Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Benyon on 10 November (HL11), how many prosecutions there have been in each year since the implementation of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 of individuals causing animals unnecessary suffering as a result of the misuse of fireworks; and how many of those resulted in a custodial sentence.

The Ministry of Justice publishes information on prosecutions, convictions and sentence outcomes in the Outcome by Offence data tool including offences as set out in the Offence Group Classification. This can be found via the following link: Criminal Justice System statistics quarterly: December 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The total number of individuals prosecuted and sentence outcomes for causing, permitting, or failing to prevent unnecessary suffering of animals, under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, can be obtained by selecting HO code 09701 and 10829.

However, whether this was specifically due to the misuse of fireworks is not held centrally in the Court Proceedings Database. This information may be held on court records but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate costs.