Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms) and it was good to hear him speaking in the House, after a period in the Whips on the Front Bench, although what he had to say was still a little too loyal for my taste.

I welcome clause 98 and the extension of the offence of allowing a dog to cause injury or the fear of injury to all places, including all private property. That is long awaited and closes a significant loophole in the law. Ministers have simply been much too slow to make this change. Today, however, particularly with new clause 3, the new Minister has the opportunity to act ahead of a serious and growing problem, instead of just giving a long-delayed response to a problem, as we have seen so far. I am talking about the introduction of dog control notices.

We know that thousands of victims are injured and hospitalised each year as a result of dog attacks. We know that the number of owners sentenced for offences related to dangerous dogs has increased by more than one third since 2009. Just in South Yorkshire the police tell me that in the past year they have responded to 464 dog attack incidents, and that just in 2013 they have so far taken out 26 court cases pursuing prosecution against those owners.

The latest case reported to me was that of Rebecca Lowman of Goldthorpe, who was attacked and badly injured in the arm and leg last month when she was defending a woman who was being attacked by her own dog in her own house. While Becky was still in hospital, I sat down with her husband John, who was very upset by Becky’s injuries and very angry that the police had no ability to act on that dog because the attack took place in that private house.

Since I started campaigning on this issue in the past few weeks, a lot of people have contacted me, including Norma Saunders, who told me that she knows someone who was a victim of a dog attack. She said:

“After the dog attacked several times, our community felt terrorized. I did not let my little boy play in the garden & I did not walk to the shops, but the authorities were not interested.”

I pay tribute to Hallam FM in South Yorkshire, which has taken up this campaign, aired the problems and given listeners the chance to give their experiences over the past week. A couple have phoned in with very powerful points. One said that the law must be changed:

“I was mauled by an American Pitt bull crossed with a Bull mastiff at my friend’s house and as it was in its rightful house nothing could have been done…I have been left with traumatic memories and ugly scars, this dog has not been put down and has in fact bitten someone else”.

Another caller simply said that we should

“just do what is definitely necessary to prevent any more horrific and fatal attacks on innocent people and children.”

The Minister has the chance to do just that this afternoon.

I urge the Minister, taking advantage of his fresh mandate as a new Minister in a new post, to accept new clause 3. Dog control notices have been legislated for in Scotland for three years and this represents a sensible extension of the scope for local authorities, courts and the police to take action against a person in control of a dog whose behaviour is out of control. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) has explained some of the steps and sanctions available to the authorities when a dog control notice is in place.

Labour has been arguing this case but Ministers have been dragging their feet for three years now. During that time, thousands more have suffered serious and often debilitating injuries. Most dog owners are responsible and their dogs are well behaved, but a minority see dogs as status symbols or even offensive weapons. The Government must go further than this Bill. Closing the loophole in the legislation over attacks on some private property is a sensible step, but one that they have been pushed to take. Let us see Ministers take the next sensible step this afternoon, introduce and accept the principle of dog control notices and help to reverse the rising trend of attacks and to head off some of the attacks we will otherwise definitely see, which will leave adults and children badly scarred, badly injured, badly traumatised and, in some cases, dead.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I support the Government’s gradualist and sensible approach and I urge the Minister to resist new clause 3. We all regret and are desperately unhappy about vicious attacks by dogs, particularly on children—although also on anybody else—and if legislation could solve that problem and new clause 3 could deal with it without causing massive potential inconvenience to millions of peaceable people who own dogs, I would be in favour of it. However, like all such amendments, it would probably, sadly, do little to control the vicious people who use dogs as weapons and it could impact severely on millions of ordinary, peaceable dog owners.

I declare an interest because, like you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am a dog owner. My dog, a little border terrier called William, is a lot smaller than yours. I saw yours in the Westminster dog show last year and many people think that your breed of dog is quite powerful, but I know from having witnessed your dog that it is well brought up and peaceable.

Let us be sensible about this. I know that new clause 3 is well intentioned, but it could have draconian effects. All it states is:

“Where an authorised officer has reasonable cause to believe that a dog is not under sufficient control”.

It requires a reasonable belief—that is not probability. We all know that there are disputes between neighbours, or that people have rows with other people. That is such a small bar to get over for an “authorised officer”.

[Luciana Berger]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I had better not give way, because I do not want Mr Deputy Speaker to set his dogs of war on me. I shall be very brief and will not take any interventions.

Let me make a simple point. Who is this “authorised officer”? What is this “reasonable cause”? Simply because that officer of the state has some sort of belief, which might have been motivated by other people, the dog might have to be muzzled, neutered or prevented from going in particular places. I am very worried about that.

I am also very worried about the other amendments. I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), who was talking about 14-year sentences. It was in the papers last year that somebody had driven their car dangerously and killed somebody while they were looking at their global positioning system device. They did not look out of the window for 18 seconds and they killed a cyclist, and they went to prison for three years. We all think that is ridiculous. Are we really going to send someone to prison for 14 years for this offence?

Let us be honest about it. Dogs have been bred for thousands of years to be guard dogs. Even my pathetic little border terrier, William, barks when people come up the garden path. That is what dogs are bred to do. All this nonsense about Liberal party canvassers who are scared of getting their fingers bitten when they put a leaflet through the door—I have delivered thousands of useless Conservative party pamphlets through the door. When I see a dog behind the door, I am delighted not to put the pamphlet through the letterbox. Just show some common sense. Dogs are dogs. We cannot change dogs with legislation.

New clause 3 is just one extra bit of legislation that will not impact on the people who really cause trouble, but will, as I said, impact on millions of dog owners. We should be calm, take a gradualist approach and support what the Government are doing.