Online Safety Bill

Committee (9th Day) (Continued)

Schedule 7: Priority offences

Amendment 134

134: Schedule 7, page 202, line 9, at end insert— “Animal cruelty A1_ An offence under section 4 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 (unnecessary suffering).A2_ An offence under section 19 of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 (unnecessary suffering).A3_ An offence under section 1 of the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996 (offences).”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment adds a number of animal welfare offences to the list of priority offences outlined in Schedule 7.

My Lords, this is an unusual group: it has just one amendment—Amendment 134 in the name of my noble friend Lord Stevenson. It has also been signed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, whom I thank; I know that the right reverend Prelate is currently in a debate in Grand Committee.

This amendment seeks to add animal cruelty offences to the list of priority offences set out in Schedule 7, which would require platforms to proactively identify and remove content that depicts animal cruelty, including torture and death. This content is increasingly common, and it is shocking—films of cats being kicked about as footballs, dogs being set on fire and monkeys being ensnared into plastic bottles with dogs then being set upon them. All this is widely shared and viewed, and none of it is properly addressed by social media companies. These animal cruelty offences clearly meet the criteria of prevalence, risk of harm and severity of that harm, which have been set out and previously used by the Government to justify additions to the list.

I turn first to prevalence. The Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition database comprises over 13,000 social media links showing animal abuse, collected over the past two years. Social media platforms often fail to remove animal cruelty films when they are reported, despite that being a clear contravention of their policies. In fact, less than 50% of links reported by the coalition since August 2021 have been removed, with predictions of a “rapid proliferation” of animal cruelty footage over the years ahead. This analysis is supported by the RSPCA, which received 756 reports of animal cruelty on social media in 2021, compared with 431 in 2020 and 157 in 2019.

The evidence of harm is also clear. Polling commissioned by the RSPCA five years ago found that nearly one in four of 10 to 18 year-olds had seen animal cruelty on social media sites—a proportion which is very likely to have increased subsequently, given the growth in the prevalence of animal abuse films in recent years. Viewing animal cruelty can cause psychological harm to children, with findings suggesting that,

“There is emerging evidence that childhood exposure to maltreatment of companion animals is associated with psychopathology in childhood and adulthood”.

Viewing animal abuse can also lead to imitative behaviour. Research suggests that children who witness animal cruelty are three to eight times more likely to abuse animals themselves, while those engaging in animal cruelty at a young age are more likely to exhibit abusive and violent behaviour towards people as they grow older.

Amendment 134 supports practical consideration of the effect of policy upon the welfare of animals as sentient beings to fulfil the requirements of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 and help the Government to meet their pledge to

“continue to raise the bar”

for animal welfare in the UK.

The adoption of the measures outlined in Amendment 134 would be a popular move. Thousands upon thousands of people have written in to make the Government aware that they want to see this modest addition, and they are supported by a wide range of animal welfare charities, including the RSPCA, the Born Free Foundation and the Humane Society International.

The Bill Minister in the other place stated that the addition of animal cruelty offences

“deserves further consideration as the Bill progresses through its parliamentary stages”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/7/22; cols. 165-166.]

Earlier this year, as a comparator, the Government agreed to add offences under Section 24 of the Immigration Act, relating to illegal immigration, to the priority offences list. At the time, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State admitted that

“offences in Section 24 cannot be carried out online”,—[Official Report, Commons, 17/1/23; col. 314.]