Animal Welfare Bill

I welcome the Bill for the reasons outlined: because it updates and consolidates animal welfare law, provides a framework for more effective regulation of animal ownership and welfare, and increases the range of sentencing powers. The debate has principally been about what is not in the Bill. I shall say no more about that except that I support entirely any legislation that would prevent the mutilation of dogs and the use of animals in circuses. I principally want to refer to the new duty of care, which has not received a great deal of attention in the Chamber. It has the potential to make a huge difference to the lives of many thousands of animals because it gives animals a right to the five freedoms referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping). Let us not underestimate the importance of the rights that the Bill gives to animals: the right to the provision of adequate food and water; the right to health care, appropriate protection from pain, injury and disease, and to diagnosis and treatment of those afflictions when they occur; and the right to a suitable environment for everyday existence and the capacity to exhibit their normal behaviour. It is a sad reflection of society that we need to introduce that duty of care and to put it on the statute book. It is necessary for two sad reasons. First, there is a wide range of reasons why people go for domestic pet ownership. It is not always because pets are loved by their owners. Many are acquired for other reasons, such as personal security or as protection against burglary. I am not suggesting that we cannot have a range of legitimate reasons for acquiring pets, but there is a frequent risk that the interests of the animals are compromised because they were not adequately considered at the time of acquisition. We have all seen the more extreme consequences of careless pet ownership. Every time we witness a stray dog in the street or the sorry sight of animals being rescued from cruel treatment, we witness the failure of society adequately to protect animals from cruel treatment. I welcome the provisions to establish a code of practice for the duty of care which will make the responsibilities of pet owners explicit. I urge the Minister to assure us that he will find ways of ensuring that the code of practice is, in one way or another, made readily available to all current and future pet owners, whether it is through pet shops or pet breeders. I support what was said by the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) and the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) about educating pet owners. The introduction in the national curriculum—via citizenship classes perhaps—of the care of pets would be welcome. My second reason for supporting the new duty of care relates to the greater protection that it offers to those animals that are bought by parents for their children. We all know which animals are popular with children. Cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters and guinea pigs are among the most popular choices. There is no doubt that when the animals are purchased, the children concerned have every intention of caring for them and giving them all the attention they need. What happens, however, when a child loses interest and when the desire to care for the animal disappears and turns out to be a mere whim, rather than a genuine commitment? Neglect is often the consequence. It is not cruelty as we commonly understand it, but a form of treatment that could be viewed as cruelty because it exposes the animal to a limited and miserable existence. Of course, it is often the very small animals that suffer that treatment—the guinea pigs, hamsters and rabbits—because they are easy to overlook and forget. The duty of care will make it clear to parents that they must take responsibility for ensuring that animals in the care of the family are not merely protected from the worst consequences of neglect, but properly cared for to a standard agreed by society as the minimum acceptable. The new responsibility is inescapably laid at the door of the parents because of the measure to raise the age of acquisition of pets from 12 to 16. I welcome that because it makes it crystal clear where the responsibility lies for the welfare of an animal within the family home. I support the Bill because I believe strongly that one of the key measures of a civilised society is how well it looks after its animals. I am not what people would call an animal lover in the traditional sense of the term. I know it is not easy for a British person to say that. My husband and I do not have pets, and neither do we have any intention of acquiring any. However, I detest cruelty to animals and feel passionately that they deserve the fullest rigour and protection of the law. In that respect, I would have preferred to see stronger measures in the Bill, such as the creation of a new offence to outlaw the possession of fighting equipment. Nevertheless, the Bill has much to commend it, and I finish my remarks by paying tribute to all those organisations in the voluntary sector that have contributed so much to getting us to where we are today. We owe them our gratitude for all that they do and for their dedication to creatures that are so often vulnerable to the activities of a cruel minority in our society.