Dog Attacks on Dogs

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and George Eustice

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[George Eustice]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to a debate that took place on that very matter a few weeks ago. The Sentencing Council recently issued new guidance, which took effect this week, that makes it far easier for courts to award custodial sentences at the upper end of the range for those sorts of offences. Obviously, sentencing is a matter for the Ministry of Justice, and I am sure that it keeps those issues under review.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough said that the police claim that there is a three-strikes rule and that unless a dog has attacked three times, prosecutions cannot be brought and a community protection notice cannot be used. I am reliably informed by my officials that that is not the case. There is nothing in the law that says that there must be three offences. The Dangerous Dogs Act can be used the first time there is an offence. There is nothing in the law that stipulates that there must be three offences before a CPN can be issued. I therefore think that there is an issue, which I was going to come on to, about enforcement. It may be that sometimes police forces that are reluctant to look at these issues because they want to focus on other things will come up with internal operational procedures of that sort and internal operational guidelines, but those are created by the police and are not a matter of law.

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the Minister very much for that clarification; it is really helpful to hear it. I will certainly pursue it with Charnwood Borough Council, but I have to say that I think Charnwood is a very responsible authority. As I said, it works closely, through the MOU, with Leicestershire police, so if they are labouring under misapprehensions, I suspect that that is very widespread among local authorities and police forces. One purpose of today’s debate was for MPs to express their concerns and for the Minister to show how seriously the Government take these incidents. Does he think that it might be worthwhile to write to local authorities to reiterate some of the powers that they have?

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I very much welcome this debate, which is timely. As a Minister in DEFRA in 2014, I felt that we had addressed this matter by issuing the practitioners’ guidance, but although I accept that the powers are available for local authorities to use in all sorts of situations in which dogs are causing problems, I also accept that there are still many instances of dogs being out of control. That is why, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, my Department has been looking at whether the powers are being used by the police and local authorities and, if so, what effect they are having. And that is why, as she said, we issued a voluntary survey. We invited all police forces and local authorities in England and Wales to respond to the survey about the use of those antisocial behaviour measures.

We received many responses to the survey and are currently analysing them. I am told that we expect to complete that analysis by the end of May, so while we are all busy avoiding dogs on the doorstep during the election campaign, officials will be studying those responses, but I understand that initial indications and impressions from the evidence that we have received are that there remains some misunderstanding about the powers that are already available to local authorities and police forces and, if that is the case, we will obviously want to ensure that we raise their awareness of the powers that they have.

The focus of this debate is obviously dog-on-dog attacks. As I mentioned at the start of my speech, section 3 of the Dangerous Dogs Act makes it an offence to allow a dog to be dangerously out of control, regardless of where it is. It is a long-held belief among enforcement agencies that so-called dog-on-dog incidents cannot be dealt with under the 1991 Act. We do not believe that is the case. The 1991 Act provides a definition of when a dog must be regarded as dangerously out of control. That refers to a dog being dangerously out of control when there are grounds for reasonable apprehension that it will attack someone. However, that definition is not exclusive. The words of section 3 could include, for example, a case in which a dog attacks another dog or other animal.

There is case law in this area. In 2008, a Court of Appeal judgment specifically pointed out that the definition of “dangerously out of control” in section 10 of the Dangerous Dogs Act is not exclusive, and made it clear that the ordinary meaning of the words in section 3 should be applied to any given circumstances. The case in question was the Gedminintaite case. The Court said that it was inclined to go further than existing case law. It stated:

“In any event, the definition section, section 10, is not exclusive. It does not read as a matter of construction, ‘for the purposes of this Act, a dog shall only be regarded as dangerously out of control...’ and then proceed to the definition. Therefore we feel ourselves entitled to go back to the straightforward words of section 3”.

Our lawyers believe that that does indeed mean that there are instances in which the Dangerous Dogs Act could be used for dog-on-dog attacks, but I appreciate that there is a widely held view that it cannot. Our officials can of course consider that as part of their wider review of the evidence that we have received from the survey that I mentioned.

I again congratulate my right hon. Friend on this timely debate. I am sure that the contribution that she and others have made will be taken on board by my officials and considered as they reflect on the survey responses that they are looking at now. Although, as I have explained, I believe that the law already allows police and local authorities to take action in incidents involving dangerously out of control or even just nuisance dogs, I completely agree that there are some issues about consistency of enforcement. That is why the review of evidence and survey responses is going on. I look forward to seeing the results of that, and no doubt my right hon. Friend will also follow it closely.

Question put and agreed to.