultation that revisits this issue has given us some hope. We look forward to participating in that debate and hope that, in time, the Government will see the error of their ways on this issue.

In the meantime, I have some questions for the Minister arising from the regulations before us. First, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said, there seems to have been a very long delay between the end of the consultation in March 2016 and the appearance of these regulations today. That seems to be a bit of a hallmark of the department. Can the Minister explain why it has taken two years to process the regulations?

Secondly, the regulations are to be supported by more detailed schedules and guidance, but the way in which they are written at the moment uses very simple language. In one sense that is great, because it is easy to understand. However, they use phrases such as “adequate” facilities, “sufficient” space and a “suitable” environment, all of which are open to interpretation, so it is important that as soon as possible we have measurable requirements so that local authorities can make a proper assessment of whether welfare standards are being maintained. When will that more detailed guidance be provided so that we can be assured that there will be proper ways to measure the improvement in welfare standards?

Thirdly, has any further thought been given to introducing a microchip database recording microchip numbers on entry to the UK and extending microchipping to cats? Does the Minister agree that this would help to cut down on the illegal trade in puppies and kittens?

Fourthly, a number of noble Lords have talked about the new inspection arrangements. We are concerned that local authority inspectors will be undertrained and underresourced to manage the new licensing regime successfully. What, if any, additional resources are being provided to local authorities to carry out these duties? Is the Minister concerned that the proposal for level 2 qualifications for inspectors is not really high enough for them to understand the complex animal welfare needs that they will be required to inspect? Indeed, what plans are there to require licence holders themselves—the actual owners of these animals—to demonstrate minimum competence standards and meet best practice?

The impact assessment assumes a one-off familiarisation for businesses and local authorities of two hours a week. Does the Minister agree that this is wholly inadequate and that a much more rigorous training regime needs to be developed? Can he shed some further light on how the licensing fees will be established? In response to questions in the Commons, the Minister there said that the licences would be,

“funded by full cost recovery … so there is no financial burden on local authorities”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/03/18; col. 5.]

We understand what that means, but how will it be calculated in practice? We are talking about a differential cost for licence holders in every different local authority. Will all licensed operators be compelled to pay a contribution not just towards the inspections of the good guys, if I can put it like that, but towards the enforcement activities taken against all the illegal operators too? The people who own up and pay up will be paying for the policing. It differs in different parts of the country, but there could be quite widespread potentially illegal activities, and that does not seem very fair. Is that not a case of penalising those who play by the rules, rather than getting everyone to up their game?

Lastly, the regulations address only certain kinds of commercial animal services, such as providing boarding for cats and dogs and day care for dogs. Several noble Lords have mentioned other kinds of commercial animal services. My bugbear, which I have mentioned to the Minister in the past, is that commercial dog walkers are becoming big business these days: they often deal with large numbers of dogs during the day, yet they do not seem to be covered by these regulations. Has any thought been given to requiring commercial dog walkers to have a licence? Are any reviews of other animal licensing arrangements currently taking place for new businesses that are developing?

In conclusion, while we welcome many of these proposals, there seems a lot more work to be done in raising animal welfare standards across the board. We therefore look forward to receiving these details from the Minister in due course. In the meantime, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the many very pertinent questions that have been raised today.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, this has been a very important discussion, and I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for recording what I would call some praise, but some chastisement as well. Her genuine praise was for the officials who have been engaged on this matter over a considerable period. I will be in longer form in a moment but the most important thing is to have got these regulations right. They may have taken some time but it is better to get them right, because this has involved fairly intricate work with a number of parties, which I will explain in greater detail.

I am very struck by the universal endorsement of the spirit of what the regulations are seeking, which is to enhance animal welfare. Again, I acknowledge that it would not have been possible to get to the detail that we will have without the support of the Canine and Feline Sector Group, the Equine Sector Council, the local authorities, vets charities and participants in this sector generally. We always want to root out the bad but we should also remember that there are some extremely good and dedicated dog and cat breeders, who care immensely for their animals and would not dream of selling them to what they identified as an indifferent home, so these things can work both ways. The purpose of much of what we have been wrestling with is to ensure that we endorse the good, raise the standard of the intermediate and root out the bad. In my lay man’s terms, that is how I see our objective.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Bakewell, raised the issue of third-party sales. As has been mentioned, we have issued a call for evidence in relation to a ban on the third-party sale of puppies and kittens. I should say that part of the issue was that not all the interested parties in the animal charity world were of a common view on this. But—I stress “but”—I acknowledge that there are strong feelings on this issue, and such a ban would prevent commercial sellers selling puppies and kittens unless they had bred the animal. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said, the call for evidence closes on 2 May, after which we will consider the way forward. We are seeking to publish that by the end of July. One possibility, if we were to go down this route, would be to amend these regulations using the powers under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. However, we felt that in the meantime it was not sensible to delay the implementation of what are already advances in the range of these regulations. Clearly, as always, guidance is where we will have further and better particulars, and I say to the noble Lord, Lord Trees, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, that we are very conscious that guidance needs to be published. We aim to publish by the end of July precisely for many of the reasons that have been outlined.

I will seek to answer some of the questions asked and if, in my view, I have not answered any sufficiently, I will of course write to noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, queried whether organisations such as charities that provide riding for the disabled would require a licence for the hiring out of horses. I can confirm that the regulations apply only to commercial businesses, so it is extremely unlikely that a registered charity would be required to hold a licence. But I emphasise that it depends on what might be undertaken in each individual case. The point is that these regulations deal with commercial businesses.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I might look sideways slightly as I say this, but the precise distinction is if the owner is in the business. In other words, the point is that if you have three or more litters you must have a licence, but if you are in the business you would have to have a licence even if you had only one litter. That distinction of being in business will be set out in the guidance. The whole purpose is to capture those who are in the business of dog breeding if they have any number of breeding bitches. It is important that we can license those who are in the business, but we have a catch-all that if you breed and sell more than three litters and you are not in the business, you have to be licensed as well. I say to all breeders who are breeding and selling to look at the regulations. Obviously the purpose of this is not to be bureaucratic, but to raise animal welfare standards. I will reflect on what my noble friend has said. If there is a clearer response I will of course write to my noble friend and all noble Lords, but I think that Hansard will report what are the varying elements of requirements for a licence from the local authority. If there are any ambiguities and noble Lords would like to ask me afterwards so I do not confuse myself, I would be very pleased.

[Baroness Redfern]

If, as my noble friend Lord Cathcart said, you are in the business and you breed one litter, then should you not be licensed because you are in business? That was the emphasis of my intervention earlier.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I think my noble friend answered that. If someone is in the business the number is irrelevant, so that is caught.

Motion agreed.