Pet Abduction Bill

Before we begin, I remind Members of the differences between Report and Third Reading. The scope of the debate on Report is the new clauses and amendments that have been selected. The scope of the Third Reading debate to follow will be the whole Bill as it stands after Report. Members may wish to consider those points and then decide at which stage or stages they want to try to catch my eye.

New Clause 1

Guidance

“(1) The Secretary of State must publish guidance on the enforcement of the provisions of this Act.

(2) Before issuing guidance under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must consult the Crown Prosecution Service.”—(Sir Christopher Chope.)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 2, after “if” insert “without lawful authority or a reasonable excuse”.

Amendment 2, page 1, line 3, after “to” insert “permanently”.

Amendment 3, page 1, line 3, leave out “any person” and insert “its keeper”.

Amendment 4, page 1, line 5, after “to” insert “permanently”.

Amendment 5, page 1, line 5, leave out from “of” to end of line 6 and insert “its keeper”.

Amendment 6, page 1, leave out lines 21 to 23.

Amendment 7, page 2, line 16, leave out “(3)”.

Before I begin to address the issues, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I, on behalf of myself and many others, express our condolences to Mr Speaker, who I know is unable to be present today because he is attending his father’s funeral? I had the privilege of serving with Doug Hoyle in this House from 1983 until 1992, and he was an exemplar for Back-Bench activity during that time. Our sympathies are very much with Mr Speaker.

Turning to the amendments, and particularly new clause 1, I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, with whom I was privileged to have a meeting last week to discuss my amendments. They will have a better understanding of the way I work than quite a lot of other colleagues. I am pleased that as a result of that meeting there was essentially an agreement—an acceptance—that we must try to link communications about the appalling incidents of pet abduction or theft to the need for people to microchip their loved animals, particularly dogs and cats. In the course of that discussion, it was pointed out by the Minister of State that before the Bill is to become law, it will be necessary for guidance to be discussed with the Crown Prosecution Service regarding exactly what the enforcement provisions would be. I hope that in responding to this debate, my right hon. Friend will expand on that point.

Following that discussion, I thought I would table a new clause about guidance, so that any references in the debate could include references to the specific issue of guidance that would be issued following the enactment of the Bill. I would like that guidance to set out clearly the position for people who do not microchip their cats and dogs. Microchipping of dogs is mandatory and has been since 2010, but we know that something between 5% and 10% of the 9.5 million dogs in this country are not microchipped. In early June, it will be mandatory for all cats to be microchipped, and probably about 70% have been microchipped by now.

My hon. Friend is making a fair point that if people want help when their dogs have been stolen, they should have them properly chipped in accordance with the regulations. I do not think puppies are included in that. It is important that we think about the pet owners for whom we are trying to get this Bill through. I know that he is not seeking in any way to block it, but these people would almost certainly have complied with the law, and I understand that the amendment would make it far more difficult for the police. While I understand the sentiments, I hope he will not press this to a Division.

I will hold my counsel on that until I hear the Minister’s response. If I said now that I agree with the Minister before he has even said anything, I would be closing off an important option. Despite the temptation from my right hon. Friend, I will not do that. She herself has said to me in private that she thinks there is a lot to be said for what I am trying to achieve on microchipping. I have a specific amendment linking microchipping to the text of the Bill. The guidance is perhaps another way of achieving the same objective.

My right hon. Friend reminds me that when the Bill came out of Committee, it was originally put on the list of Bills to be considered without debate on a Friday, on the basis that everything that could have been said about it had already been said and it should now proceed directly to the statute book. It was with wry amusement that I saw that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth), the promotor of the Bill, has now taken advantage of the opportunity provided by having a debate on Report to put down her own amendments to the Bill. She could not have done that if her original intention of having the Bill go through all remaining stages on the nod had been implemented. I hope she will thank me for that.

Since the Bill was first produced, the Government have brought forward some important new measures related to microchipping to deal with the problems of the conflicting or complementary microchipping databases. The pet theft taskforce was commissioned to look into these issues of pet abduction, and it strongly recommended that something be done to ensure that there is one consistent database for microchipping that is accessible to vets, the police and local authorities. I was pleased to see that the Government have issued guidance, and that there will potentially be new regulations, on that. When we met, the Minister told me that that will come into force before the end of this year. Hopefully that will make the use of the microchip database easier and reduce the costs of enforcement.

