MPs have voted down an attempt by Labour to revive the government’s animal welfare bill.
Last month ministers announced they were dropping the kept animals bill, which was part of the Tories’ 2019 manifesto. The legislation aimed to clamp down on puppy smuggling and dog theft, as well as banning the live exports of farm animals.
Labour attempted to force the bill back into parliament with an opposition day motion on Wednesday. While some backbench Tory MPs were expected to back Labour, MPs voted by 256 votes to 183 to reject the motion.
The RSPCA’s head of public affairs, David Bowles, said: “It’s terrible news for animals and we are calling on the UK government to rethink and bring back all the proposals contained within the binned bill back by other means. We cannot go on allowing cruel practices such as the live exports of animals for slaughter and the puppy import trade.”
Claire Bass, senior director of campaigns and public affairs at the Humane Society, said: “Animals are not political footballs and they needed MPs to come together today in order for progress to be made, but very disappointingly that didn’t happen.
“With this plan voted down, we are left with the government’s insistence on its ‘plan B’ to deliver manifesto commitments to animals – to demote them to the lottery of private members bills, which are likely five months away from even starting. All the time politicians dither, animals are suffering unnecessarily.”
While some Tory MPs spoke in favour of bringing back the bill during the Commons debate, Labour was criticised for trying to reintroduce the bill instead of tabling a motion in support of it.
Former Conservative party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith told the Commons: “We shouldn’t really, I think, have found ourselves in a situation where this bill had to be dumped. And we have to start all over again.”
He said “everybody” would have been in favour of a motion committing to take the bill forward but he dismissed Labour’s attempt to take control of the Commons schedule as “politics”.
Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns said she was “immensely disappointed and flabbergasted actually to hear that the bill would be dropped”, but she accused Labour of “using animals as political pawns”.
The shadow environment secretary, Jim McMahon, told the Commons: “We have a government running scared of opposition from its own backbenchers.”
He added: “It is a Conservative bill in name and content. There is no reason not to support it.”
In a statement released after the vote, McMahon said: “Tory MPs have just blocked Labour’s motion to bring back the kept animals bill, having promised voters at the last election they would deliver it.
“By doing this they have just given the green light to puppy smugglers and dog thieves, showing whose side they are on.”
The government is aiming to quash opposition by bringing back some aspects of the bill as separate laws. On Tuesday, ministers announced they would be bringing in a law to effectively ban primates as pets, by requiring “zoo-level standards” of care for any kept in captivity in the UK.
