Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill

Sarah Russell Excerpts

Friday 4th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Chambers]

That is an insightful intervention from my hon. Friend. Yes, most people are shocked at the sheer scale of puppy smuggling. The Dogs Trust did a study looking at one of the online platforms with puppy adverts, and up to 50% of those adverts turned out to be for puppies that had possibly been smuggled in from abroad. In the last 12 months, one in five vets said they had treated animals that they believed had been smuggled from abroad. This is not a niche issue; it is a systemic issue within the pet trade, and these loopholes need to be closed.

[Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for introducing this fantastic Bill, which does important things for animal welfare. Sadly, my constituency has a problem with dog-on-dog attacks, which are truly distressing to their owners. The overwhelming majority of dog owners in my constituency are incredibly responsible and keep their dogs under control at all times, but a tiny minority are doing a great deal of damage. Does the hon. Member have any thoughts on what we could do about that?

[Dr Chambers]

Dog-on-dog attacks are a huge issue. It largely comes down to socialisation when they are puppies. It was made a lot worse during the covid pandemic when people could not attend normal puppy training classes, and puppies could not walk and meet other dogs or have normal training regimes.

I will also come on to the problem of dogs having illegally cropped ears—when their ears are cut off—because dogs communicate by body language, and part of their body language is ear position. If they cannot move their ears, they cannot communicate in normal ways to other dogs that they are not a threat, and they are more likely to get into fights and difficulties. It is the same if their tails are cut off and they cannot show whether they are happy, sad, angry or confident.

When owners buy a new puppy, often they do not realise that it has been smuggled and taken from its mother far too soon. That can cause a lot of medical issues and other diseases, such as parvo virus. It is not unusual for someone to buy a new puppy and, within the first week or two, have to go to the vet repeatedly with a very sick animal, whose problems are often quite hard to diagnose. Sometimes these diseases are fatal. There are few things more heartbreaking than a family who, within a few days of ownership, not only have an expensive veterinary bill but have lost their new puppy.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)]

When one thinks of dogs and their close relationship with humans, a good place to start is literature. A great novel about our relationship with dogs is “White Fang” by Jack London, a great American socialist writer. When it comes to cats, I can do no better than Natsume Sōseki, the great Japanese writer who wrote a series of novels about cats observing their human masters with great wit and intelligence.

As a boy, I had three dogs—or rather, my father did. They were Pistol, Poins and Muttley. My dad believed that dogs should be named after Shakespearean characters, hence Pistol and Poins, but the balance of power shifted in the family, and then we had Muttley, the Hanna-Barbera dog—though we drew the line at Huckleberry Hound. Something very important about the dogs is that they were all strays. They had great emotional difficulty in being able to trust humans because they were mistreated when they were younger. That is why the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) was right to emphasise the real damage that cruelty to animals can do. The next-door neighbours have two cats, Butch and Cuddles, and the clue is somewhat in their name; they were stray cats. Butch took a long time to trust the next-door neighbours and my family and I, but he does trust us now. If animals suffer cruelty when they are young, it causes long-term psychological damage.

I am delighted that the Bill extends to Scotland. This House should not be afraid to legislate for the welfare of people or animals in Scotland, so I commend the hon. Member for Winchester for seeking to legislate for Scotland; it is very important to my constituents. We have the Dogs Trust in Broomhouse in my constituency, which my good friend Councillor Lalley took me to visit. The people there do a huge amount of good work with stray dogs.

[Sarah Russell]

May I take a moment to mention Dobermann Rescue, based in my constituency, which also does fantastic work? I am sure my hon. Friend will join me in commending its work.

[John Grady]

I will join my hon. Friend in commending the work of that Dobermann charity. Dogs like Dobermanns and German shepherds have a certain reputation, but they are very kind, loving and loyal, so I commend work that is done to help Dobermanns.

There is a great deal of support in my constituency for the Bill, which has many important elements. Restricting the commercial importation and non-commercial movement of dogs, cats and ferrets into the UK on the grounds of welfare is an important objective. As the Bill is implemented, which I hope it will be, we must redouble our efforts to bring to people’s attention how wrong the importation of these animals is.

The hon. Member for Winchester mentioned campaigns on social media, and he was entirely correct to do so. The scale of the problem is large. People are importing these animals for commercial gain, and it involves a great deal of cruelty. There has been a rise in the market for pregnant dogs and cats to be brought in. The hon. Member was right to talk about the mutilation of animals. People have known for decades, if not longer, that the mutilation of animals—tail docking and so on—is cruel and wrong and should not be taking place in this day and age. It is utterly barbaric.

The Bill is very important for public health, as the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) said—dogs that have not been tested for diseases will not be able to come here—and it will help to fulfil Labour party manifesto pledges on animal welfare. It will also improve enforcement. I have some experience of that from talking to former colleagues, and the Bill will make it much easier to enforce certain elements of existing animal cruelty laws, for example on the mutilation of dogs. That is very important.

Mention has been made of dogs on Twitter feeds during the general election campaign. I admit that, during the campaign and for many months beforehand, I too had a hobby of taking pictures of dogs and posting them on Twitter. I have got out of the habit, so I thank the hon. Member for Winchester for reminding me that it is quite a pleasant thing to do. It is probably better for my constituents, too; they probably find it much more interesting than my political comments and other interesting observations I may have. They may, in fact, come to the view that I am more perceptive and expert on dogs than on politics, although I hope they will not find that out for another five years or so.

As a vet, the hon. Member for Winchester speaks from a position of real expertise. He outlined why the Bill is important, and he is to be commended for bringing it to the House.