Government Support for the RSPCA

Debate between Tessa Munt and Tim Farron

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mr Twigg. It is a tremendous honour to follow so many great speeches, most of all that by the hon. Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones)—the hon. Member for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) gave us a masterclass in how to pronounce Newport West and Islwyn. The hon. Member for Newport West and Islwyn made a really great opening speech and we ought to be very grateful to her for securing this debate.

It is incredibly important that we mark the RSPCA’s 200th anniversary. It was the first charity of its kind and it is still the leading one, as the largest animal welfare charity in the United Kingdom. There are no two ways about it: how we treat animals—wildlife, livestock, pets or whatever—is a mark of the kind of culture and society we are. Are we a people who are kind? Are we a people who are considerate? Are we a people who consider those who are more vulnerable than us, whether they be humans or animals? That is a measure of whether we truly are a civilised society, and we have to thank and praise the RSPCA for being one of the cornerstones of what it is to live in a civilised country today.

From a local perspective, we have so much to be grateful to the RSPCA for. I represent 1,500 farms, and the RSPCA inspectors help farmers and support animal welfare right across our huge and beautiful communities of Westmorland and Lonsdale, and specifically at the annual Appleby horse fair. We are very grateful for the RSPCA’s focus on that event and in the towns and villages around Appleby, such as Kirkby Stephen, where there is great need for its intervention. RSPCA Westmorland is a wonderful branch, and we praise the inspectors, the volunteers and all the people who make that outfit so very successful, from their base in Kendal to the shops in Bowness and Kendal itself.

As we have heard from many Members today, the RSPCA relies on donations—0.1% of its income comes from a Government source, leaving the rest of it to be raised by hard-working volunteers. That funding is spent incredibly effectively: 82p out of every pound that it raises goes on direct interventions to preserve animal welfare; 1p out of every pound goes on governance; and the other 17p is invested in raising the next pound. It is so important to remember that a really significant part of what the RSPCA does is raise money to be able to do its fantastic work. That is both practical and political, and it is important to reflect on that and to praise the RSPCA for both.

This has been a really great debate, and I will not cover everything that has been said, because of time constrictions, but let us start with the hon. Member for Newport West and Islwyn. She talked rightly about the lack of breeding regulations and the immense suffering that can be caused by specific bred characteristics. I had the pleasure—although it was a very sobering experience in many ways—of visiting Battersea Dogs and Cats Home last year, and I saw the tiny fraction of animals, including a dog, that have been lucky enough to have medical interventions to undo the consequences of such breeding—respiratory problems, great suffering and shorter lives.

That was a reminder of why it is important that we look to regulate ownership as well as breeding. When I were a lad, we had the dog licence, and I am not convinced that it is not a good idea to go back to such a system. We often talk about dangerous breeds, but we are generally talking about poor owners. We need to ensure that we have a licencing system that regulates these things, so that our animals are cared for and well reared.

The hon. Member made a wonderful point setting out the advances and reminding us of the many great things Parliament has done, both recently and over a longer period, including on animal sentience and preventing primates being kept as pets. Many if not all of those things happened because of RSPCA pressure, and we are grateful for that.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about a number of issues, but specifically about how much the RSPCA does with so little. He also rightly focused on the RSPCA’s educational work, ensuring that young people know from an early age how important it is to value animals and to treat them with kindness. I am the opposite of the hon. Member in that I was the one brought up with cats and my wife was the one brought up with dogs—and she won. We had a wonderful couple of ginger toms called Eric and Ernie when we were first married; they were terrorised by my toddler, who is now 23. They moved next door and lived long and prosperous lives as a result—there was no need for RSPCA intervention. Sadly, they were the last cats that I owned.

The hon. Member for Clwyd East (Becky Gittins) made a brilliant speech, and I welcome her to this place and to the Westminster Hall family. She talked about the importance of rescue centres and how many of them are full. There are too few resources available and so many healthy and otherwise happy animals are tragically put down. She talked about the importance of microchipping and of tackling puppy and kitten smuggling and farming, something that the last Government were shaping to do but did not. There was an animal welfare Bill in the 2019 Conservative manifesto that was good and ready to go, but they took it to bits and did some of it. That was a terrible waste, because there was absolutely a majority in the last Parliament to pass that Bill. I hope the new Government will now finish the job and go further. The hon. Member also made some other excellent alongside that.

I was pleased to hear the excellent and impassioned speech from the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay). He talked about the hard side of what the RSPCA does and the importance of bringing prosecutions. There must be justice: when people treat animals unfairly and cruelly we should do more than just wring our hands. We are grateful to the RSPCA and its inspectors and officers for ensuring that justice is done and prosecutions happen.

[Tessa Munt]

I do not want to say that people who have been violent to others start here, but there is a lot of research that indicates that cruelty to animals is often a precursor of cruelty to people. The RSPCA is well placed in its work to identify people who are capable of doing the most dreadful things to animals and who might then go on to offend against other people.

