Animal Welfare Bill

I am grateful to the noble Duke for moving the amendment. I hope that I can give a satisfactory answer, especially to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, although I shall not be able to do so now. He mentioned selling as opposed to delivery and movement. Those constitute two distinct activities. We shall consider that but we may be able to deal with it in regulations. As the noble Duke said, the amendment would prohibit the commercial sale of dogs from anywhere but a private home or a licensed breeding establishment. The principal impact of this amendment would be to ban the sale of dogs through pet shops. It would also ban the selling of dogs less than eight weeks old. I emphasise ““selling”” because that point was raised. We intend to replace the existing legislation on the sale of pet animals with secondary regulations once the Bill becomes law, so this is not the end of the matter. An outline of the proposals is set out in the regulatory impact assessment. As part of that work we will certainly want to consider, in consultation with all interested parties, the sale of dogs through pet shops. However, we have yet to hear a convincing welfare argument for banning that. Work would need to be done on that issue if the Committee wanted to pursue it. The new welfare offence in the Bill will apply to pet shops and to anyone who buys a dog from a pet shop. We hope that the new regulations we propose on pet sales will raise the welfare standards in pet shops and that the new welfare offence will discourage the impulse buying of all animals, not just dogs. As has been said, Amendment No. 170 amends the Breeding and Sale of Dogs (Welfare) Act 1999 so that it would prohibit licensed dog breeders from selling dogs which are less than eight weeks old to licensed pet shops. There is already legislation which deals with the sale of underage puppies. Under the Pet Animals Act 1951, local authorities must have regard when issuing a licence to the need to ensure that mammals are not sold at too early an age. It also an offence under the Protection of Animals Act 1911 to cause unnecessary suffering to an animal. The view of officials is that the existing law coupled with the welfare offence in the Bill may already be sufficiently robust to address the sale of unweaned puppies. However, I take fully on board what the noble Lord said about the sale and transfer of ownership not necessarily constituting the transfer of the puppy. I will have to wait until Report to see whether this issue can be covered, is covered or will be covered in the consultation. I remind noble Lords that the Bill sets out our intention to modernise the law on the breeding and sale of dogs. The Kennel Club is already piloting the accredited breeder scheme, and we will prepare draft regulations once that pilot has been evaluated. There will, of course, be a public consultation before the draft regulations are considered by Parliament. That will bring additional safeguards to prevent puppy farming. As I said, it is quite legitimate to raise those issues, and I am glad that I have had the chance to respond for the record. There is obviously some old legislation already—namely, from 1911 and 1951—but the question is how active that is. It does not matter how old it is; is it effective, and is it being used to address the points that are at the nub of the amendments? It would not make sense to legislate twice on the same thing; that is always dangerous.