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Puppy Smuggling

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of puppy smuggling.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce this debate. I know that many Members, as well as my constituents, have deep concerns about this important issue. I thank all the individuals and bodies that sent me information relating to the debate, especially Dogs Trust, the Kennel Club, Battersea dogs home, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the British Veterinary Association and the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

It is difficult to get an accurate picture of the scale of the problem, but Dogs Trust research suggests that the illegal import and sale of puppies is an underground issue worth tens of millions of pounds—perhaps up to £100 million—per year. Hundreds of puppies are intercepted at our ports each year, and that is just the tip of the iceberg; thousands more must slip through the net. Britain is a particularly attractive target for puppy smugglers because of the relatively high prices that many breeds command; breeds such as pugs, dachshunds and bulldogs fetch up to £1,500 each in the UK. Puppy smuggling gangs can make up to £35,000 a week from the trade. This industry is supported by people motivated entirely by money with a callous indifference to animal welfare.

Puppies as young as four weeks old are taken from their mothers in Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and elsewhere, and transported hundreds of miles in terrible conditions to British ports, often with little food and water. They are often transported using false pet passports, and they are frequently too young to have had the proper vaccinations. At ports, their false documents all too often are believed, and not enough border officials are trained to be able accurately to assess the age of a young puppy—if they are visually checked at all. Those young puppies are then sold on to often well-meaning but unsuspecting families, who of course fall in love with them the first time they set eyes on them. Only later, when the puppies succumb to the stress of their arduous journeys or are taken to a vet who ascertains their true age, do those families realise the problem. The puppies are sent on to quarantine, where they receive appropriate medical attention. That can cost families hundreds if not thousands of pounds before they can finally take the puppies home.

Rather than being sent back or put to sleep, as happened in the recent past, many puppies that are intercepted by officials at the border are taken under the wing of the Dogs Trust puppy pilot scheme, where they are quarantined and provided with appropriate medical treatment, paid for by Dogs Trust. We all appreciate that. Many of those puppies then find homes with families via the Dogs Trust network of rehoming and rescue centres, including a large one in my constituency. Despite the hundreds of interceptions, there are just a handful of prosecutions each year for puppy smuggling, which illustrates the challenges with bringing cases to court and the need for alternative deterrents, such as on-the-spot fines, which I shall come on to.