Hansard

I thought that the heading for the motion was particularly good, as it includes both rights and responsibilities. Both human beings and animals have rights but, when it comes to responsibilities, it has to be the human beings who shoulder most of them.

I am very fond of animals, especially dogs. However, our first household pet was a budgie. I still remember when, as a youngster at primary school, I came downstairs one morning, took the cover off and found him sadly deceased on the floor of his cage.

We then had a couple of beagles in succession, which were highly disobedient. Most recently, my mother had a superb collie cross, which was amazingly obedient. Sadly, it died a week past Monday, aged 15. I used to walk the dog after lunch over at my mother’s every Sunday, so it was a bit strange going there last Sunday, as there was no dog to walk.

It is clear that many of us care very much for our pets, but sometimes that can seem to go just a little bit too far. When a pet gets medical treatment faster than a human being does, or when people leave their large estates entirely to animal charities and leave nothing at all to people, I get a little bit uneasy. We need to strike a balance in all that.

There are many forms of cruelty to dogs and other animals. I thought it would be worth my while to mention some of them today. There are the obvious forms, such as setting snares, chasing deer around fields with cars and badger baiting. As Alex Fergusson said, the NFUS briefing makes many valid points about irresponsible dog owners and about livestock being distressed, hurt or killed by dogs.

Air guns are also an issue, especially with regard to the shooting of cats. If this Parliament is to control licensing of air guns, I hope that that is something that we can clamp down on, as has been suggested by the League Against Cruel Sports.

There is also unnecessary testing of products on animals. I encourage colleagues to check the cleaning products that they use in their offices. The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection does good work in that regard; the leaping bunny symbol indicates when products are cruelty free. Co-op stores are particularly good at stocking such products, which are often its own-brand products.

My brother is a vet in Wales and he tells me that one very common problem that he faces is animals being overfed and overweight. Of course, that can be difficult to tell the owners if they are also overfed and overweight. As with children, sometimes saying no is the most caring response.

The Dogs Trust has one of its two Scottish centres in my constituency, which are well worth visiting if members have not already done so. Last time I visited, the staff told me about the young offender rehabilitation programme in which they are involved. One young guy whom they worked with always had his hood up over his head, which I guess illustrated some of his personal issues. They worked with him and explained that the dogs were frightened by the hood. At first he agreed that he would put the hood down for dogs, but not for people. However, later on he came round to being much more relaxed in general. Perhaps that is just a small indication of the positive impact that animals can have—even on some of the most difficult people.

I do not argue that we should care for animals because we are related to them. I believe that we were created separately and are distinct from each other. However, I do believe that we were given responsibility to look after all the animals of this world, which certainly includes wild animals, as well as domesticated ones.

People are more important than animals, but that does not excuse cruelty. I lived in Nepal for some years, where it was not unusual to see people throwing stones at dogs. One time when I was walking down the street a dog itself was thrown out of a window.

I hope that we, as a society, are moving on from that. Evidence shows that people who are cruel to animals are also cruel to their fellow human beings, so human rights and animal rights are very much connected and I very much support them both.