Dog Control and Welfare

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Julie Hilling

Thursday 13th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Julie Hilling]

I agree, and because the proposals are subsumed in antisocial behaviour legislation, not enough priority will to be given to dog attacks. I understand that the police are, potentially, dealing with drugs or other issues, so when somebody is just complaining about a dog barking, for example, how much attention will that get?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about prioritising the matter among the wide range of measures that police and community safety agencies have to deal with. There is also the technical, but important, issue of how much time during the progress of a large, complex Home Office Bill will be put aside for debating these issues, which have not been debated enough, technically and in detail. Does she agree that we should definitely find time to do that, and that introducing guidance as rapidly as possible would help us?

[Julie Hilling]

I agree. My hon. Friend raises some important points.

The dog control notice could say, “Keep that dog on a lead”, “Keep it muzzled”, or “Keep it away from children”. I hope that it would state, where necessary, that the dog owner needed to reduce the number of dogs in the household, because the home was not suitable for them. A range of actions could be taken.

We still cannot talk about Jade’s case in detail, but the one complaint we know of was about noise. Had a properly trained person who understood dogs been able to go round at that point, perhaps action could have been taken. I would be the last to say that action could have saved Jade, but the fact that we do not take action at all, apart from saying, “Keep your dogs quiet”, means that we are liable to have more and more of those terrible attacks and tragedies.