The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
My Lords, I offer my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Redesdale on introducing the Bill, on giving us an opportunity to discuss these matters, and on his detailed explanation of just what the Bill does. I should also remind the House—as the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, did, and as I did the other day on a Question on this matter—that there has been a public consultation on dangerous dogs which focused specifically on whether the current laws need to be changed. That consultation was issued by the previous Administration on 9 March this year. It closed on 1 June and we have received in the order of 4,250 responses. The most important point I have to make is that we will carefully consider those responses before deciding what action the Government need to take to deal with this problem. For that reason, I will make it clear now that, as is traditional, although we will not oppose this Bill, we will not offer it our support.
I turn now to the specific points. The first is the question of whether we should have breed-specific legislation and whether the 1991 and 1997 Acts should be repealed. We believe that it is not necessary to remove breed-specific legislation. We often hear the cliché—it was repeated by my noble friend—that that was a knee-jerk reaction that has failed to prevent people owning such dogs. However, the provision on pit bulls and other dogs identified as having characteristics bred for fighting is necessary. I appreciate that there are a number of very vocal critics of breed-specific legislation, and I respect the sincerity of their views, but I am not convinced by the assertion that Parliament was wrong when it agreed to a ban on the keeping of pit bulls and that removing the ban would not result in any additional risk to the public.
We are as Ministers frequently criticised in the press—as were previous Ministers—for not having tighter dog control laws, and we regularly receive much correspondence requesting that all bull breeds, for example, are added to the list of prohibited breeds. This request is frequently mirrored in the media. Questions about both extending and repealing breed-specific legislation were raised in the consultation that I and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, referred to, and it would not be appropriate at this stage to offer detailed comment on what was said in the responses. However, we are in routine contact with the police. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, that Defra consulted every force in England and Wales in 2007, and both the Association of Chief Police Officers and a number of individual forces have responded to the most recent consultation. The view of the police is that without breed-specific legislation, and more specifically the prohibition on pit bull terrier-type dogs, there would have been many more attacks.
As my noble friend Lord Redesdale put it, any dog can attack anyone. That is absolutely right and no one would dispute it. That is why Section 3 of the Dangerous Dogs Act applies to all dogs regardless of breed. However, it would be irresponsible to pretend that some dogs are not far more capable than others of inflicting life-changing injuries when they attack.
I will deal briefly with a number of problems in the Bill that have been highlighted, in particular by my noble friends Lord Mancroft and Lord Shrewsbury. My noble friend Lord Redesdale’s Bill would also make it an offence to own a dog that had attacked a person or a protected animal. Making it an offence to own a dog that has attacked a person or a protected animal might criminalise a great deal of very minor incidents. My noble friend Lord Shrewsbury made the point that a very small dog nipping someone's fingers might have to be destroyed merely because someone brought an action as a result of that. The current law allows each case to be assessed individually, and we believe that that is correct. As I have said, all dogs can bite. It is unfortunate but, even with the most responsible owner, it can happen. The balance of the current law, which allows each incident to be judged individually, is probably correct, and I would need further persuasion before I could support a proposal that would trigger a disproportionate action for every minor incident. Nevertheless, it is a matter that we will bear in mind when we look at what has been said in the responses.
The noble Lord, echoing the Scotland Act, would like to introduce dog control notices. I will make two important points about that Act. My noble friend Lord Redesdale said that the Scotland Act had not received much opposition, but I remind him that it does not come into force until February of next year, and one might see a slightly different attitude to it when that happens. The other point is that the Act does not repeal the 1991 Act and retains breed-specific legislation. Those two points should be borne in mind when anyone considers that Act.
As I said, the Act comes into force next year and will introduce a provision similar to that proposed by my noble friend on dog control notices. We accept that such notices have the potential to be a useful tool that could provide an intermediate step preventing a dog from becoming dangerously out of control. Likewise, they could also provide a way of monitoring those who persistently have problems controlling their dogs.
Again, however, it is important that we review the consultation responses on this matter. We should also use the opportunity to observe how these notices are implemented in Scotland before deciding on their appropriateness for England and Wales. This is one of those occasions when, if the devolved Administrations move in one direction, there is no reason why we should move too fast; we can watch what they do and see how it works.
The Bill would also make it a criminal offence to allow a dog to be dangerously out of control in a private place where the dog is permitted to be. That is another option that was raised in the recent consultation and which we are considering seriously. Various noble Lords rightly mentioned that point, which we will look at carefully. When the 1991 Act was debated in Parliament, attacks on private premises where a dog was permitted to be were not deemed to be suitable to be made a criminal offence. That was because Parliament did not want to create a situation where a home owner could potentially be prosecuted should the household dog bite a burglar. In the main, we think that biting burglars is no bad thing, but others might have different views. I appreciate the fact that the Bill attempts to remedy that by proposing an exemption in the event that a dog attacks with “reasonable cause”. That “reasonable cause” is then given further definitions, one of which is,
“if … the person attacked was in a place where the person was not permitted to be and was committing an offence for which the penalty could be a custodial sentence”.
I appreciate that such exemptions are a sensitive matter, but we do not agree with any legislation that would essentially legalise any dog being dangerously out of control and attacking somebody, albeit a burglar. Again, we will have to look at that.
There are one or two other matters about which we have some concerns. For example, Clause 2(1)(b) appears to tackle cases where dogs are used to intimidate people. I think that we can all agree that the use of dogs in such a manner is reprehensible. However, there are injunctions in the Policing and Crime Act 2009—my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury rightly drew the House’s attention to the rather large number of policing, crime and criminal justice Acts that emanated from the party opposite, which we shall try not to emulate—that address that problem and can prevent gang members from being in charge of an animal in a public place where it has been proven that the gang member has engaged in, encouraged or assisted gang-related violence. Likewise, we can use more mature legislation, such as the well tried and tested Offences Against the Person Act 1861, where an animal is deliberately used as a weapon to injure somebody.
That is a fairly brief gallop through some of our concerns about the Bill. I entirely understand the thrust of what my noble friend is trying to do and the purpose behind the Bill. This is a serious problem and I assure the House that the Government continue to take the matter seriously. However, we do not think that this Bill is the right way forward. We will look at the consultation and see whether it is necessary to repeal the current law. At the moment, I do not see the case for that. However, we will come forward with the appropriate proposals when we have examined the consultation and the responses to it. For the moment, as I said, although I have no intention of opposing the Second Reading of the Bill, I cannot give it the full support of Her Majesty’s Government.