Dangerous Dogs

Debate between Baroness Bray of Coln and Jane Ellison

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity finally to raise this difficult issue, which is not just a continuing problem for many of my constituents who find their visits to local parks and their movements on the streets and even on local buses blighted by intimidating dogs and their owners. This is a growing problem, and I am certain that it affects countless others in urban and suburban areas. I have been talking to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and I have discovered that Ealing is the ninth-worst borough for this problem. According to some of the statistics, it seems to be the fifth-worst, so it is little wonder that so many of my constituents have wanted to raise their anxieties with me. I know that Ealing council takes the problem extremely seriously and that it is in discussions with a number of organisations to plan a way forward.

We need to be very clear about this issue because there are different aspects to what is quite a complex matter. One aspect is the dogs that are simply out of control. Not long ago, on Acton green, almost outside my house, a Rottweiler attacked a pet that was being walked there and injured it quite seriously. The Rottweiler had been rescued by a lady who had no intention of setting it on anything, but she clearly had not learned how to manage it properly. The RSPCA thinks that the best way forward in such instances is to give those owners some education in an early intervention to try to teach them how to be more responsible. I am sure that that is the right way forward. Getting the RSPCA lined up with specific cases may be a little difficult, but that is a discussion for another night.

I want to deal with an issue that is in many ways far more serious: dogs that are intentionally trained by their owners to be nasty and intimidating. That growing menace is always about young—almost always—men with large fierce dogs attached to a lead and usually fitted out with full studded collars. They are called status dogs, and that is all about machismo or certainly about displaying potential aggression. The dogs accompany those owners pretty much as a weapon, but, crucially, whereas carrying a weapon such as a knife involves a certain penalty, owning such dogs does not, which is exactly why they are the growing weapon of choice at the moment. Sometimes, drug dealers will use those dogs to protect themselves as they trade and perhaps to enforce their trade, particularly against rivals. Other people may train the dogs for fighting. Unfortunately, dog fighting is a lucrative sport, although rather a grotesque one. Other people are simply demonstrating who is boss on a piece of local territory.

Innocent members of the public who go into parks with their families and pets to enjoy a day out do not know whether those dogs will be let off their leads at any stage, and if they are, they do not know whether they will then run after them and attack them, their pets or, worst of all, their children. Frankly, it is absolutely unacceptable that, instead of being able to enjoy their day out, they must spend their time looking over their shoulders.

What can be done to tackle this menace? I am not expert in the field and it will be for others who are to find the right solutions. My purpose is to urge the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to get moving on the issue as quickly as possible.

I have received some ideas from the organisations that I have spoken to. First and foremost, I do not believe that going after dog breeds is the right way forward. I have my doubts about the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Pit bulls may look vicious, but they are not necessarily born vicious. Like any other dog, they are just born; what happens next can turn them into something altogether more unpleasant. The problem with pit bulls, of course, is their physical size and strength. If an owner sets out to turn them into something nasty, they turn into something quite lethal, but that is not how they start out. My contention is that we should be targeting not dangerous dogs, but dangerous owners.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I want to support that view. I represent Battersea, and Battersea dogs home is a great source of expertise. It says that those dogs come through its doors as the victims of irresponsible back-street breeding and irresponsible ownership. It is a tragic sight to go to the dogs home and see many dozens of abandoned dogs that have little chance of being re-homed because someone bred and treated them irresponsibly.

[Angie Bray]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I know Battersea dogs home well. In fact, I got my first rescue dog from Battersea dogs home, so I know what fantastically good work it does. It is very much involved in the discussions about how we can get more responsibility into dog owning. I look forward to hearing more from it about what it has to say.

Obviously, we must find out how we can best get rid of the threat in our open spaces. Who can do that? Obviously, we have the police and safer neighbourhood teams. Councils employ park rangers and dog wardens. Of course, the problem is one of resources. The Metropolitan police have also set up a status dog unit, which has been fully supported by the deputy Mayor of London, Kit Malthouse, who is doing a lot of work in this respect. The new unit is operating effectively throughout London, but it is still relatively small, so we need to think about how we get resources into addressing the problem. My local police are frank in telling me that if someone says that their dog has been attacked by another dog, the police will not intervene—they say that dogs fight each other—because they do not have the necessary resources. However, as I have pointed out, the problem is that if a dog is attacked today, that might be a child tomorrow.

Given the question of resources, I am wary about bringing back the old licensing system, which probably cost more than it raised. An annual round of licensing would impose an additional tier of bureaucracy on owners, and the trouble would be that the good guys would get the licences while the bad guys would ignore them. I am also aware that we must look after our pensioners, who often depend on animals for company more than anyone else, so I do not particularly want to impose anything on them. However, I might be persuaded of the case for a one-off dog licence—a life licence—that would involve making a payment when the ownership of a dog was taken up, provided that the revenue was properly ring-fenced for policing dangerous dogs.