Animals (Penalty Notices) Bill

Ruth Edwards Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I think it is customary to start by congratulating the Bill’s promoter, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) will bear with me for one moment while I join him in congratulating Vivienne on her victory in yesterday’s Westminster Dog of the Year contest. I am sure that Sir David Amess would have been extremely proud of her.

My hon. Friend was, of course, right to say that Sir David was one of the leading advocates for animal welfare—but so, of course, is my hon. Friend. I congratulate him hugely on bringing the Bill to the House. I know he has been working on the issue for many years. Thirteen years ago, when we were still in opposition, I was the researcher on the shadow Home Affairs team for my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt). My hon. Friend the Member for Romford had the shadow animal welfare brief and I remember his work on dogs. The other day I was particularly recalling his work on tortoise microchipping because I was pursuing our tortoise Geoffrey across the garden. It is very unfair that tortoises have this reputation for moving slowly, because they do not; they move at incredible speed, especially Geoffrey. He has this determination to try to eat pebbles the size of his head, which would be incredibly bad for him, so we have to keep an eye on him. Probably a GPS tracker might have been better than a microchip. My husband has suggested a strobe. Any other suggestions are most welcome.

Geoffrey is not the only adventurous animal in our care. We have two donkeys: Sergeant Wilson and Godfrey. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Thank you. The other week, I had to extract them from the chicken run. We have two entrances to the chicken run: the little entrance is for the chicken and the big door for the humans. They had managed to open the big door and walk into the run because they wanted to raid the chicken feed. I arrived to find two donkeys guiltily munching in there.

The prize for the best animal adventure has to go to our pig, Andrew. This was when my husband and I lived on his small holding in Wales and Andrew staged a break-out from the new pig pen we had built. Andrew is jet black and he wandered into the maintenance cupboard, trod in a tin of white paint and gave himself a beautiful white sock on one leg. He then trod on the back of a tube of silicone sealant and gave himself a beautiful Santa Claus beard to match his white sock. He then decided to do his bit for the environment. He managed to encounter a bag of recycling, but he did not quite get the hang of it because he proceeded to redistribute that round the farmyard. Then he managed to break into the boot room and get himself shut in the downstairs loo.

However, the penalties in this Bill are not for errant animals; they are for humans who are not treating their animals properly. I am really proud of the work that the Government are doing to protect animal welfare. We have the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021, which received Royal Assent earlier this year and raised the maximum prison sentence from six months to five years. We have the new offence for pet abduction, again championed by Members on all sides of the House. The Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill, which had its Second Reading earlier this week, tackles puppy smuggling, the export of live animals for slaughter, and livestock worrying. It expands the definition of animals to include alpacas—our alpacas will be very pleased to hear about that—and includes a ban on keeping primates as pets.

My hon. Friend’s Bill fills an important gap here, toughening sentences for offences that do not qualify for criminal prosecution but that are too serious to receive a warning. I was shocked to hear that the RSPCA received 57,000 complaints of animal cruelty last year. It is so important that we have tougher penalties to tackle that kind of behaviour at a very early stage and, hopefully, to act as an educational tool and to prevent things from getting much worse.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romford again. I am pleased to be supporting this Bill and proud that the Government are, too. As I have said before, pets in our house are people, not property. They are our friends, our companions and they deserve nothing less.