Chamber and committees

That is because we have got so used to things being online, and that increased during Covid. We get our messages and our shoes online. Some people get their car online, and it is now relatively common for people to buy animals, including puppies, online. The difference is that a puppy is a sentient being. The car can fall apart and it is the owner’s fault but, with the puppy, you are responsible for the welfare of the animal from the moment that it is bred, not just the moment that you acquire it. That is what the bill is getting at. Our culture has changed, but we must reverse that when we are dealing with sentient beings such as animals.

I think that I made that clear. Some people acquire puppies directly from the unlicensed breeder. I thought that I was dealing with a possible loophole, although it might not always be a loophole. Somebody might acquire a puppy from an unlicensed breeder, keep it for a bit and then transfer it to somebody else, perhaps because they cannot cope with it or for other motives. The 12-month deadline is in the bill so that they will still have obligations if they do that.

I do not want to focus only on online sales, but let us say that there will be cute little puppies online. There will be other dogs as well that might be six or seven months old and have already been with somebody other than the unlicensed breeder. The same obligations exist, so that is why I took it up to 12 months. As you can see from the bill, there are different rules for the first unlicensed breeder from those for people those who sell dogs up to 12 months old.

Claudia Bennett, do you want to comment?

They could not fill it in, because they would not have checked. They would not have been able to see the puppy with its mother and daddy. None of that would have happened; that is the point. Many people think that they are rescuing dogs when, in fact, it is a business—a European business or a business in southern Ireland, in the main.

That is what I have to overcome. It is a good question, because those people are not rescuing a dog; they are buying a product that criminals are breeding. If someone takes that puppy, another six will appear in its place, at £2,500 to £3,000 each.

First of all, I am hopeful that, in the initial stages, the certificate would reduce the need to publicise or run public awareness campaigns about the illegal puppy trade. The point is to provide education in order to change public behaviour. We should let the public do the job of achieving what we all want, which is an end to the illegal puppy trade, the distress that happens and people getting puppies for the wrong reasons. I hope that the certificate will do that.

Publicity campaigns on various issues are already running and telling people that they should not buy this or that, but those are not working. The situation is getting worse, in that more people are buying puppies online and then abandoning them and so on. By having a campaign on acquisition, we are going back to the key message. The problems start when people first get puppies. I hope that, if we start there, we will decrease the requirement for subsequent messages such as “A dog is for life, not just for Christmas”, which is the famous one.

You have heard the thrust of my argument, which was about people buying online with their emotions. That is what it was about. I am sure that your experience stems from your own background; mine is that people who acquire working dogs are working—that is the key. In the main, they know the dog’s pedigree, their attributes and where they come from; they are not buying casually. That dog has got to earn its keep. It is therefore a very different kettle of fish. Working dogs, police dogs, assistance dogs, guide dogs and gamekeepers’ dogs are all trained. They have certain attributes from their breeding.

My bill was never aimed at those dogs, and I do not see the point of its being aimed in that way. The gamekeepers and the people who train guide dogs know what they are looking for and are educated. They can say, “I am not getting that dog, but I know that this collie would be very good, because I know its parenthood.” That is a very different thing, which is why the bill does not cover such situations. It was aimed at pets, not working dogs. I do not think that it should include working dogs.

Thank you, convener. I promise that I will not give evidence, although it is terribly tempting to do so. I shall have my day.

I want to challenge the minister on one or two things—you knew that I would. You said that the existing code of practice is functioning. If that code is effective, how is it that so many people are still buying online and puppy factory farms are still very successful?

Do you accept that my intention with the bill is to try to tackle the very supply that you have named through education? Do you accept that that is what the bill is about? If we can educate people through provisions such as those in section 2, we will at least have a better go at preventing the misery that some puppies go through than by trying to do it by catching those individuals at the other end of the process.

Codes of practice are not primary legislation, but, by putting such a code in primary legislation, you can bed it into the public conscience that it is, to put it in common parlance, the law, whereas people do not see codes of practice as the law. Do you accept that?

Thank you, convener. That is very kind. Do you accept, minister, that I have, from the previous bill that I proposed but did not proceed with because of the pressures of Covid, moved from providing for a mandatory regulatory scheme to making it a discretionary chance for the Government to introduce it? That is explained in the explanatory notes. With current inflationary pressures and everything else, I understand that we do not want to burden national or local government, so the scheme is discretionary.