It is a pleasure to rise to speak in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on bringing this Bill to the House. I also pay tribute to current and previous hon. and right hon. Members for bringing the Bill this far and I urge Ministers to continue to take it forward.
Thinking back to February—it seems like such a long time ago now—I was lucky enough to join one of my RSPCA officers on her round in Truro and Falmouth and beyond to see what kind of visits they do on a daily basis. Claire Ryder was the officer and she took me to various houses. After listening to today’s debate, I am very grateful that all we had to do was to visit a man following a report on his dog. Thankfully, that dog was very well fed and very well cared for. Perhaps his neighbour had made a malicious call— who knows? Thankfully, though, on that day, no harm had been done.
We do hear of some harrowing cases in Cornwall. I will not go into any details because I have been very disturbed by some of what we have heard today. Last year, the Cornish courts heard about dogs being starved, cattle, horses and ponies being kept in mud up to their bellies, and a bull that had been so mistreated that it ended up impregnating its own mother, so uncared for were the cattle. It would be remiss of me not to mention the ponies on Bodmin moor on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann). People often see the moors as dumping grounds for ponies. The fantastic charity, Redwings, is looking out for these ponies now and making sure that they get good veterinary care. The point is that that should not have to happen.
I will join the debate about springer spaniels. We have an English springer spaniel, but, because he is black and white, which is the same colour as St Piran’s flag, we like to call him a Cornish springer spaniel, and what else would you call a springer spaniel if you have a husband who is a fisherman but Kipper?
Kipper is nine, so we had Kipper before we had my daughter. He has gone through the tutu-wearing stage of his life, and all he did was give me hangdog looks as if to say, “When is she going back?” She is not, thankfully, and neither is he. This raised an important point in our house and we had discussions about how this lovely gentle dog of mine has a mouthful of teeth and how he could quite easily break my wrist should he choose to do so. The same applies to some of the harrowing stories that we have heard today, particularly the one about Baby, who was just so awfully treated. He also had a mouthful of teeth with which he could have done some quite nasty damage, but we have bred these dogs to be so loyal and so caring of us that, when they are turned on in that way, they choose not to fight back. We must do better in looking after them.
I am also concerned about the lockdown puppies that we are seeing now. A year ago, a Labrador would probably have cost about £750 and now we are probably looking in excess of £2,000 from the same breeder. I do not have a problem with breeders charging what the
market is demanding, but, obviously, this is encouraging illegal trade in backroom breeding, puppy smuggling and the importing of puppies. Dogs Trust said it is concerned that there will be up to 40,000 dogs abandoned in the coming months as a result of people buying puppies during the covid pandemic. Although there are many responsible sellers out there, sadly there are plenty who are looking to tug on the heartstrings and exploit the situation for their own profit. With puppies in such high demand and selling for such high prices, it is creating a lucrative market for cruel puppy smugglers. Sadly, we have rescued many dogs that have been imported into the country destined to be sold during lockdown.
At some point in the future, I would like to see something else added to the microchip of a dog. I would like it made compulsory for a dog to be microchipped on its very first visit to the vet as a puppy. On that information, I would also like to see where it was bred and who it was bred by, so should we see, down the line, unscrupulous owners abandoning and mistreating dogs, we know where that dog started its life and we can ask the breeder what went wrong. Perhaps we can learn from good breeders who are scrupulous about finding very good homes for their dogs, regardless of what they are charging.
In conclusion, I say well done to my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset for bringing this Bill to the House. I would also like to associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) who said that no sentence would be long enough, and I urge anyone in the judiciary to use these new powers to the best of their ability.
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