The latest figures that I have show that in 2020, with 9.6 million dogs in the country, there were only 2,000 reports of dog theft. By contrast, the latest figures show that in England and Wales in 2022-23, 130,521 motor vehicle thefts were reported—one every five minutes. We therefore need to keep the issue in context. There seems to be an exponential increase in the incidence of motor vehicle theft and an inability of the police and the prosecuting authorities to investigate thoroughly and prosecute the perpetrators. The number of motor vehicle thefts being resolved by the prosecution and enforcement authorities seems to be derisorily low. I therefore do not think we should have guidance that essentially says to the police that dealing with the potential prosecution or investigation of a theft of an unmicrochipped dog or cat should take precedence over trying to find the perpetrators—often gangs—who are stealing motor vehicles to order off the streets, and in some cases even from people’s garages or drives.

My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. Perhaps he might consider that the instances of motor vehicles being stolen to order are a symptom of organised crime, just as we recognise that pet theft is now a key contributor to organised crime.

I accept that behind the incidence of pet theft there is organised crime, but in the latest figures that we have, that organised crime has resulted in only some 2,000 incidents of dog theft, compared with more than 130,000 incidents of motor vehicle theft, many of which have been stolen to order. I accept that some of the pet theft we are experiencing is because pets of increasing value are being stolen to order, so I am not saying that we should not deal with that; I am saying that we should ensure that the guidance issued reflects the public priorities and does not divert too much police resource away to concentrate on pet theft rather than other crimes such as motor vehicle theft.

That is the background to new clause 1, which would require the Secretary of State to publish guidance on the enforcement of the provisions of the Act. I hope that in responding, my hon. Friend the Minister will say that he will do that anyway, so there will be no need to include this provision in the Bill.

In our discussion, one of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State was that he would prefer the Bill to go through the House totally unamended. I suspect, however, that that aspiration has been abandoned, because the promoter of the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West, has tabled her own amendments. They seem perfectly reasonable, but that would mean the Bill would be amended in this place. If the Bill is to be amended, one or two of her amendments could be a complemented by other amendments, should they be necessary. In that respect there has been a development since our meeting, when nobody declared a need for the Bill to be amended. My hon. Friend will speak in due course.

I will speak briefly to some of my other points. The Bill, as drafted, states:

“A person (A) commits the offence of dog abduction if they—

(a) take a dog so as to remove it from the lawful control of any person,

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. As the House will be aware, very serious events have taken place overnight in the middle east, with Israel apparently striking targets in Iran. That could lead to further, very serious escalation. As a former armed forces Minister and now a member of the Defence Committee, may I take this opportunity to say that it is important, as the House is fortuitously sitting today, that a Minister from either the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office or the Ministry of Defence comes to the House as soon as possible to make a statement on exactly what we know about the attacks and what the Government believe the implications might be? Madam Deputy Speaker, have you or the Speaker’s Office had any indication that the Government intend to make such a statement, and, if so, at what time?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. As he says, he is an ex-armed forces Minister. There has been no indication either to myself or to the Speaker’s Office, so far as I am aware, that the Government intend to make a statement. Certainly, at the conference meeting this morning there was no indication that the Government intended to make a statement, but Government Front Benchers will have heard his point.

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not for one moment wish to push my luck, but under the circumstances I believe that a statement is very important. As you know, the Government can interrupt business at any time to make a statement. Such is the importance of these events—and I notified the office of the Leader of the House that I would make this point of order—that I believe, before the House rises this afternoon, a Minister should come to the House to tell us everything that the Government know about what is going on. I will leave it at that.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his further point of order. I note that he has informed the Leader of the House of his strong views on the matter, so I think he is right that at this stage we leave that there.

I take it from the ruling you have just made, Madam Deputy Speaker, that, unfortunately, there was no application for an urgent question on the matter that my right hon. Friend raises. If there had been such an application, in the circumstances it is likely to have been granted. Perhaps the Government, when thinking about whether they will make a statement, should take into account that so far they have been very lucky that there was not an application for an urgent question in the required timescale. They were probably prepared for such an eventuality, so it would be reasonable for the Government to come along and volunteer a statement, as my right hon. Friend has requested.

The hon. Gentleman is rather pushing his luck. Could he return to his speech on the Bill?