As always, it is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who chairs the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I am tempted to use youth parlance and say, “What they said in their report” and then sit down, but it is worth recording that, although some of these measures are welcome, they are broadly described in the EFRA Committee report as woefully inadequate and belated. That sums up where many of the organisations that have campaigned long and hard for dog control measures feel we have got to. They welcome the Bill being introduced but they feel that it is not there yet.
It has also been a great privilege to hear some of the contributions by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I would like to mention in particular the contributions by my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) and for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), who spoke with real insight and passion on behalf of the people in their constituencies who have tragically lost family members. There are so many such instances.
May I briefly turn to a separate issue? It relates to chapter 2, clauses 55 to 68. Although I have no pecuniary interest and no financial remittance whatever, I declare that I am the chairman of Glamorgan Area Ramblers and a vice-president of Ramblers Cymru. There are some concerns. The approach is well intended and builds on what has been done to restrict gate access to paths. The issue is getting the balance right. People have had a legitimate right to use those paths and public areas over many years and they should be heard, too. There is some concern, based on the track record of similar measures, that sometimes local communities have felt bypassed in that process. We must ensure that, in tackling antisocial behaviour—it is often an issue with some of these dark, narrow alleys as sometimes the entrances and egresses are used for criminal behaviour—there is proper community consultation, including with those who may say, “Let us get to the causes of the problem, rather than deal with the symptoms and simply gate off the path.”
On dog law reform and the Bill’s measures to tackle irresponsible owners, it has taken three years. My appeal to the Government, as a former Minister who took great pains to work on a cross-party basis to improve Bills, is that we should please take the opportunity to get the legislation right. I refer in particular to the issue of dog control notices. I have not yet heard—it is for the Government to provide this—compelling reasons why dog control notices are not appropriate. They are backed by many of the 30 organisations, including the police, the Royal College of Nursing, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which still maintain that a purposeful, direct and discrete measure is needed in the Bill specifically to deal with dog control. There are at least two reasons for that. The first is to do with early intervention and getting, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West said, to the root of the problem before an attack takes place. That should happen when an animal displays certain behavioural traits, when a social worker, postal worker or member of the family has said, “There are real issues with this animal—something should be done.” Something could also be done early on with the owner of the animal. I am waiting to hear a strong argument from the Minister as to why the Government have taken that position on dog control notices. The Secretary of State did nothing to dispel my concerns and those of many others.
Already there have been two fatalities this year. There have been 17 fatalities since 2005. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree mentioned many of those tragic cases. There are nearly 250,000 attacks every year. Every local authority faces hundreds of thousands of pounds of costs to kennel the dogs. The Metropolitan police and West Midlands police face millions of pounds of costs every year. Thousands of work days are lost—not only for postal workers but home workers. That has financial costs, too.
We support the Government’s move to extend to private property the ability to prosecute. Let us get the balance right in terms of trespassers, but that move is welcome. It is right to encompass assistance dogs within the proposals and we support any measure to do that. In so doing, however, I hope we debate in Committee the aspects that the Chair of the EFRA Committee touched on relating to equines, bovines, cattle and sheep in the fields. Following a freedom of information request, some fantastic analysis was done by the Farmers Guardian. Many others have campaigned on the issue. They have identified that there has been a rise in the number of attacks on farmyard stock: from 691 in 2011 to 739 in 2012. Individual owners must take responsibility. My family is involved in upland sheep farming, and we have had to take direct action when dogs have been attacking sheep on the hills. There must also be some comeback on owners who leave their dogs out to run wild in the fields or let them off the leash. I hope that such a measure will feature, and measures on attacks on protected animals ought to be considered, too.
Good briefings on dog control notices have been produced by Blue Cross, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Communication Workers Union and many other organisations. They criticise the Bill because they see the four different measures proposed in it as adding considerable administration and bureaucracy—I wait to be disabused of that notion by the Minister in his closing remarks, or perhaps in Committee—as opposed to being flexible, light-touch measures that can facilitate early intervention before an attack takes place. Crime prevention injunctions and criminal behaviour orders, for example, both require court hearings if requirements are imposed, and there must be someone responsible for supervising compliance with the requirements, evidence must be given to the court, and if the person is under 18, the applicant must consult the local youth offending team.
When a social worker goes into a house and they have been told by an RSPCA officer, “The last time we were in there, we had a bit of a problem with the dog, so watch out,” and the dog displays the same behaviour or the owner riles the dog or is clearly mistreating the dog, that is when those steps should be taken, and quickly, without having to go through a lengthy bureaucratic procedure. What we need are bespoke dog control notices, instead of a generic approach. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee is very firm on that, as are many outside organisations. The Minister will have to work very hard in Committee if he wants to persuade us otherwise.
DCNs can work. There is a parallel, and it is not only provided by Scotland. There are provisions under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 for what are called IS87s issued by the RSPCA, and we should look at their compliance rate. These are very flexible and easy to use. Last year 10,728 IS87s were issued, and the level of compliance was 93%. They do work, therefore; they offer a much lighter touch and are much more effective. If we look back to previous years, we see that the compliance rates were 97%, 94%, 96% and 97%. I therefore say to the Minister that there is an alternative way forward, based on the DCN approach, which we can already see works under a slightly different mechanism.
The Minister must think very hard about how to proceed, and I ask him to go forward with an open mind. We have heard the arguments about why we should not go forward, and they have not persuaded the organisations I have mentioned, including the police. If there is an issue of resources and the Government are worried that the moment they say, “Dog control notice,” there will be a carry-on of resources down to local authorities, charitable bodies and so forth, let us put that up front and talk about how it can be overcome. However, we should not simply package this in with the wider generic package of measures that may or may not be effective, when the police and others are looking to deal with the myriad problems to do with antisocial behaviour and community safety. Our worry is that dog control and dealing with irresponsible owners will again not be the top priority, as has so often been the case in the past.
I urge the Minister to keep an open mind; I urge him to listen to the Committee and to be open to changing his mind as the Bill progresses. That is all I ask. That is what makes for a good, listening Government and Executive, and he has heard from both sides of the House tonight that that is what we are looking for.
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