3.2 pm
Animal Welfare Bill
3:17 pm
Nia Griffith (Llanelli, Labour)
I support my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud in suggesting a specific prohibition on the keeping of primates as pets. We can easily understand that nobody in Britain can possibly provide an environment suitable for a polar bear in a private house, but there is still, unfortunately—although we no longer have the chimpanzees’ tea parties—a lot of misconceptions about the nature of primates. They are still seen as being very like humans, whereas in fact they have immensely complex social and physical needs which nobody can provide for. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of ignorance about their needs and a temptation for people to see them as something rather exotic and playful that will amuse the children, without having any conception of the difficulties that that might cause later on. For that reason, the Bill must explicitly prohibit the keeping of primates as pets.