In our home, pets are not property; they are members of the family. There is Geoffrey the tortoise, whose sole aim in life seems to be to find the most obscure and inaccessible corner of the room to sit in for the day. The back of the fireplace is his perennial favourite, and crawling in there to retrieve him has become an evening ritual in our house. We then have Florence, Vera and Coco. They are alpacas, although someone who happened to wander into their paddock with a handful of carrots could be forgiven for thinking they were dealing with a shoal of piranhas. Then there is the newest member, Sergeant Wilson the donkey, whose mission is to eat the world—even if it does involve getting his head stuck in the fence while trying to reach for the raspberry canes.
Many of my constituents have been in touch with me to express their concerns about pet theft over the pandemic, so I started a Rushcliffe pet theft survey to listen to people’s views: 96% of people told me that they were worried about pet theft; 30% said that they had been, or knew someone who had been personally affected by it; and 90% have taken extra precautions to ensure that their pet is not stolen. There was varying support for different measures to help to tackle pet theft: 44% wanted tougher sentences; 22% wanted to create a separate offence; 17% wanted more regulation on pet selling; and 15% wanted more support from the police. So I am pleased that the pet theft taskforce will be addressing all those points and considering the issue in its entirety, including causes, prevention, reporting, enforcement and prosecution.
There are a number of fundamental issues to think through. Should we be thinking of pet theft as theft at all, or is it close to abduction? So many contributions here tonight have talked about pets as members of the family. What about the animal cruelty element? At present, if someone causes an animal to suffer in the course of stealing it from the owner, they can be prosecuted under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. But are not all acts of wrenching a pet away from the family who love and care for it an act of animal cruelty? What about sentencing? We already have a maximum term of seven years, yet it rarely seems to be used in the case of pet theft.
So I welcome the opportunity to debate these issues tonight, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and other right hon. and hon. Members for the amendments they have tabled that have enabled us to discuss the matter. I will not be supporting any at this stage because I think we need to see the result of the pet theft taskforce first, so that we have the data that we need to make the best decisions and ensure that we have strongest tools we need to deal with the people who want to steal our pets. I look forward to seeing the results in a couple of weeks’ time and to Ministers taking strong action to implement the taskforce’s recommendations in this Bill in the autumn. We owe it to our pets to make sure that we get this right.