Member

Of course, as the Minister has said, there is a separate offence of animal cruelty, where we are whacking it up to five years in prison, but that is usually prosecuted by the RSPCA, which in my opinion is entirely the wrong organisation to be prosecuting anyone for a crime. I understand that the RSPCA is keen to give this up in any case and hand it over to the CPS. The Minister said that there was a danger with my noble friend’s amendment of an unclear overlap in the prosecution. I submit that there is an unclear overlap at the moment: I cannot see the RSPCA following up on an animal cruelty prosecution when someone has been done for sexual perversion.