Meeting of the Parliament 09 May 2024
I, too, put on record my recognition of Christine Grahame’s work on the welfare of dogs and on the illegal puppy trade. She has done a lot of work in the Parliament on the issue, and I pay tribute to it.
It is difficult to disagree with the bill’s general principles, given that they are about improving animal welfare and ensuring responsible pet ownership. We have all seen a rise in the ownership of dogs during Covid. At that time, people were at home and able to look after their pets, but those who did not give the matter sufficient thought are now struggling to keep those pets well looked after as they return to the office. Indeed, rehoming charities have been talking about the number of abandoned dogs that they have.
We have also heard about the growth in illegal puppy farms to meet the demand for puppies, and we need to challenge that, too. However, as this is a member’s bill, it is naturally restricted in what it can do. I believe that, if the Government were to take up the challenge, there would be scope to go further than the bill does in order to deal with illegal puppy farms. The bill cannot do it—as I have said, a member’s bill is very restricted—so it might be good if the Scottish Government could look at amendments in that respect.
As we have heard, the Scottish Government has more difficulty with part 2 of the bill. There are indeed difficulties with that part, but it is really important—if we can get it right—because it provides for a register of unlicensed litters. Often, people who are not breeders allow their pets to have puppies; currently, though, there are no protections for those puppies. Breeders have to be licensed and follow standards, but people are able to breed dogs without their being licensed breeders, and that creates a loophole for those illegal breeders who hide under the radar to do these things.
We have heard of these people, for example, portraying holiday rentals as their own homes where they will take the puppies, often with a dog that is not the mother of the litter. They do not care anything for animal welfare. We often hear about people buying a puppy and then discovering that they have huge vet bills to deal with, and that the puppy that they had paid a lot of money for was unwell and would perhaps not survive.
I therefore totally understand why Christine Grahame is seeking to have all litters registered—she is trying to close that loophole—but I also understand that that might be challenging. The committee was told by Battersea Dogs and Cats Home that, although the microchipping of dogs is now a legal requirement, only about 20 per cent of the dogs that they take in are chipped. Therefore, enforcement is an issue that we need to deal with at present, never mind the introduction of a new register.
Because of the general data protection regulation legislation, there are also concerns about the public accessibility of the detail in the register and about people being able to look at it to see whether their puppy was indeed registered.