Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill

Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill

The purpose of the Bill is to:

● Deliver manifesto commitments to strengthen animal welfare, including banning live exports, tackling puppy smuggling and banning the keeping of primates as pets without a licence.

The main benefits of the Bill would be:

● Taking opportunities presented by Brexit to go further in improving our animal welfare standards and taking forward key parts of the Action Plan for Animal

Welfare.

● Improving the lives of farm animals, pets and kept wild animals by ending unnecessary journeys for slaughter and fattening and addressing the serious issue of dog attacks on livestock, which cause distress to both livestock and farmers.

● Improving the lives of pets in this country and protecting pet owners by cracking down on the cruel practice of puppy smuggling and creating a specific new offence for pet abduction.

● Ensuring that kept wild animals receive the specialist care they need, whether that be animals in zoos or primates that are kept privately.

The main elements of the Bill are:

● Banning the exports of livestock for fattening and slaughter.

● Strengthening powers for police to deal with incidents of livestock worrying.

● Tackling puppy smuggling by reducing the number of pets that can travel under the pet travel rules and powers to take further action, including raising the minimum age that pets can travel into Great Britain and banning imports of dogs with cropped ears and docked tails.

● Introducing a new pet abduction offence to reflect the value we place on our pets.

● Creating a rigorous licensing scheme for those keeping primates requiring them to meet high welfare standards and ensuring higher protections for all primates that are not kept in zoos.

● Updating the Zoo Licensing Act 1981 to improve enforcement and strengthen conservation requirements for zoos.

Territorial extent and application

● The Bill will extend and apply in the main to Great Britain, with one provision extending and applying across the UK.

Key facts

● The Government has an ambitious agenda to revolutionise the welfare and treatment of animals at home and abroad, as set out in the Action Plan for Animal

Welfare published last year.

● Already in this Parliament, the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act, the Animals (Penalty Notices) Act, Glue Traps (Offences) Act, and the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act have all received Royal Assent, demonstrating the Government’s ongoing commitment to upholding world-leading animal welfare standards.

● We are also committed to legislation to ban the import of hunting trophies from thousands of species. This will be one of the toughest bans in the world, and goes beyond our manifesto commitment, meaning we will be leading the way in protecting endangered animals and helping to strengthen and support long-term conservation.

● The shortest direct to slaughter export journey from the UK to continental Europe in 2018 was a journey time of 18 hours.

● In 2020, around 6,300 sheep were exported for slaughter from Great Britain to the EU and around 38,000 sheep were exported for fattening; no cattle or pigs were exported for slaughter or fattening in 2020 from Great Britain to the EU.

● Puppy smuggling is often associated with serious welfare issues. In 2020, 975 dogs that were found to be non-compliant with existing animal health and welfare legislation were imported. This was an increase from 196 dogs in 2019.

● There are up to an estimated 5,000 unlicensed primates being kept in England. In response to Defra’s consultation on Primates as Pets, only 19 respondents out of 4,516 (0.4 per cent) were opposed to licence holders having an exemption from the ban on keeping primates.

● The cost of dog attacks on livestock in 2021 was £1.52 million. This is up from £1.3 million in 2020.

● In May 2021 the Government launched the Pet Theft Taskforce to investigate the apparent rise in pet theft since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The

Taskforce found that around 2,000 dog theft crimes were reported to police in 2020, causing considerable distress to owners.