Hansard

I thank the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee and its convener for all their hard work in putting together the recommendations that are set out in its report.

The bill will amend the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, several pieces of wildlife legislation and the Animal Health Act 1981 for the purposes of further protecting the health and welfare of animals and wildlife in Scotland.

It is important to remember that the bill does not create offences; rather, it is concerned with increasing the range of sentencing options for existing animal and wildlife offences.

Individuals who cause pain and suffering to animals should be met with the full force of the law. The Scottish Conservatives welcome this long-overdue bill, which will toughen sentences for animal cruelty.

Some 99.4 per cent of respondents to the Scottish Government’s consultation agreed that penalties are too low and that increasing the maximum penalties would increase sentencing options, which would ultimately act as a deterrent.

We have all heard about many shocking animal cruelty cases in which the maximum sentence available to the court was not sufficient. The bill amends the 2006 act to increase the maximum available penalties for causing unnecessary suffering, and it increases the penalty for animal fighting offences from the current 12 months’ imprisonment and/or a £25,000 fine to five years’ imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine.

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home has said that there needs to be a change because, no matter the circumstances in which an animal has suffered, the courts in Scotland can punish only the most serious acts of animal cruelty with up to 12 months in prison, a fine of up to £20,000 and a ban on keeping animals. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation submitted that

“BASC fully accept and recognise that the current penalties for animal welfare offences do not reflect the seriousness of the crimes in question.”

The proposed penalties of up to a five-year custodial sentence and/or an unlimited fine reflect the abhorrent nature of the offences, as detailed in sections 19 and 23 of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006. The severity of the sentences will likely be a strong deterrent factor, which will effectively reduce the prevalence of animal welfare offences across Scotland.

I turn to some of the changes that the bill will bring. The bill introduces powers to enable the Scottish ministers to make regulations for the issuing of fixed-penalty notices in respect of certain animal health and welfare offences. There is broad cross-party support for providing authorities with flexibility to determine the appropriate means for the range of enforcement tools that are needed to provide a deterrent for minor offences. It would be useful to hear the results of the consultation and how the Government intends to introduce fixed-penalty notices.

The Law Society of Scotland is concerned that the operation of fixed-penalty notices lacks detail, and it would have expected consultations to have been concluded before the introduction of the bill. For example, we do not know how the Scottish Government will ensure that fines do not go unpaid. The Scottish Conservatives hope to have the details about that ironed out as the bill progresses.

The Scottish Conservatives have vigorously campaigned to increase the protection for service animals. We consider that increasing such protection for police dogs and horses makes it easier to convict people of causing unnecessary suffering, and the bill will include the Scottish version of Finn’s law. Currently, when determining whether a person has committed such an offence, the court must have regard to whether the conduct was for

“the purpose of protecting a person, property or another animal”.

The bill will require a court to disregard that defence when the offence is committed against a service animal in the course of its duty.

Giving new powers to authorised persons is important, and the bill amends the 2006 act to introduce a new procedure to allow enforcement agencies to transfer, treat or destroy animals that are taken into their possession for welfare reasons without needing to obtain a court order. At the moment, enforcement agencies must obtain a court order to take such action. The new procedure will surely help in those circumstances.

With regard to wildlife crimes, the committee wants a consistent approach to be taken to the categorisation and prosecution of different types of wildlife offence, and it has asked the Scottish Government to consider taking such an approach. The committee understands that there are different tiers of penalties and is unclear about the logic for those differences. The effect of the destruction of a habitat could be as fatal as directly harming or killing an animal. For example, as we have heard, the destruction of setts could lead to the destruction of a colony and the deaths of the animals.

Given that Police Scotland played a full part in the wildlife crimes penalty review group, which was chaired by Professor Poustie, the organisation’s views were considered as part of his final report. As that appears to form the basis of a significant part of the bill, Police Scotland supports the bill in principle, as it will give the organisation additional options for investigating wildlife crime offences, such as the use of covert surveillance. However, it should be reiterated that the utilisation of such police tactics will always be considered on a case-by-case basis.

We support tougher sentencing for animal cruelty. It is long overdue for the most serious cases of animal cruelty to be dealt with much more severely by our courts. We campaigned for Finn’s law, and we thank PC Dave Wardell and Liam Kerr for their hard work in that regard. We believe that service animals such as police dogs play a vital role in the detection and prevention of crime, but, at the moment, the criminals who harm them are let off the hook. Anyone who causes pain and suffering to animals should be met with the full force of the law, and we support harsher sentences for animal cruelty.