Animal Welfare

I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on securing the debate. I want to give a bad example from my constituency, which has quite a few animal welfare issues. In this instance, a young fox had a habit of going to a large supermarket every night to hunt for food. A gang of boys got hold of the fox by the tail and hurled it round and round, smashing its head against a wall several times, and then stamped on its head. The punishment for that—well, it was hardly a punishment at all. It is absolutely necessary to increase the penalties for people who inflict that kind of cruelty on animals.