Skip to main content
Logo icon

Main navigation

  • Home
  • News
  • Meet your MP
  • Government Support - Cost of Living
  • In Parliament
  • Campaign Responses
  • Contact
Logo icon

Kept Animals Bill

  • Tweet

Thank you for contacting me about the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill. 

The UK has a long history of leading the way on animal welfare. I am pleased that now we have left the EU, Ministers are committed to improving our already world-leading standards by delivering a series of ambitious reforms, outlined in the Action Plan for Animal Welfare. Building on the Action Plan, the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill will bring in some of the world’s highest and strongest protections for pets, livestock and kept wild animals. I look forward to supporting the Bill as it makes its way through Parliament.

Primates are highly intelligent animals with complex needs and require specialist care. I am pleased that through the Bill the Government will deliver on the manifesto commitment to introduce a ban on keeping them as pets, ensuring that all primates being kept privately in England are being kept at zoo-level standards and that ownership of primates at a level below these standards is phased out.

I also understand that live animals can endure excessively long journeys during export, causing distress and injury. EU rules prevented any changes to these journeys, but the UK Government is now free to pursue plans which would see a ban on the export of live animals for slaughter and fattening. This Bill will ensure that the UK is the first European country to end this practice.

I want to reassure you that I take the issue of illegal puppy imports very seriously. I am pleased that the Bill will introduce new powers to tackle the unethical trade of puppy smuggling by reducing the number of pets, including dogs, cats and ferrets, that can travel under pet travel rules. It will also provide powers for the Government to bring in further restrictions on the movement of pets on welfare grounds, and allow for enforcement measures to support these restrictions. Further restrictions could include an increase in the minimum age of imported puppies, as well as the prohibition of the import of pregnant dogs and dogs with mutilations such as cropped ears and tails.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.

