Animal Welfare Bill

I am delighted to be able to speak in this debate, and I begin by declaring two interests. First, the RSPCA animal hospital is situated in my constituency of Putney. The hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland) said that the sanctuary in his constituency had goats. We do not have many goats in Putney, but if we did, I am sure that the RSPCA hospital would take excellent care of them. The second interest that I should declare is that I own two cats that I got from the RSPCA rehoming service in Southall. When the cats arrived in my house, they realised that they had fallen on their feet—or should I say paws?—and had entered a great home. They are lucky, and most of the time lead a life of rest and relaxation, but there is no doubt that many pets in this country are not so fortunate. The Bill is to be greatly welcomed for the progress in animal welfare that it represents. The Bill is badly needed. Other speakers have mentioned the RSPCA statistics in respect of animal welfare; the statistic that I find the most worrying tells us that the number of visits by officers rose by about 40 per cent. between 2003 and 2004. In addition, officers are worried about a greater proportion of the animals that they see on those visits. That is a definite problem, and we need to tackle it. I have three broad areas of concern that I want to bring to the House’s attention, and which I hope will be addressed in Committee. The first has to do with the use of secondary legislation, about which other contributors have spoken already. The second problem is that the Bill needs to be made wider in its application, and the third has to do with the proposed sanctions against people who are found guilty of animal welfare offences. We have heard that the Bill is an enabling measure, and I accept that things can change over time and that legislation needs to be flexible as a result. Ninety-five years have elapsed since the last Bill dealing with animal welfare, and unfortunately it may be that another 95 years will go by before we revisit the matter. However, concern has been expressed in the debate that the proposals place great reliance on secondary legislation, so it is incumbent on the Government to make that secondary legislation, and the details that underpin it, very clear. The regulatory impact assessment is very short on detail. We do not know whether the document to be published will be full and comprehensive, or whether other elements will be introduced at a later stage. We are also lacking information about the codes of practice and other details, with the result that the Bill is like a Christmas tree without decorations. I want to agree with the decorations that will be put on it, but it would be nice if we had a clearer idea of what they are likely to be before we are asked to ratify their use. Moreover, I share the concerns that have been expressed about how the secondary legislation will be adopted in the future, given that we have not been able to see the substance of the first tranche of that legislation. I hope that the Minister will give the House some assurances about the procedures that will be used. There needs to be strong consultation before proposals are developed into statutory instruments. In addition, those instruments—whether they be regulatory, or take the form of codes of practice—should be subject to positive resolution achieved through the affirmative procedure. Such an approach is not especially unusual. The codes of practice in section 3 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968 were subject to positive resolution, and the Bill already suggests that regulations should be handled in a similar manner. With this Bill, therefore, I urge the Government to adopt the same approach with regard to statutory instruments introducing codes of practice. As I said, my second reservation about the Bill has to do with the breadth of its application, and the additional offences that it introduces in respect of cruelty to animals and of animal fighting. I believe that new offences should be introduced to cover the making, distribution and possession of images of animal cruelty and of bestiality for which there can be no lawful authority or excuse. That is the approach adopted in respect of child pornography. I know that the Government responded to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee by saying that they did not want to go down that road because there was no guarantee that the animal welfare offences captured in such images were being committed in Britain. However, that is not seen as a hindrance to taking strong action against child pornography, and I urge the Government to take the same approach with videos of animal cruelty. The RSPCA will confirm that it is very difficult to prosecute people who organise animal fights, so we should give ourselves a chance to take as much action as possible against them. If the law makes it hard to prosecute the main offence, we should at least strengthen our ability to prosecute on a secondary level. That is my second suggestion. My third suggestion—and perhaps it is the most emotive for me as an MP—is that we should strengthen the sanctions proposed in the Bill. The Bill is a great step forward, in that it will enable us to prevent cruelty and prosecute it more thoroughly. The original 1911 Act focused on the prosecution and punishment of people convicted of cruelty, whereas this measure focuses more on prevention. That is long overdue, and I welcome it very much, but I am concerned about the practical effect of the sanctions that the Bill introduces. I hope that the Minister, when he sums up, will correct me if I have misunderstood the proposals. At present magistrates can give custodial sentences of up to six months to people convicted of animal cruelty, yet the Bill’s apparent increase of that sentence to as much as 51 weeks’ imprisonment is affected by the custody plus provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. As a result, the term ““imprisonment”” is somewhat misleading, and the custodial sentence handed out to people will amount to just 13 weeks. That is about half the length of sentence that is available under the current provisions for people convicted of animal cruelty offences. That really concerns me, not only because it sends out a very bad message about how our society wants to punish people convicted of offences against animals, but because it is just plain wrong when seen in the context of the sanctions available for other crimes. For example, people convicted of criminal damage can be referred to the Crown Court, where a penalty much harder than the 13 weeks available under custody plus can be handed down. To me, it seems ludicrous that a person who damages an inanimate object—for example, by burning down a large building—can receive a custodial sentence of two or three years, when a person who commits horrific acts of cruelty against many animals over a long period of time cannot be punished with anything more severe than a sentence of 13 weeks. That is what the Bill provides, and the sentence may even be reduced or replaced with a community service order. The Government have recognised that different levels of offence should be considered in connection with manslaughter and murder—or homicide, as we may end up calling it. In the same way, they should recognise that different degrees of cruelty are involved in the way that people act in relation to animals. The law should not be clipped to prevent harsh sentences being given to those who commit the very worst offences of animal cruelty. I welcome the Bill, which is a big step forward. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) talked about dumb animals, but the science we have today suggests that animals are not necessarily dumb. We know that chimpanzees have 98 per cent. of the DNA of humans. It may never be possible to train a marsupial to do quadratic equations—although if we could we would, depending on where we lived in the world, say ““Eureka!”” or ““Carumba!””—but we should take care of animals, whether dumb or smart. We need sanctions to use against people who do not look after animals, and if we have harsh penalties for that it will say something about our society. I hope that the Minister will be able to address some of my concerns.