I am delighted with the work Conservatives in government are doing to improve animal welfare. We are going FURTHER than EU law on animal welfare.
Our draft Animal Welfare Bill will enshrine animal sentience in all areas, the EU only covers a few, meaning that bull fighting and live animal exports are permitted. Once we've left the EU we can have some of the strongest, if not the strongest, animal welfare laws anywhere in the world.
You can read more about the draft Bill here.
Actions we are taking:
- Increasing the prison sentence for animal abusers to up to 5 years
- Making CCTV mandatory in slaughterhouses
- Banning the sale of ivory
- Banning plastic microbeads which harm marine life
Cases of extreme cruelty are rare – while on average about 1,150 people per year are convicted for animal cruelty, fewer than five of them receive the current maximum sentence. The change in law will ensure that offenders are properly punished in those rare but shocking cases.
Under the government’s plans, courts will retain the ability to hand out an unlimited fine and ban an offender from owning animals in the future, but crucially they will also have the ability to sentence the worst cases appropriately. The move will bring maximum sentences for animal cruelty in England into line with other countries such as Australia, Canada and the Republic of Ireland.
Some of the recent shocking cases in which courts commented they would have handed down longer prison sentences had the law allowed them include:
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A man who systematically abused and killed several puppies by beating, choking and stabbing them, sentenced to the maximum six months’ imprisonment and banned from owning animals.
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A man who kicked his girlfriend’s dog to death, given a custodial sentence of just over five months, fined £1,000 and banned from owning animals.
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A man who fed his dog aspirin and paracetamol to try to kill her, before beating her to death with a shovel, sentenced to four months in prison and banned from owning animals.
