Animal Welfare (Kept Animals)

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

I am incredibly proud of our record on animal welfare. We are a nation of animal lovers, and that is not merely the preserve of the Conservative side of the House. Since I was elected, I have had over 1,100 letters from constituents on a range of animal welfare issues. The UK is the highest ranked G7 nation on the animal protection index and the joint leader globally.

Animal welfare has been a priority for this Government since 2010, so let us look at the record. We recognised animal sentience in law. We increased maximum sentences for animal cruelty. We launched the consultation on fixed penalty notice powers. We introduced new protections for service animals with Finn’s law. We launched the animal health and welfare pathway, with new annual vet visits and grants. We implemented the revised welfare at slaughter regime, including CCTV in slaughterhouses. We raised standards for chickens. We revamped local authority licensing regimes. We banned third-party puppy and kitten sales with Lucy’s law. We made microchipping compulsory for cats and dogs. We introduced offences for horse fly-grazing and abandonment. We introduced new community order powers to address dog issues. We banned wild animals in travelling circuses. We passed the Ivory Act 2018. We gave police additional powers to tackle hare coursing. We banned glue traps.

I have supported the private Member’s Bills currently before Parliament that ban the import of hunting trophies and the trade in detached shark fins.

I am also delighted to have supported the ten-minute rule Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth). Known as Emily’s law, the Animal Welfare (Responsibility for Dog Attacks) Bill would criminalise fatal dog-on-dog attacks in the UK, ensuring irresponsible dog owners are held to account. Darlington recently saw a horrific dog-on-dog attack when Sasha, a mixed-breed terrier, was attacked by a German shepherd. The Bill is important in addressing that issue.

It is simply laughable for the Opposition to claim that Conservative Members do not care about animal welfare. Our record speaks for itself. If Labour cared so much about this issue, why were a Conservative Government needed to bring forward legislation after Labour had been in power for 13 years?

Labour’s motion, which attempts to take control of the Order Paper, is yet another cynical attempt to generate clips and videos to pump out on social media as propaganda targeted at constituencies it lost in 2019. The voters of places such as Darlington will ask, “Why now?” The Labour party moves with the wind, but on this side of the House we stand by our commitments. I have every faith that our fantastic DEFRA Ministers will deliver on our promises.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Sobel]

The hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, is making the case for why he should vote for this motion: we are not bringing forward Labour policy; we are bringing forward Conservative policy—we are bringing forward a Conservative Bill that was meant to be delivered by a Conservative Government. Conservative Members are going to vote against their own policies. There have been lots of speeches today about our having consensus in this place on animal welfare issues, and we are proving that. I am sure, however, that the hon. Gentleman and other Conservative Members will vote against the Labour motion, thereby disproving that that is the case in reality, rather than just in theory.

How many animals must have suffered from the delay we have had and the Conservatives’ abject political failure? By not legislating for the provisions of their own Bill and waiting two years to admit finally on 25 May —a month ago—that they were abandoning it, they have created an unknown number of animal victims. How many animals have suffered because of this political choice?

Conservative Members can continue to argue that the thin gruel of the Government’s legislation on animal welfare is a success, yet they still have not managed to ban fur and foie gras, as they promised the public in their manifesto four years ago and which has cross-party support. Just like that other flagship piece of animal welfare legislation, the Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Bill, this good piece of legislation has been cast aside—consigned to the scrapheap. I think we can all agree it shows how low animal welfare really is on the Government’s list of priorities.

The kept animals Bill was a solid piece of legislation, as I said in response to the hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore). It covered a wide range of issues; although it is not the most newsworthy legislation, it is vitally important. The Conservatives promised to bring in some of the world’s highest and strongest protections for pets, livestock and kept wild animals.

In the Labour party, animal welfare is not a debate; it is a priority. I praise a number of colleagues who made important contributions to this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) made excellent points about pet smuggling and is right that the pet passport scheme has loopholes and that this Bill would fix them. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) was rightly horrified by the keeping of primates as pets, and this Bill is the solution. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion)—the esteemed chair of the all-party group on zoos and aquariums, which does great work in representing a global success story for the UK in conservation—rightly pointed out that the Bill would update the now woefully out of date zoo licensing standards. Since the Bill was dropped by the Government, there is no Government plan—if there is, I would like to hear it—on zoo licensing, which has been left in the wilderness.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) astutely pointed out that puppy smuggling is part of organised crime. The Government clearly do not take animal crime seriously either. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon) has a world-leading zoo in her constituency; a number of other Members from the north-west also praised her zoo, and I will be visiting it shortly and am sure I will see her there. She rightly pointed out that licensing issues continue to plague zoos across the country. She also pointed out the trailblazing work by her council on trail hunting, which others have since adopted. The hon. Member for Southport (Damien Moore) also made excellent points about zoo licensing, and it is great that there is so much support for that. He also made powerful points for his constituents that the Government should keep their manifesto promises; he cited a couple of powerful examples from his constituency casework.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) highlighted the high number of issues just beginning with the letter b, and I was pleased to hear about the bees, badgers and other b animals. She talked about the cost of living crisis affecting pets, too, and the need for pet food banks. There are many other issues with our beloved pets that the Government need to address. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) reminded us of the animals abroad Bill that the Government are dropping as well, and made the wider point that a Government legislating by private Members’ Bills is not a Government leading but a Government following their Back Benchers.

[Peter Gibson]

I had the privilege of having my number drawn in the private Members’ Bills ballot a number of years ago, and I brought forward a Bill, though not about animals. I can attest to the fact that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), who was Under-Secretary of State for Transport at the time, directed that Department to give me every help along the way. If the Government support a private Member’s Bill, they absolutely lend their support to the individuals taking them forward.

[Alex Sobel]

That is a different point, on which I agree—I have been on Bill Committees with the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison)—but my point is that using private Members’ Bills to get the measures in the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill through this place is not the same as the Government legislating. It is merely piecemeal legislation. There are no guarantees that every measure in the Bill will get through the House by the end of the parliamentary Session, before the next general election. The most likely outcome is that hardly any will, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), the shadow Secretary of State, but the proof will be in the pudding; at the general election, we will all see.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) is right, again, about the dither and delay. He made a number of good points, including the point that the Bill has been so long in gestation that it predates his entry to the House. A number of Members who have spoken have not been here as long as the Bill. That is why, in the motion, we propose resurrecting the Bill, and have set a date—12 July, which is soon—on which to get it moving through the legislative process. It is really quite simple: we politicians need to do our job, and do the right thing. In this case, that is to end the unnecessary suffering of innocent animals. We call on Government Members across the aisle to join us in the Lobby and give this place time to consider the Bill—a Bill that was brought to us by the Government. Let us work together to do the right thing, and put animal welfare before party politics. I heard Government Members say that they supported the Bill; they voted for it, and even served on the Bill Committee. Why can they not join us in voting for the motion today, and give the Bill time to get through this place?