Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, further to plans announced in the Action Plan for Animal Welfare, what animal cruelty offences could be penalised with a Fixed Penalty Notice.

This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.

As set out in the Action Plan for Animal Welfare and as part of an effort to promote high welfare standards, we want to ensure that proportional, targeted, transparent and consistent penalties are available to complement other existing sanctions; such as warnings, improvement notices and prosecution already established by the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and other animal welfare related legislation.

Penalty Notices (PNs) would cover a wide range of offences included in the Animal Health Act, Animal Welfare Act and the parts of the European Communities Act covered by the Withdrawal Act. For the worst cases of harm and suffering experienced by animals – criminal prosecutions would still be the correct course of action. In other cases, PNs would be the proportionate response.

An example of where Penalty Notices (PNs) could be used is in the case of overstocking in laying hens, which impacts the welfare of hens. Criminal prosecution is often disproportionate, so beyond an improvement notice - this offence is often unchallenged. In such an example, PNs could be used as an effective deterrent.