What Battersea wants to see in the first 100 days of the new government
A new government is in place and with it a chance to deliver significant improvements in animal welfare. Here’s what we want to see prioritised.
As the dust settles on last week’s general election, attention now turns to the opening weeks and months of the new administration.
With a sizeable majority, the Labour government has a mandate to push on with its pre-election commitments and is expected to begin this with a sense of urgency, designed to underline its stated commitment to delivering change.
This will be made clearer in the King’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament on 17 July, and like everyone else in animal welfare, we will be watching with interest.
The dissolution of the last parliament ahead of the election saw the demise of the previous government’s legislative plans to tackle puppy and kitten smuggling and to stop the import of animals with cruel mutilations.
It marked a frustrating end for the companion animal welfare sector, as these plans had been introduced with great fanfare in an Action Plan in 2021, only for the government legislation to ultimately be shelved and the measures then introduced through the tortuous Private Members’ Bill route, where they ultimately ran out of time. While it was not surprising that they failed to get the bill over the line, it was no less disappointing.
The sudden end of the parliamentary session also meant that pet-friendly housing reforms in the Renters Reform Bill were also lost. We heartily encourage the new government, which has committed to revisit rental reform, to include opening up pet ownership to Britain’s millions of tenants as part of these plans.
Throughout the election, at Battersea we have been using our voice to call for four priority issues to be taken forward and prioritised by the new government.
First, as pledged in the Labour manifesto, we want to see the end of puppy and kitten smuggling. Illegally imported dogs and cats are not only at risk of disease themselves but could also risk spreading or introducing diseases to other animals and humans. Dogs are also being imported into the UK with cropped ears, a cruel mutilation done for no reason other than fashion, which can provide a smokescreen for this illegal practice to continue in the UK.
Second, we’re calling on the government to clamp down on breeders profiting from suffering, through better enforcement and improvements to licensing, and to work with us to help prospective pet owners make better-informed decisions.
We also need a more comprehensive approach to promoting public safety around dogs, which is based on evidence and understanding of what really causes dog attacks. Battersea wants to see a full-scale review of the laws around dangerous dogs, protecting people from tragic dog attacks while preserving animal welfare.
Since 2018, we’ve made real progress keeping people and their pets together through our Pet Friendly Properties campaign, both in social housing and the private rented sector, but there’s still much further to go. We’re calling on the government to reform housing laws so that more people can stay with their pets, which Labour’s housing team consistently supported in opposition.
We’ll be working hard to take these priorities to ministers and the new cohort of MPs from all parties. We look forward to working with them to improve animal welfare. It’s vital that we learn the lessons of the last parliament and don’t let parliamentary time slip away without introducing changes that could do so much to help improve animal welfare.
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