Animal welfare issues during the General Election campaign

General Election campaigns are a useful opportunity to raise policy issues and seek commitments from candidates of all parties. This helps to build political momentum behind our calls and secure new animal welfare advocates for the future. However, General Election campaigns are a quite crowded environment in which to make our voice heard.

The RSPCA has identified four key priority issues for the 2010 election which have been outlined on this site. We will be asking all political parties to address these issues at a national level.

There will of course be other animal welfare issues that may be of local or personal interest to you. 

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 What you can do to help

Whilst the RSPCA's political team will be engaging with all the political parties at a national level to ensure that animal welfare issues receive the attention they deserve, our supporters across the country can help by raising these issues with their local parliamentary candidates. There are a number of ways in which you can do this:

• Write to all candidates standing in your constituency to inform them about the RSPCA's priority animal welfare issues and ask them to commit to taking action in these areas.
• Attend public hustings events in your constituency which will be held to allow the public to question local candidates on their views and policies.

We have produced some materials to help you make the most of these opportunities to engage with your local candidates during the election campaign:

• A template letter to send to all parliamentary candidates in your constituency outlining the RSPCA's four priority animal welfare issues and the action the RSPCA believes should be taken. The template letter also includes questions for the candidates about their views and what action they would take to address these problems if elected.
• Suggested questions to ask at hustings events, and the answers that the RSPCA would give on each of these issues.
• Briefings summarising each of the RSPCA's priority animal welfare issues in order to arm you with the facts you need when engaging with your local candidates.

You can download these materials on the left hand side of this page 

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 How to find out who your candidates are

More information on how to find out who your candidates are in the General election will be published when the Election is announced. If you want to find out straightaway when updates are made on the site, follow us on Twitter. 

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 Contact during a General Election campaign

Whilst the General Election campaign can be a great opportunity to raise the profile of animal welfare issues, RSPCA supporters must be careful to ensure that their activites do not damage the reputation of the RSPCA or bring its independence into question. The RSPCA, like all registered charities, must remain politically neutral and abide by the rules of the Charity Commission and Electoral Commission on how it behaves during a General Election campaign. The following principles are useful to keep in mind if you are planning to engage with candidates during the General Election.

• You should engage with all the candidates standing in your constituency rather than those from just one particular party.
• Keep the tone of your communication with candidates polite and enquiring. If you do not agree with the views of a particular candidate it is best to politely inform them of the RSPCA's stance on the issue and avoid becoming embroiled in a heated argument.
• Do not give publicity to any political party or publish material that seeks to influence the views of voters either in favour or against particular candidates.
• Remember that candidates will be very busy and will be receiving communications from many different organisations, so do not be offended if you don't receive a response to your letter.
• Not all candidates will be familiar with the animal welfare issues that you raise so be prepared to explain the issue to them before asking for their views.

We hope that you find these tips and materials of use. If you have any questions you can contact us using this form.