Craig Whittaker MP

October 2021

Campaign Responses

  • Archived Campaign Responses
  • Covid-19: Commemoration (EDM 481)
  • Covid-19: Extending Support Schemes
  • Covid-19: No 10 Christmas Parties
  • Covid-19: Provision of Tests
  • Covid-19: Public Inquiry
  • Covid-19: Removal of Restrictions
  • Covid-19: Supporting the NHS
  • Covid-19: Supporting the Night Time Economy
  • Covid-19: Vaccinating Children
  • Covid-19: Vaccines and Developing Countries
  • Abortion At Home
  • Access to Cash
  • Afghanistan and Afghan Refugees
  • Aid Spending
  • Animal Experiments (Dogs)
  • Animal Sentience: Update January 2022
  • Animal Testing
  • Animal Welfare
  • Assisted Suicide
  • Asylum Seekers: Employment
  • AUKUS
  • Australia Trade Deal
  • Badgers and Bovine TB
  • Beer and Alcohol Duty (incudes Draught Beer)
  • Bees & Pesticides
  • Business, Human Rights and Environment
  • Caged Farm Animals
  • Cambo & Oil Fields
  • Care Workers: National Living Wage
  • CatchUpWithCancer
  • Cats & Kittens
  • Channel 4 Privatisation
  • Child Poverty
  • Children & Families
  • Clean Air
  • Clean Heat: Heat Pumps
  • Clean Heat: Energy Efficiency
  • Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill
  • Climate Issues (plus COP 26)
  • Commercial Sexual Exploitation
  • Conversion Therapy
  • COP26: Global Action
  • Copyright
  • Council Workers' and Public Sector Pay
  • Cut Carbon Not Forests: Update
  • Cycling and Walking: Update
  • Dangerous Dogs Act
  • Debt and DROs
  • Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill
  • Dementia Research & Brain Health
  • Dentistry
  • Deporting Foreign Criminals
  • Disability Benefits Assessments
  • Domestic Abuse Bill
  • Domestic Abuse: Migrants
  • Domestic Homicide
  • Domestic Abuse: Universal Credit
  • Early Years Funding
  • Elections Act and the Electoral Commission
  • End Child Food Poverty
  • Endometriosis and PCOS
  • Energy Price Cap
  • Environment Bill (Lords Amendments)
  • E-scooters (Guide Dogs)
  • Equal Pay
  • EU/EEA Settled Status
  • Face Coverings
  • Fire & Rehire
  • Fix Bad Housing
  • Flexible Working
  • Foie Gras and Fur
  • Food Waste
  • Fuel Duty and Prices
  • Gamebird Battery Cages
  • Gambling Review
  • Gender Recognition Act: Update
  • Global Malnutrition
  • Global Partnership for Education
  • GP Issues
  • Guards’ Bearskins
  • Hamas
  • Health & Care Bill (including Workforce)
  • Heart and Circulatory Diseases
  • Hedgehogs
  • Hedgerows
  • Holiday Tax Lets
  • HS2
  • Human Rights Act
  • Human Rights Defenders
  • Humanist Marriages
  • Hunting Act
  • Immigration and Refugees
  • Israel is not an Apartheid State
  • Israel: Stop BDS
  • Israel: UK Arms and Right to Self-defence
  • Ivory Act: Update
  • Kept Animals Bill
  • Legal Aid: Asylum and Immigration Cases
  • Levelling-up: Transport
  • Live Animal Exports
  • Local Electricity Bill
  • Medical Cannabis
  • Mental Health Research
  • Migrant Channel Crossings
  • Misogyny
  • Mobile Mast Rents
  • MP's & Second Jobs
  • Multi-sensory Impairment: Education
  • National Insurance Increase (NHS & Social Care)
  • Nationality and Borders Bill
  • NHS Funding
  • NHS Pay: Consultants, Doctors and Dentists
  • NHS Pay and Recruitment
  • Night Time Industries
  • Northern Ireland Protocol
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • Ocean Protection
  • Off-payroll Working (IR35)
  • Older People: Health and Care
  • Palestinian Human Rights Defenders
  • 'Partygate': Fixed Penalty Notices
  • Peat
  • Pension Credit
  • Pensioner Poverty
  • Persecution of Christians: Updated May 2022
  • Planning Bill
  • Plastic Waste
  • Police Corruption & Accountability
  • Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: February 2022
  • Pregnancy and Maternity Redundancy Bill
  • Proportional Property Tax
  • Public Sector Pay (Civil Service)
  • Public Sexual Harassment: Crime not Compliment (Jan 22)
  • Rail: Fares, Privatisation & Eurostar
  • Rape and the Criminal Justice System
  • Reception Baseline Assessment (Primary Schools)
  • Renters Reform Bill: Updated
  • Retail Workers: Protection at Work
  • Royal Corruption
  • Rwanda Partnership: Tackling Illegal Immigration and People Smugglers
  • Violence against Women and Girls
  • School Breakfast Bill
  • Sentencing (Dangerous Driving)
  • Sewage Discharges
  • Small Brewers Relief
  • Snares
  • Social Care Charging Reforms
  • Social Housing
  • Speed Limits
  • Stamp Duty Land Tax
  • Syria
  • Teachers' Pay
  • Trade Bill: Anti-genocide Amendment (Updated)
  • Trade Deals: Farming and Food Standards
  • Trade Deals: Food Standards
  • Trade Deals: NHS - New Clause 17 and Lords 11
  • Trade Deals: Parliamentary Scrutiny
  • Trains and Planes
  • Triple Lock (State Pension)
  • Trophy Hunting Update
  • Trespass (Right to Roam)
  • Ukraine
  • Ukraine: Refugees
  • UN Treaty on Business and Human Rights
  • Unaccompanied Child Refugees
  • Universal Credit
  • Vagrancy Act and the PCSC Bill (Lords Amendment)
  • Vaping and E-Cigarettes
  • VAT on Electric Vehicle Charging in Public Places
  • Visa-free Work Permits for Touring Artists
  • Voting Systems
  • Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (UK Aid)
  • Wayne Couzens Inquiry
  • Young People's Mental Health
  • Youth Homelessness: Chance to Move On

Craig Whittaker MP for Calder Valley

Footer

  • About RSS
  • Accessibility
  • Cookies
  • Privacy
  • About Craig
  • Campaign Responses
  • In Parliament
This website is funded by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) for the purpose of assisting Craig Whittaker MP in the performance of their Parliamentary duties.
Copyright 2022 Craig Whittaker MP for Calder Valley. All rights reserved.
Powered by Bluetree