Animal Abusers

Kevin Bonavia Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 759783 relating to a public register of animal abusers and automatic ownership bans.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison, and a privilege to lead this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. The creator of the petition, Bea Elton, joins us in the Public Gallery. Bea does not work day to day in the protection of animals; she provides a cleaning service for those in need and who are struggling to keep their homes in order. She documents this on her Instagram channel, cleanwithbeax, which has more than 2.2 million followers—probably about the same number as the Minister has.

Bea was kind enough to meet me online ahead of today’s debate—it is lucky she did not meet me in my office, because there was quite a lot of cleaning to do on my desk. Meeting Bea made clear to me her passion and sense of duty for those less fortunate than herself. While deep cleaning homes, Bea has uncovered the awful situations in which some animals find themselves vulnerable to serious neglect and abuse.

It is important to note the distinction between abuse and neglect. Abuse is distinguished by intent. Some people unintentionally neglect their animals due to circumstances beyond their control, such as financial difficulty or mental distress. Those people are not the concern of this petition, which is focused on intentional abuse. The abuse we are discussing today is not the professional cruelty of organised criminals running illegal dogfights or breeding operations, which are well known to the police, or abusive commercial practices in farms; it is about the hidden cruelty inflicted in domestic settings up and down the country.

Bea emphasised to me that her focus is on abuse committed in the domestic, rather than the commercial setting. Unfortunately, the most recent statistics from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the main investigative body for offences under the current legislation, confirm that Bea’s experiences reflect the situation across our society. In 2022, 400 pet owners were convicted on evidence gathered by the RSPCA in its investigations. I put on record my thanks to the RSPCA for its tireless work in this space right across our country.

The abuse of animals offends our deepest instincts of fairness and kindness. These animals are utterly blameless, yet uniquely vulnerable. The more animals Bea found in this predicament, the stronger became her conviction that the current system for preventing animal abuse is inadequate. One of Bea’s most pressing concerns is that the system fails to prevent animal abuse from occurring in the first place.

In short, Bea’s petition requests that those convicted of animal abuse be prohibited from owning animals again, and that their conviction be listed on a national register that can be accessed by breeders, charities, vets, local authorities and other appropriate organisations. In response, the Government have rejected the demands on the grounds that the current provisions are sufficient; I will return to those points later in my remarks.

[Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)]

I thank the petitioners for bringing this important issue to the House; I am very sympathetic.

Animal abuse comes in many forms, and we should also consider what sanctions owners who are irresponsible with their pets should face. In my constituency, we recently had a horrific case where an XL bully attacked a man and he ended up needing hospital treatment. Does my hon. Friend agree that people who cannot responsibly handle their animals are also committing a form of abuse and should be treated accordingly?

[Jacob Collier]

I think that is a separate issue, but legislation on XL bullies already exists and it needs to be properly enforced.

Animal abuse convictions are most often made under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and sexual abuse is covered by the Crime and Policing Act 2026. An individual convicted under the Animal Welfare Act can face up to five years in prison and can be subject to a court-issued disqualification order preventing them from owning animals for the rest of their life, although the court decides the specific terms of the order.

The experts I spoke to in preparation for this debate—I thank Claire McParland, Dr David Martin and Mark Randell—agree that the current legislative framework is a significant improvement on the previous legislation, under which animal cruelty was largely prosecuted as criminal damage and sentences were often a little lenient for organised crime. The Government note in their response that all

“offences under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 are currently stored on the Police National Computer. This information may be shared with appropriate organisations”

and with members of the public in specific circumstances. However, the records of convictions under the earlier legislation are less comprehensive.

Under the current system, the reporting of suspected offences is an inevitable challenge. Most reports of animal abuse come from the public, which makes enforcement more reactive than preventive. One risk of a national register is that it could make people less likely to report, because they may assume that the authorities already have the matter in hand. Once the RSPCA begins to investigate a report, it can request information from the police about any previous convictions, but that process can be slow and there is no guarantee that the police will release the information. A dedicated national register would, of course, make that easier.

Another route through which animal abuse can be investigated is when police forces discover abuse while investigating other reports. Dr David Martin, who has decades of experience as an expert witness in animal abuse cases, stressed to me that the collaboration between the police and the RSPCA is very effective in England, Scotland and Wales. Local teams know who to call when they have a query or come across animal abuse in their day-to-day activities. On the other hand, Mark Randell, a former police officer who has spent decades campaigning for improvements to the police response to animal abuse, said that identifying animal abuse is not standardised across police forces, and understanding of how animal abuse fits into broader safeguarding varies greatly between police forces across the country. We should consider standardised training so that there is not a postcode lottery.

