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

Ruth George Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 General Committees

[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018.

I am pleased to open this debate on an important set of regulations introducing an updated system of local authority licensing of activities involving animals in England. These regulations meet the Government’s manifesto commitment to continuing its review and reform of the pet licensing controls and, specifically, to updating the licensing system for dog breeding, pet sales, riding establishments and animal boarding establishments. They also modernise a system for animal exhibits.

The licensing and registration system that covers these five animal activities is outdated and complex. The activities are regulated under a number of different pieces of legislation: the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act 1925, the Pet Animals Act 1951, the Animal Boarding Establishments Act 1963, the Riding Establishments Act 1964, the Breeding of Dogs Acts 1973 and 1991 and the Breeding and Sale of Dogs (Welfare) Act 1999. They will be repealed and replaced with new regulations that consolidate and update the requirements set out in each of the Acts in one consistent licensing scheme. This new licensing will have more streamlined processes of application, inspection and enforcement, reducing the burden on local authorities and businesses while improving consistency of application across the country.

One of the key issues with the 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 activity. We have worked closely with stakeholders from the industry, animal welfare organisations, local authorities and veterinary bodies in drafting these standards and we are grateful for their support—in particular the Canine and Feline Sector Group and the Equine Sector Council for helping to co-ordinate this work. These new standards 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 drive up animal welfare standards across all of these sectors.

Many people and organisations have been calling for more restrictions to be placed on the breeding and selling of dogs in particular, where it is felt there are unscrupulous businesses that breed dogs in poor conditions for maximum profit. The regulations address this in a number of ways. First, we are making changes to the definition of dog breeding, to ensure 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 who 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, while also ensuring that we crack down on unregulated backstreet breeding.

Secondly, 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. Therefore, the regulations include a number of measures that will help consumers identify these rogue traders and make more informed decisions when purchasing an animal.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

On that point, can the Minister confirm whether unlicensed breeders, specifically those falling below the threshold for licensing, will still be able to sell puppies to pet shops and dealers if they are under eight weeks of age?

[George Eustice]

The situation described by the hon. Lady, as I outlined, would be captured. Under HMRC’s badges of trade, which define what trade is, anyone breeding for the purpose of selling to pet shops would be covered by these regulations, even if they were breeding fewer than three litters a year.

The regulations include a number of measures that will help consumers identify these rogue traders and make more informed decisions when purchasing an animal. Licence holders are required to publish their licence number on all adverts, including online adverts, so that consumers can check with the relevant local authority that it is a legitimate business. All licensed businesses will also receive a risk rating—from one to five stars—based on their welfare standards and compliance record. That is a similar system to the one used in food hygiene rating schemes. For puppies, there is an additional requirement that any sale be completed at the premises where the puppy was bred to make sure that the purchaser sees the puppy and the conditions in which it has been kept before making the final purchase. 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 can 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 some of the more exotic species, such as reptiles, which are becoming more common as pets these days.

Many people are concerned about the increase in the online sale of pets. Dating as it does from 1951, the current legislation is not clear on whether these businesses require a licence. The legal position is that they already do. However, as a result of the lack of clarity, enforcement is inconsistent across the country. Under the new regulations, the issue is put beyond doubt: all commercial sales require a licence, including those that take place online. All 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.

[Ruth George]

The Minister is outlining an excellent procedure for the star rating and the licensing of online, as well as other, sales, but that will require considerable enforcement and monitoring by local authorities. What resources are being given to local authorities to perform all these tasks?

[George Eustice]

Local authorities can recover the full cost of their licensing regime through the price of the licence that they issue. Resourcing is not a problem; they can go for full cost recovery and the regulations provide for that.

I should point out that the licensing system is run by local authorities and, as I said, funded by full cost recovery—the hon. Lady got there just before I reached that point— so there is no financial burden on local authorities. Licences can also 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 the current one to three years, with longer licences going to businesses with earned recognition.

