Some 2024 wins for animal welfare in
our advocacy work
• The UK and Welsh Governments agreed five new animal
welfare laws:
• a ban on live exports from England, Wales and Scotland
• CCTV introduced in slaughterhouses in Wales (bringing it
into line with England)
• the Pet Abduction Act, making dog and cat theft illegal
in England
• a law requiring all cat owners in England to microchip them
• a primates licensing scheme for England, which will be in
place by 2026.
• The UK Government announced a landmark commitment to
work towards phasing out animal experiments.
• It also introduced the Online Safety Act, forcing social media
moderators to remove content encouraging animal cruelty.
Other new laws begun this year include:
• an English rental Bill to make it harder for landlords to refuse
tenants with pets
• a British ban on imports of puppies, dogs with cropped ears
and pregnant bitches
• fireworks legislation to protect animal welfare in England in
line with our Kind Sparks campaign demands
• a British ban on fur imports.
Challenges
• Some laws under consideration - such as the puppy import ban -
got deferred as a result of the election being called.
• Despite our concerns, the Government designated bully XL dogs
a banned breed. It is now illegal for us to rehome dogs of this
type. Owners of exempted dogs must have them neutered.
We secured a neutering phase-in to June 2025, but the breed
ban remains.
What's coming up
In line with our strategy commitment to consign harmful and
regressive practices to history and to harness public policy
and attitudes to improve animals' lives, in 2025 we'll:
• fight to improve the welfare of flat-faced dogs in a
new campaign
• prevent around 50,000 dogs and puppies bred in poor welfare
conditions being imported to Great Britain by completing
the import ban
• improve animals' lives by encouraging people who support
our branch centres and shops to join our campaigns to change
behaviours and laws.
TRUSTEES' REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024 21
More than
339,000 people
drove our campaigns
to end cruelty to
animals, taking
209,317 actions
11 of our animal
welfare demands
are included
as commitments
in the new UK
Government manifesto
Around 5,000
privately owned
primates will need
to be licensed or
rehomed under a new
licensing scheme
To protect animals
from firework stress,
3,394 people signed
up to our campaign
and 1,580 checked
out our online advice
LEAF Greener
and cleaner
We're working with
WWF to make sure UK
trade policy protects
animal welfare and
environmental standards