[Tim Farron]

Tragically, my hon. Friend is correct. There is much evidence to back up the idea that many people who abuse human beings started off or learned their trade with how they treated animals. That is shocking, but as the hon. Member for Waveney Valley pointed out, in dealing with prosecutions the RSPCA may end up protecting humans in the long run by tackling those who abuse animals. He also spoke about the impact of animal welfare issues on pollution, and in particular the huge industrial-style chicken sheds and what they mean for water quality. He spoke of the importance of the welfare of farmed animals, which I will come back to in my conclusion if I have a minute.

The hon. Member for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) spoke about many things, including the RSPCA’s commitment to rehoming and ensuring good homes for those animals that have been abandoned. We need to support it to do that because in many cases, as the hon. Member for Clwyd East said, not enough of those animals are being rehomed because of a lack of space in shelters.

In an earlier intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) talked about the clear and attested benefits of pet ownership for our mental health—there are no two ways about it. Having lost to my wife, we now have dogs. We have a chocolate Lab called Ted, who is my running companion. I have a running lead and he pulls me up the hills—it is awesome. We also have an elderly and decrepit springer spaniel, Jasper, who used to be my running companion. He improves my mental health by reminding me that I am not the most decrepit member of our household— bless him, but put him in water and you would think he was a seal.

[Tessa Munt]

I would like to offer some balance, because it comes to me that the RSPCA was involved in an amazing project working with young offenders on the south coast. Young people who had often effectively ended up in the prison system, who had never been loved or had anything to love, had the opportunity to work with horses—big, powerful animals that could hurt them more than the other way round. It was an amazing project that allowed the recovery of those young people, which gives a bit of balance to my previous point.

[Tim Farron]

My hon. Friend makes a good point; that is absolutely true. Animals are good for us, so we should be good to them. The RSPCA has been great at encouraging both sides of that.

We have rightly paid tribute to the RSPCA for its practical and political work lobbying to make this place and our society kinder to animals. It has a list of ambitions, and we have gone through many of them, but I will name a handful: to stop illegal puppy and kitten trading, to improve farmed animal welfare, to end the severe suffering of animals used in science, to secure legal protection for animals and establish an animal protection commission, to achieve statutory powers in England and Wales for RSPCA inspectors and, internationally, to secure a UN declaration for animals. To go further and meet the high standards that the RSPCA sets us, we in this place should be banning puppy and kitten farming and smuggling; ending the use of inhumane cages on an industrial scale, particularly when it comes to laying hens; and moving away from animal testing for medical and other forms of science where it is safe to do so.

There are broader things as well. In the last Parliament, we had a Government who did trade deals with countries with poorer animal welfare standards than our own, effectively exporting problems to other countries and, in the process, undermining our farmers, who have relatively high animal welfare standards. They rewarded those overseas producers with poorer welfare standards and penalised our farmers with higher welfare standards. That was wrong, and I hope this Government will do something about it.

For all the problems with the new farm payment scheme, I will praise the last Government for the farming in protected landscapes programme—FiPL—which provides grant support to farmers in places such as the lakes, the dales and other protected landscapes. It allows farmers to move towards accommodation and other capital kit that allows them to keep their animals at a higher welfare standard. That money runs out at the end of March; I would love the Minister to address that. FiPL has been one of the few good things so far to come out of the botched transition from the old farm payment scheme to the new one, and it is good for animal welfare and farmers.

More generally, let us remember that one reason we in this country have higher animal welfare standards in farming than in other places such as Australia and the US is because we have a tradition of family farming and close husbandry. Put bluntly, the first time an Australian or American farmer knows their livestock is unwell is when they find its sun-bleached bones the next year. The reality in the United Kingdom is that we have a closeness and therefore a tenderness and a practical way of being able to care for our animals.

We need to ensure in the farm transition that huge landlords are not the ones who benefit, as is currently happening thanks to the mistakes of the last Government, and instead that we support smaller farmers, who currently cannot get into those schemes. In yesterday’s debate, I mentioned a hill farmer I spoke to recently who has lost £40,000 in farm payments; he has gained £14,000 under the sustainable farming incentive to replace those payments, and even that cost him £6,000 for a land agent to try to get him through the hoops. People like him will potentially go out of business, and we will end up with ranch farming, rather than the family farming we need if we really care about animal welfare in farming in the UK.

In short, 200 years is absolutely something we should celebrate, but the RSPCA lacks resources, and we need to support it to have more. There are many laws that do not support animal welfare as we would like them to, including Government policy that advantages those who mistreat animals both at home and abroad. The RSPCA has done so much and wants to do so much more; it is our job as a Parliament to support it.

Rural Broadband and Mobile Coverage

Debate between Tessa Munt and Tim Farron

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I start by paying tribute to my neighbours and friends in Cumbria and other Members for excellent speeches. This is a tremendously important debate, and I will restrict my comments mostly to the third part of the motion, which refers to target broadband speeds. My neighbour, the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), talked about the impact on business, but I wish to mention the impact of broadband coverage—or, in the case of south Cumbria, the lack of adequate broadband coverage—on social equality and social justice.

Let us look at the wider picture. The biggest issue facing folks in the Lake district and the dales, and in the areas that are so beautiful that they are not in either national park in south Cumbria, is the mismatch between average incomes and average house prices. The average house price in my patch is more than £250,000, but the average income is significantly less than £20,000. One in three young people leaves our area and never comes back.

My hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) spoke about the loss of businesses from his area because of the lack of broadband coverage. Many people who employ four or five members of staff will shift their business out of the south lakes because of a lack of business space, but they also move away because of the lack of access to decent broadband coverage.

Superfast broadband is a way of equalising opportunities in rural areas, where wealth and poverty are cheek by jowl. Why would people not live in a staggeringly beautiful place such as the Lake district or south Cumbria if they could afford to do so and if they could make a living there? People move into our area to retire—they are extremely welcome if they have the wherewithal to do so. Others buy second homes and visit occasionally, which is okay. However, many are effectively displaced, because they cannot earn a living there. Adequate—or, I hope, more than adequate—access to superfast broadband would give people the opportunity to set up or work for businesses and to make a decent living.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

The same problem exists in Somerset, and it affects not only those who are seeking to retire but those who are seeking jobs. In my area, jobcentres are few and far between, and people seeking jobs must be online to apply for jobs that are advertised in jobcentres, so their opportunities are incredibly limited when they cannot get broadband.

[Tim Farron]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The need for such communications is greater for people in rural areas than for people in urban areas.

The current situation in my constituency is that many areas have access to pathetically slow broadband speeds. I pay tribute to Colin Barr and the team from Colton parish council, whose study showed that 45% of people in the High Furness local area could access no more than 0.5 megabits per second. Our communities and their MPs will not tolerate that. That is why I am so proud that our communities in Cumbria, and South Lakeland especially, are choosing to make their own luck. I pay tribute to the folks in Colton, Hutton Roof, Grasmere, Beetham, Kirkby Lonsdale and Upper Kent, and to the team from Fibre GarDen who ensure that we can deliver superfast broadband to Garsdale and Dent. They show a vision that UK plc—I am not aiming criticism in any specific direction—has so far not matched. This debate is about demonstrating that the House of Commons stands behind them in solidarity.

We must show ambition. The ambition that saw the development of the railways, canals and so on is lacking so far in that critical aspect of our infrastructure needs. The target of 2 megabits per second, as I am sure most hon. Members know, is staggeringly unambitious. Next year, Norway will roll out to 98% of its inhabitants 100 megabits per second, and the EU digital agenda is for 30 megabits per second by 2020. I admit that Singapore is not entirely rural—[Interruption.] It has bits of rain forest—I checked on Google Maps and once upon a time spent six weeks there. Singapore has access to 1 gigabit per second, for pity’s sake, which is what we are competing with. The reality is that we are behind. That will matter.

When I studied at university in the constituency of the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) in 1990—I would barely touch a word processor at that time, never mind anything else—I read an article about mobile phone usage. People were asked, “Can you see yourself needing a mobile phone in the next 10 years, or would you want one?” but only one in five answered yes. My hon. Friend the Member for Burton was asked how many of his constituents want access immediately. I am sure that many do, but I am also sure that many of his constituents, like many of mine, do not realise that they want it, or that they should want it.

There is a need for evangelism to sell the need for access to superfast broadband. We will need something like 100 megabits per second, and we will need it soon. For example, those places in Cumbria that are most remote from hospitals and the most likely to benefit from telemedicine are the least likely to have the chance to access that technology. World leaders such as Gilkes in Kendal, which is providing hydroturbines in south, central and north America, need to be able to upload incredibly complex graphic designs. Kendal now has 20 megabits per second and that is wonderful, but even that will not be enough for very long. Rural farmers need to be able to complete their Rural Payments Agency forms. The £2 billion Cumbrian tourism industry needs to be able to punch above its weight as it fights the city break market. To do that it needs more than the 2 megabits per second that we are talking about today.

I am proud to be part of the campaign across Cumbria with the county council and BDUK—Broadband Delivery UK—to roll out the broadband pilot in South Lakelands. I am also proud of the broadband pioneers and the hub co-ordinators we have in the area. I welcome what is happening in Cumbria, but I am frustrated by the speed of the project and the speed of the target. I am concerned that the infrastructure as it is built across Britain must be future-proof, but it is not even now-proof. We have to build a network that is in the interests of our communities and businesses, and—dare I say?—not in the interests of one or two large telecommunications companies. That is the great fear I have about our county project. We have heard that fear about Lancashire and I suspect that it is shared across the country.

We need to state that copper is not the answer and that fibre to the cabinet is not a future-proof answer. It might suit certain companies, but it is not future-proof and fibre to the home and business is the answer. Mobile and satellite solutions also play a huge role, and I endorse everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) said about mobile networks. Costs should not be higher for users in rural areas than they are for users in cities, and that is another important issue.

Andrew Fleck, the chairman of Fibre GarDen—the team trying to bring fibre-optic, superfast broadband to Garsdale and Dentdale, said in his e-mail to me a couple of days ago:

“The cost of nationwide implementation is prohibitive in the current economic climate, but the economic penalty for delay will be greater still.”

He is absolutely right. Tonight I will get on the train to Oxenholme and travel on a rail network that was built by visionaries 150 years ago. That is the sort of vision and ambition that we need today.