Animals (Amendment) Act 2025 - 188/2026

The Minister for Environment, the Hon Prof John Cortes 18th March 2026

Policy background

The Government works closely with local animal charities and animal-loving individuals, and continuously reviews developments in other European countries in order to monitor to legislative standards of animal welfare.

Upon such a review, we have found opportunities to improve our legislation to ensure that we uphold higher standards of animal welfare in keeping with modern values and attitudes to animals and pets.

The Amendments

The Five Freedoms

The Bill incorporates a well-known international framework known as the five freedoms or five welfare needs of animals. These are the need for (1) a suitable environment, (2) a suitable diet (3) the need to exhibit normal behaviour (4) the need to be housed with or apart from other animals and (5) the need to be protected from pain, suffering, injury and disease.

The Bill places a duty of care on owners of animals to ensure they take all reasonable steps to meet the 5 welfare needs of their animals to the extent required by good practice. Where a person fails to comply with this duty of care, police officers will be able to enforce the law by serving an improvement notice on animal owners. This notice will explain and specify what steps need to be taken by the animal owner in order to improve the animals' welfare and should identify a time frame for those steps to be taken.

Whilst failing to meet the welfare standards is a criminal offence, these improvement notices set out a collaborative approach towards the enforcement of animal welfare, which we expect will improve the welfare of the animals concerned in the majority of cases without having to resort to the criminal courts.

Pet theft

Theft of pets is unfortunately a reality; especially for pet species which are commercially profitable for sale. These offences are treated currently in the law like the theft of any other piece of property. This fails to take into account the emotional impact on victims whose pets are stolen; these victims have lost a family member.

As a result, this Bill introduces a new offence of theft of pets which applies to cats and dogs, with the potential to extend its application in future to other species. The penalty is 12 months imprisonment on summary conviction and on indictment 5 years imprisonment with the statutory maximum fine.

New offences for treatment of animals

The Bill creates a number of additional offences, which bring the Animals Act in line with UK legislation on animal welfare, and reflects modern attitudes to the keeping of pets. These include the following:

1. It will be an offence to dock a dog's tail or allow a dog's tail to be docked, whether in Gibraltar or elsewhere.
2. It will be an offence to mutilate any part of an dog, typically dog's ears, or allow this to be done to a dog, again whether in Gibraltar or elsewhere.
3. The use of electronic collars, choke collars or pronged collars on cats or dogs shall be prohibited, given these collars are shown to cause pain and discomfort to animals, and have no demonstrative benefits to their training.

Enforcement

The Bill also improves on the enforcement of offences against animals. New provisions have been introduced to the Animals Act which detail that judges convicting any person of a cruelty offence under the Act can disqualify the offender from keeping animals. This was previously only possible after a second conviction for the offence of cruelty to animals.

This disqualification provision is aligned with the equivalent legislation in the UK, which will allow prosecutors, judges and magistrates to rely on the UK Sentencing Guidelines in relation to offences relating to animal cruelty. This will assist in more efficient enforcement of these offences.

In addition, provisions have been included by the Bill to remove pets and animals from people who are convicted of cruelty offences, in addition to any other penalty that may be imposed by the relevant court.

Unfortunately, there are cases where animals which have been the subject of cruelty offences may be suffering, and putting the animal down may be the kindest thing to do. The Bill provides for a mechanism for such animals to be put down if a veterinary surgeon determines that it is in the interests of the animal to do so.

There are also sad cases of animals used to carry out fighting offences, which results in such animals being a potential danger to public safety and to other animals as they have been trained to fight. Whilst such animals do not necessarily pose a danger and therefore are not necessarily liable to be put down, the Bill provides our courts with a power and a discretion to order that an animal should be destroyed if there has been a conviction for a fighting offence. This should deter people from using animals to commit such offences.

The Bill also makes provision for equipment used for the carrying out of offences, such as for the docking of tails or ears, to be forfeited. This will help to ensure that offenders are less likely to become repeat offenders.

In addition, new provisions will allow a court to cancel any licence held by an offender, under any legislation. This sends a message to offenders that if you commit animal cruelty offences, you may not be considered a suitable person to hold licences for other purposes. Mistreatment of vulnerable animals, reflects on the type of person an offender is, and wherever character and suitability are in question, such convictions will be highly relevant.

Animal Sentience

Last but certainly not least, a new part has been introduced by the Bill into the Animals Act, which recognises in law that all vertebrate animals and invertebrates such as crabs, lobsters and octopuses are sentient beings. This statement will be the driver of animal welfare policy in the future.

This Bill provides recognition of animal sentience in Gibraltar law and will see Ministers required to consider the animal welfare implications of their decisions.

This brings Gibraltar law in line with the EU which recognised the sentience of animals in the Lisbon Treaty which amended the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Conclusion

Madam Speaker, Gibraltar is a nation of animal lovers. Many Gibraltarians keep pets in loving homes where they are well cared for. This Bill helps to ensure that no animals in Gibraltar are kept by those who intend to harm them. It will deter and prevent those who mistreat animals to be able to do so, and will place animal's ability to feel and perceive as a matter for consideration across all levels of policy making. Madam Speaker, I commend this Bill to the House.

ENDS