It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on his tireless work on this issue, and on the Bill in particular. It is clear from his contributions today how passionate he feels about animal welfare. I place on the record my admiration of and thanks to the Finn’s law campaign. I was proud to meet Finn and his handler when he visited Parliament at the start of this year. Since Royal Assent was given to the Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Act 2019, the Finn’s law campaign has pushed hard for increased sentences for the worst cases of cruelty and neglect, which the Bill will of course bring into being.
For too long, the most violent abusers of animals have been able to stain the UK’s otherwise proud record on animal welfare. The current array of potential deterrents,
including fines, a ban on keeping animals and a maximum of six months in prison, has simply not been strong enough, with calls to the RSPCA cruelty line increasing by almost 50,000 between 2018 and 2019, to a shocking 1.2 million. In preparing for the debate, I learned of some examples where punishments were not, in my opinion, in any way adequate; we have heard some of those already.
In one case, a cat was left in a washing machine for hours before it ultimately died. The perpetrator received only a disqualification from keeping animals for five years.