This earned recognition will be based on a combination of past history of compliance and the animal welfare standards adopted by the business. Businesses with high animal welfare standards and high historical levels of compliance, or those associated with a body accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service—such as the Kennel Club’s assured breeder scheme—will be able to achieve the maximum three-year licence, leading to less frequent inspections and a lower fee. They will also achieve a five-star rating to demonstrate their high quality to consumers.

The risk-based system should reduce the workload for local authorities, allowing them to spend more time on enforcement of unlicensed and less compliant businesses. That will also reduce the burden on good businesses and therefore provide 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. That will ensure that they are suitably qualified to undertake inspections for all the animal activities covered by the regulations. The regulations have been drafted in consultation with stakeholders from industry, animal welfare organisations, local authorities and veterinary bodies, and we are grateful for all the assistance they have offered. The regulations are proportionate and targeted and will help improve animal welfare across a number of sectors. I therefore commend them to the Committee.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

May I join the Minister in saying what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen? I am grateful to him for his opening explanation. We are in agreement that the statutory instrument is a step in the right direction, but we will take this opportunity to seek clarification on certain areas and outline reservations that this is a missed opportunity to go further in certain other directions.

There are 2,300 licensed pet shops, 650 licensed dog breeders, 1,800 licensed riding establishments and 6,300 licensed animal boarding establishments in England alone. That is why guaranteeing the welfare of the animals within the system presents such a big challenge for local authorities. Collectively, these businesses make up the fourth largest group of establishments requiring licences issued by local authorities after premises, taxis and gambling establishments. We welcome the opportunity to update the existing legislation, which is contained predominantly within five Acts, as the Minister said, that date back as far as 1925. They are therefore certainly in need of an update.

It is important to account for changes within the sector, new and varied routes to market, updated guidance on animal welfare and changing social attitudes but, perhaps most importantly, it is important to clamp down on those who go beyond poor animal welfare and seek to exploit animals for the purposes of criminal activity and gain. With that in mind, we are pleased to see that under the regulations puppy sales are required to be completed in the presence of the new owner and with the puppy shown with its mother. That is to prevent online sales, which have increased dramatically in recent years and have prevented the buyer from seeing the animal first.

However, the regulations do not prevent the third-party sale of puppies, which is a massive missed opportunity. I heard the Minister’s comments earlier, but the Labour party outlined the pledge in our 2017 manifesto, and we reiterated it in our recent animal welfare plan, which has been endorsed by the League Against Cruel Sports, Compassion in World Farming and the World Wide Fund for Nature. Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals support calls for a ban on the third-party sale of puppies, so why stop short of delivering on that? It would address the issues much more comprehensively than the proposals before us today.

We also want to stress in the strongest possible terms that with the best will in the world, the fewer numbers of staff at cash-strapped local authorities cannot perpetually become experts in the increasing number of fields for which we are asking them to take responsibility. Whether it is environmental health inspectors or licensing officers, when I follow up on casework I am increasingly being told, “The person who knew about that topic does not work here anymore, and I am afraid we haven’t got anyone else.”

Minimum standards are already outlined in guidance, but the Government’s own findings suggest that fewer than one in three local authorities use the guidance when carrying out inspections, and I would imagine that that is a resourcing and time issue as much as anything else.

[Ruth George]

Regarding the resourcing of local authorities, obviously they have to provide the personnel to start with. To monitor the licensing and enforcement, they have to provide up-front training. If they are doing the enforcement side of it, that does not pay as well as the licences themselves. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that if there is a lot of enforcement, that could raise the level of licence fees to a disproportionate level for breeders who are prepared to pay for them?

[Holly Lynch]

My hon. Friend made a couple of key points there. I will come on to talk in detail about the issues she raised, and I hope we will hear the Minister respond to those points, which she made powerfully.

