Animal Welfare (Kept Animals)

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

It is not only that. Animals are not an object or a possession; they are part of our family in many ways. Just think about those smuggled dogs being a member of your family—the dog that looks after your children and supports them growing up, or gives compassion to an older person. The idea that puppies have been smuggled in the numbers that just one charity reports—there are many charities in this space—says it all.

In the end, is it not the truth that the Government are running scared—not from the Opposition, although they should be, but from opposition from their own Back Benchers?

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jim McMahon]

I will make some progress first. Regardless of their majority, the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister cannot govern if they cannot even get this Bill through the House. What is the point of a Government with a sizeable majority when in the end they admit that they might be in office, but they are very much out of power?

The problem with the Bill cannot be parliamentary time, which we hear about all the time in the Tea Room and the voting Lobby. We have frustration from Members, many of whom trek hundreds of miles to be here representing our constituents, with a Government who are so chaotic and unconfident about getting their business through that whole segments of the day are completely written off as Members are sent out of the House early after votes. Even yesterday, we were sent home hours early because the Government did not table any business for us to debate and discuss. The idea that the House is so overwhelmed by business that we just do not have the time to discuss this Bill is ridiculous. There is a will, there is time and there is no reason not to do that other than the fact that the Tories cannot even guarantee how their Members will vote. That is the real issue.

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[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

As Members from across the House have said, we are a nation of animal lovers, and animal welfare has been a priority for this Conservative Administration and previous Conservative Governments going back to 2010. It is important to outline the success stories that the Conservative Government have delivered. We passed the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, which enshrined into law sentient beings. Last month, we launched the new Animal Sentience Committee, which will advise this Government.

We introduced tougher sentences for animal cruelty by passing the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021, which increases the maximum custodial sentence from six months to five years. As others have done, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on that; he cannot speak in the debate because of his role within the Department, but we must congratulate him on his efforts in bringing forward that Bill. This year we legislated to make cat microchipping compulsory, which will help to unite lost pets with their owners. Last month we announced that we had extended the Ivory Act to cover five more endangered species: hippopotamuses, narwhals, killer whales, sperm whales and walruses.

We implemented a revised welfare at slaughter regime to introduce CCTV in all slaughterhouses. We banned traditional battery cages for laying hens and permitted beak trimming only via infrared technology. We have also banned third-party puppy and kitten sales through Lucy’s law, the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2019. I could go on—[Interruption.] And I will! We introduced offences for horse fly-grazing and abandonment, a key point that I am pleased the Government have addressed. We introduced new community order powers to address many dog-related issues and banned wild animals in travelling circuses. Again, I could go on: we also banned glue traps and gave police additional powers to tackle hare coursing.

This Government have committed from the Dispatch Box that they are determined to bring forward the provisions within the kept animals Bill through individual pieces of legislation—more nimble pieces, which can work through both Houses at speed. That commitment has been given.

It is therefore incredibly disappointing that the Opposition have decided to use this debate simply to politicise animal welfare. They have even sent out a joint letter signed by both shadow Ministers, not to us as individual MPs, but to the Conservative party headquarters. It is signed by all Labour parliamentary candidates—although, looking through the list, the Labour candidate going up against me in Keighley has not even bothered to sign it. I do not quite know what that says about his commitment to the Labour party or indeed to animal welfare. However, we need to raise our game on this issue, not politicise it. I am pleased that this Government have brought forward the measures they have, and I am pleased with the commitments they have made at the Dispatch Box today.

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[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a shame that Conservative Members continue to peddle the fake narrative that they have been told to push by DEFRA Ministers and the Whips—that my party is playing political games. The motion, if they have read it, clearly demonstrates the opposite. It is about bringing back the Government’s own legislation without amendment or embellishment. Let us remember that the Bill has been through Committee—through scrutiny—and passed Second Reading, and is the Government’s own legislation.

This is about just doing the right thing for our nation’s animal welfare. The country can judge for itself which is the true party of animal welfare, but I think we have all heard enough speeches from the Labour Benches to know. Although the Government and their compliant Back Benchers do their best to dance around the issues and deflect responsibility, we know the real reason they withdrew this Bill: leaked internal documents clearly show that they scrapped the kept animals Bill just to avoid “unnecessary tensions and campaigns” in their own party and on their own Benches. I think that we have seen that played out again today.

The truth is that the Tories are far more concerned with their own internal politics than the welfare of animals, and they have shown contempt for the electorate and a staggering inability to govern as a result. The kept animals Bill is not the first animal welfare legislation that this Tory Government have mishandled. As others have mentioned, they also bungled their “world-leading” Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Bill, which has not come to pass—yet another casualty of a fractured party mired by infighting.

[Robbie Moore]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Alex Sobel]

I give way to my constituency neighbour.

[Robbie Moore]

The shadow Minister is making an excellent preprepared speech. I note that he and his fellow Opposition Members are agreeing to the aspirations of this Conservative Government, but what I have not heard throughout this Opposition day debate is one new policy idea from Labour; is he able to expand on any ideas they might bring forward?

[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.