Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Pet Care Trust
The Pet Care Trust would like to submit the
following points of clarification and amplification to the Efra
Select Committee.
1. Good animal welfare is delivered not
by lawmakers and enforcers, but every day by 20 million households
in this country and by the pet care industry supporting and servicing
the pet owning public.
2. To clarify our exchange on pet hobby
clubs, fairs, shows, they and trade magazines and more general
media all play a role in influencing and educating the public
and ought to be allowed to thrive if observing and promoting good
animal welfare. Because behind this interest lie very many tangible
benefits of pet ownership. Improved health for pet owners of all
ages and superior caring skills among young people are perhaps
the most prominent.
3. Some MPs were trying to arrive at a definition
of shows and pet fairs during our exchange. It may be generally
true that the prime aim of most people showing animals is to win
awards and that those attending pet fairs mainly wish to sell.
However, many local shows throughout the country end with the
show animals being sold, with the prize winning animals attracting
premium prices and no doubt offering the customer the assurance
that this is an animal in prime condition. More prestigious and
national shows may not have quite such an obvious link, but it
is clear that prize-winning animals at a national level attract
offers to breed from the stock. The point is that there is a role
for both types of activity in our society, as long as they observe
good animal welfare.
4. Sunday is the second busiest trading
day for many pet shops, after Saturday and shops employ staff
accordingly to try to maintain service levels. Buying upon impulse
is not a particular problem on this or any other day as many people
have made prior visits, often talking to staff and perhaps taking
care information that many Trust members at least offer at no
charge. Sunday is a day when many families can be all together
to participate in the purchase of, and commitment to, a new pet.
5. The idea of a perpetual licence
is that the administrative side of processing the application
would offer a saving (as an alternative to the Defra 18 month
suggestion) and that the business would be expected to pay only
for the process of inspection at intervals of roughly 12 months,
according to risk assessment as we laid out in our original submission.
While many councils are organised enough to inspect and reissue
the licence before the current one expires, a very significant
proportion does not. In effect any pet shop that has not been
inspected and issued with a new licence would be breaking the
law if it opened on 2 January and offered pets for sale. Most
councils adopt a liberal view on this, while others visit shops
at once. Action is sometimes delayed because the public holidays
have fallen adjacent to weekends, when licensing offices are closed.
6. These tangible savings could be used
by councils to improve the quality of inspection. The proposal
offers dual benefits of reducing the administrative burden to
local authority and business and frees funds for the functions
that matter: inspection on a risk assessed basis.
7. We would like enforcers to have more
tools in their armoury to lift standards in the pet sector. We
understand there are a number of initiatives now used in farm
animal welfare that could usefully be adopted in the companion
animal welfare sector. One such is improvement notice as
an escalatory step between an enforcer's warning and full prosecution.
A warning does not always get enjoy the full focus of an owner's
attention when the business, whether local pet shop, boarding
kennel and cattery or other, is inspected. We believe that improvement
notices would drive home the importance of infringements identified,
at the same time as freeing enforcement and court resources for
persistent and serious offenders.
8. Financial provision: Art 20:2
should allow for equipment seized during visit (see Art 12:2)
to be set against costs or for such equipment to be returned to
the defendant. It should also provide for timely and full reimbursement
of costs where prosecution subsequently fails. Does this really
have to be through the civil courts? Can't the criminal court
dealing with the case reasonably be expected to wrap up associated
costs at the same time?
9. Art 44: local authority to appoint an
inspector for AWB, drawn from the Defra SoS list for one
or more or all purposes of this Act. We recommended the use of
regional panels of experts as is now done for farm animal welfare
legislation. The whole process should be made more public and
transparent to ensure the fullest lists are held of the most expert
individuals. Local authorities may be compelled to use inspectors
from the list.
10. Annex L: the Regulatory Impact Assessment
(RIA) for the draft Bill has ignored the cost of obligatory
veterinary presence at all inspections. Using the cost of
£245 for a vet to visit a dog race track (annex H) as an
indicator for what costs might be incurred on average for conducting
inspection visits and reports on boarding kennels and catteries
(of which we estimate there are some 3,000 in England and Wales)
and for pet shops (which the RIA estimates to total 4,500), the
proposal would add over £1.8 million to the cost of
running these businesses. Given that the livelihood of these businesses
depends on their livestock being kept in good condition, this
is a gold-plating exercise that would add cost without benefit.
16 September 2004
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