Thinking about resourcing, how do the Government propose to overcome some of the challenges through the new regulations? The impact assessment admits that local authorities may struggle to deliver the new regulations—that was my hon. Friend’s concern—that will be brought into force by 1 October this year. The impact assessment accepts that under this Government, authorities are

“unlikely to acquire additional resource”.

Instead it suggests that to meet demand, authorities may have to reprioritise existing activities. Will the Minister be clear about what local authorities should reprioritise? Is it licences for selling alcohol, taxis, gambling, houses in multiple occupation or tattoo parlours? We all appreciate that that is incredibly important work.

To get down to the detail, the impact assessment assumes a one-off familiarisation cost of two hours’ work per local authority. That is one hour for a staff member to understand the new guidance and a further hour to disseminate that information to other staff members, with a combined national cost to 356 local authorities of just under £11,500. I can only take from that information that one licensing officer will get the training and then is expected to educate the other members of the team. However, the impact assessment specifically says “disseminate” the information. The impact assessment accounts for two hours for one person, which does not allocate a time or cost for the rest of the team to even read the information disseminated, or take part in any internal training, during working hours. With that in mind I will give the Government the benefit of the doubt, and suggest that this impact assessment is just lazy, and provides an inadequate assessment of what the cost would be to get this right in the way that I am sure the Minister intended—because the alternative is that it exposes a fundamental lack of commitment to the training that will be intrinsic to delivering the regulations, and improving animal welfare. I am sure that that is not the case.

We are also keen to better understand how breaches of licence conditions will be penalised—which comes back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak—and what the consequences would be for those seeking to obstruct a licensing officer. Three years is a significant period of time for those establishments that have a good inspection and are rewarded with a lengthy inspection-free period, based on the assessment of risk. However, if a member of the public or an employee, for example, raised concerns with the local authority that changes had occurred and animal welfare had declined in that period, would that mean that further inspections could be brought forward, as we hope would be the case? I would be grateful if the Minister can confirm that today.

We would also like to put on record our regret that the threshold for these new regulations is three litters per annum, which is still an intensive breeding regime for a dog. Why did the Minister draw the line at three litters and not reduce the number to two per year, or even one, as called for by organisations such as the Dogs Trust?

We firmly believe that these measures are a step in the right direction, but I hope that the Minister will offer us some clarity on the issues that I have raised. In particular, can he revisit the training element of these new regulations, as that will be absolutely key if the measures are to be effective? I would be grateful for his assurances that the impact assessment will be reconsidered and that the training will be delivered properly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth George]

Local authorities are already under enormous pressure enforcing the existing regulations. In my area of High Peak, we have not seen a single prosecution for raptor death in the last year and raptors have been reduced from 15 pairs down to one. This is going on, but the law is not being enforced, because enforcement and prosecution in particular take up a vast amount of time and resources that local authorities simply do not have.

[George Eustice]

The hon. Lady is taking us into a slightly different area, which is wildlife crime and persecution of raptors, but she will be aware that we have the national wildlife crime unit, which also addresses this particular issue. It is a challenge. However, as I have said a number of times, local authorities can recover the costs of running this licensing regime and the regulations have provided for that.

The shadow Minister raised an important point, particularly given that there could be a longer licence, what are the remedies if there is a breach of the licence? That is an important point because, somewhat astonishingly, the existing regulations—with the exception of the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act 1925—have no provision at all to revoke the licence. It is an annual licence and the remedy effectively was that it would not be renewed if there was a breach. We do not think that is sufficient or acceptable. In a new addition we have brought in, these regulations enable local authorities to revoke and suspend licences where a breach has occurred. The establishments affected will have the ability to appeal, if they wish, to a first-tier tribunal, so we would make provision for an appeals process. This is the first time that local authorities will have the power to revoke or suspend licences. That is new. It gives us the confidence to grant those longer-term licences where operators have demonstrated a high degree of compliance and a commitment to high-level animal welfare.