The RSPCA is seeking new police powers to allow hundreds of its inspectors to enter private property and seize pets, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The charity is in talks with police chiefs and the Government about new statutory powers to allow its inspectors to gain access to gardens, sheds and outhouses without a police officer.

The news appalledsome MPs and campaign groups. One MP said the "RSPCA is a welfare charity not a private police force".

The organisation wants the new powers despite a cross-party group of MPs publishing a report last November in which the RSPCA was accused of “targeting vulnerable, ill and elderly” people and removing their pets.

Last month the RSPCA’s new chief executive Jeremy Cooper quit last month after a year in charge. That prompted the Charity Commission to say that the “governance of the RSPCA remains below that which we expect in a modern charity”.

Currently RSPCA inspectors who suspect a pet is in distress have to contact a local police officer and wait for them to arrive before they can enter private property to seize the animal.

But under the proposals, the charity’s 333 inspectors would be granted statutory powers to intervene without first asking a police officer to accompany them.

This would allow its inspectors to enter people’s gardens, sheds and outbuildings to seize animals which they believed are suffering without police support.

The powers would not extend to private homes at this stage - the inspectors would still have to ask police to apply for warrants from a judge.

The organisation said it was "also seeking the power to seize animals in distress" rather than have "to wait for the police and a vet which could prolong an animal suffering".