Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Sentencing Council Animal Cruelty Guidelines, published on 10 May 2022, why the Sentencing Council have proposed changing the maximum penalty for animal cruelty from five years as agreed in the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021, to three years' custody for the most serious offending.

The maximum penalty for any statutory offence is prescribed by Parliament. There are no plans to reduce the maximum penalty for animal cruelty offences from the current five years.

Sentencing guidelines are produced by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales, which is independent of the Government. The guidelines set out factors which courts must consider when deciding on a sentence and are designed to increase consistency and transparency in sentencing.

The Sentencing Council has consulted on revisions to the animal cruelty guideline to reflect recent legislation. The Council has proposed a sentence range of a fine up to three years imprisonment. As the consultation document explains, the upper limit for a sentence range is often lower than the maximum penalty set out in legislation to allow headroom for sentencers dealing with cases of exceptional seriousness. In such cases, statute permits a sentencer to step outside the offence range and impose any sentence up to the maximum.

The Sentencing Council’s consultation closed on 1 August. The Council is expected to publish the final guidelines in May of this year, having taken time to consider the consultation responses and make any revisions that they consider appropriate. Once published they would come into effect in July 2023.The consultation paper can be found here: Animal cruelty sentencing guidelines consultation (sentencingcouncil.org.uk).