Despite the difficulties, the RSPCA successfully prosecutes hundreds of cases each year. Although disqualification orders are at the discretion of the court, the petition requests that bans be made automatic upon conviction. That might reduce instances of animal abuse, especially if coupled with a national register available to vets and rehoming charities. However, in a liberal democracy, we evaluate proposals for punishing crimes based not simply on how effectively they prevent recurrence, but on whether the punishment is proportionate, and it is not clear that automatic lifetime bans are proportionate.

An automatic ban has no regard for whether the perpetrator is entirely responsible for their crime. For example, they could be in a coercive or controlling relationship, or could themselves be a victim of abuse, which might drive them to inflict harm on animals. In such cases, it is harder to establish with certainty that they are responsible for the crime, so an automatic ban may be disproportionate.

Fly-tipping: Residential Areas

Kevin Bonavia Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to see you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for securing the debate, because fly-tipping affects every community in this country.

Stevenage was the country’s first post-war new town, which is great, because our forefathers and mothers planned a great new town, but there are many green spaces and woods between residential developments. I also have four villages in my constituency—Knebworth, Codicote, Datchworth and Aston—and each has similar issues to the town of Stevenage.

Most of us are rightly proud of our communities, but a few people, who are not necessarily from our communities, wreck all that. Many of us go out week in, week out to clean up our streets. We have our Stevenage Wombles; just like Wombles across the country, they do sterling work, and I have joined them in the old town. Stevenage Labour party also has its own action team, which goes out once a month. We do our bit, and we go into the woods and clear them out, but do you know what? It is sometimes an impossible task. You try moving a fridge with just a few volunteers; it is just not possible. We have also found suitcases with things in them that I cannot possibly mention here. All of that is just not acceptable.

People are reporting fly-tipping incidents. Just yesterday, on one of our Stevenage Facebook groups, a diligent citizen spotted an address on a TV licence letter and reported it straightaway. I know that our council will take firm and effective action, but it is dealing with 3,000 reported fly-tipping incidents a year and spending more than £1.6 million.

Some Members have talked about funding. Yes, it is important, and we are fortunate in Stevenage that this Labour Government have increased our funding by 9% in the last year. That is great, but the extra funding needs to be matched with powers, so I am also grateful to the Government for their waste crime action plan. We have heard about some of the measures, which I fully support, including clean-up squads and taking away driving licences.

However, how will the Government monitor these things, because they will vary across the country? What potential measures does the Minister have in mind to go further? My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes set out some interesting ideas today, which we should follow up. It cannot just be for councils to tackle this; we need private landlords to take action, we need to crack down on the gangs and we need to get the police involved. There is a lot more that we need to do

For now, however, it is right that all of us in this place should place on record our thanks to all those in our communities who will not let their streets and green spaces be blighted by this scourge. I am glad that action has been taken, and I can only call for more.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Bonavia Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the important work that the commission has been doing. I do not want to get ahead of any announcements the commission may make—it is not long to wait now, Mr Speaker; it is only a few weeks—but clearly regulation has not been working, so action is needed.

[Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)]

6. What steps he is taking to tackle fly-tipping.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)]

Fly-tipping sky-rocketed under the Conservative Government. This Labour Government will crack down on the waste cowboys in order to clean up Britain’s streets. We will support councils in seizing and crush their vehicles. We will use drones and CCTV to hunt down the fly-tippers, forcing them to clean up their mess, and we will bring in new prison sentences for those transporting waste illegally. I am delighted to tell the House that we are beginning the clean-up of the disgraceful fly-tipping in Hoads Wood site of special scientific interest, which happened under the previous Government. That work is ongoing.

[Kevin Bonavia]

I thank the Minister for her very strong answer. Recently, I have been made aware of a recurring incident of fly-tipping in Bedwell, in the heart of my constituency. The council is working very hard to clear up the mess and find those responsible, but the situation is being made worse by people picking up that rubbish and taking it to the nearby woods. Will the Minister offer extra support to councils like mine, so that together we can clean up our communities and crack down on criminals who think that they can dump their waste with impunity, wrecking the lives of constituent like mine, and making their lives a living hell?

[Mary Creagh]

I have the greatest sympathy for my hon. Friend’s constituents. I encourage Stevenage borough council to work with our National Fly-tipping Prevention Group, which shares best practice on tackling fly-tipping. We are also taking direct action on some of the littered items, because once there is litter, people think that they can fly-tip, and then they think that they can dump. That is why we have banned the sale of single-use vapes from 1 June, and I stand ready to work with his council.