[Kymba]

This is great news and not before time. But I am not sure if it goes far enough.
This is fine as long as they enforce it as we tend to let animals get in quite a state before anything is done about it. And we tend to let owners who are charged with cruelty off to Lightly. I believe if you are charged with Animal cruelty you should be banned from keeping them for Life, not just a few years..
I also feel that before you can purchase certain pets ( Dogs, cats, horses, Pot-bellied Pigs, Goats etc) You should have to have a Licence per pet and it should be quite expensive (at least £20 a year) . My reason for this is if you cant afford a licence then you cant afford to keep a pet. With food, Innoculations, Illness etc they aren't cheap to keep..

This is just my personnal view, having had dealings with animal cruelty I have seen first hand how cruel some people can be... Some times it is intentional cruelty, but sometimes it is total ignorance on how much money you need to spend to keep a pet fit and healthy!