LABOUR will bring in a “total ban” on households keeping monkeys as pets if they win power.
It would outlaw the keeping and trading of squirrel monkeys, lemurs, marmosets and capuchins as pets as part of Labour’s wide-ranging animal welfare reforms.
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Figures released by the party show an estimated 5,000 primates were being kept as pets in the UK.
Labour said the pets were often housed in cages and “denied proper lighting and nutrition, causing painful and debilitating diseases such as metabolic bone disease”.
They were also regularly being “taken away from their mothers at a young age and kept in isolation, becoming depressed and displaying behaviour such as self-mutilation, hair pulling and rocking back and forth”, the party added.
ANIMAL MANIFESTO
The proposed move, already in force in other European countries, forms part of Labour’s animal welfare manifesto due to be published later this month.
Shadow environment minister Luke Pollard said: “It is astonishing that it is still entirely legal to keep primates as pets, regardless of how endangered or dangerous the animal is.
Anyone can browse the internet and buy a primate with little or no checks and inspections.
“We know that primates are very intelligent, social animals with complex needs that simply cannot be met in a home environment.
“Labour will ban people from keeping pet primates as part of our plans to bring Britain’s animal welfare laws into the 21st century.”
Existing legislation stating that animal owners must prevent “unnecessary suffering” is “difficult to enforce and a breach of its provisions is not an offence”, Labour said.
It added that the RSPCA said it received a call nearly every week relating to the welfare of pet primates and some calls referred to up to 30 animals.
