Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill (Second sitting)

James Grundy Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Hudson]

Q It was about movement of animals for breeding purposes—high-level breeding animals that still need to be moved around in the farming world. Is there enough clarity in the Bill? It is clear for fattening and slaughter, but it is important that animals are still able to be moved for breeding purposes. The caveat is that we do not want people exploiting that as a loophole.

Minette Batters: We should not forget how hugely important that point is, both on genetics and on welfare. The position on border control posts has been hard-fought, and is still at some risk as negotiations on the Northern Ireland protocol continue. It is essential that we prioritise breeding stock—it is a number of 30,000 and it is important for both sides, the UK and the EU. We must avoid any unintended consequences. I remain concerned, on the European side, that we get this in place. Things are moving forward, but it is not a done deal yet.

[James Grundy (Leigh) (Con)]

Q I want to refer back to something Minette said earlier, and I apologise if I misunderstood it. With regard to dog attacks on sheep, I think you said that once a dog has become a sheep killer, it will remain a sheep killer for life. Is that what you said? I understand that is a commonly held view among the farming fraternity.

Minette Batters: I think Rob backed up what I said. It is not impossible to train a dog out of that behaviour, but once a dog has attacked a sheep it is extremely hard to turn that dog around and it would need supervision at all times with livestock to avoid that scenario happening again.

[James Grundy]

Q Once a dog has breached that point of no return—once it has become a sheep killer—I take it from what you have just said that you believe it is virtually impossible for that dog to be safely rehomed because of the danger that, unless it is under very close supervision from that point onwards, it would remain a sheep killer and would attack livestock again.

Minette Batters: We have to bear in mind that if a dog has killed a sheep it is not the sheep that it has an affinity with; it is the fact that it has drawn blood. You then have to ask yourself what other damage it could go on to do, whether that be to other dogs, other animals in general, or indeed people. Once a dog has made an attack it is really in a very vulnerable place, for the damage it might go on to do.

[James Grundy]

Thank you for the clarification, which I think was helpful for the Committee.

[The Chair]

Are there any further questions from Members? In that case, I thank our witnesses: Minette Batters, President of the National Farmers Union; Peter Stevenson, chief policy adviser for Compassion in World Farming; and Rob Taylor from the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s livestock priority delivery group. Thank you very much indeed.

Examination of Witness

Rob Quest gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Lake]

Diolch; thank you.

[James Grundy]

Q We discussed earlier today the propensity of dogs to potentially commit repeat attacks. Is it your opinion that once a dog has become a sheep killer, it is highly likely to attack and/or kill sheep again?

Dr Wright: Yes, I do think that. I also think that that is part and parcel of poor ownership. We talk about dog attacks, but a lot of this is actually to do with the irresponsible ownership of a dog and how a dog has been allowed to behave in the past. I am certainly not an advocate for saying that every dog that attacks sheep should be destroyed—of course not. Every case has to go on its merits, but given the data that I have seen and the conversations that I have had, it tends to be repeat offenders in many cases.

[James Grundy]

That is incredibly helpful. Thank you very much.

[James Daly]

Q Dr Wright, thank you very much for your evidence, which has been very helpful indeed. One issue is that if the vast majority of attacks on livestock come from animals that are in somebody’s back garden or that escape from some form of premises, there are obviously some legal difficulties in respect of that, because no Bill will ever be able to say that someone must have a fence that is 6 foot tall, 7 foot tall or whatever. What is your feeling about that? I think you would probably accept, Dr Wright, that we cannot ever produce legislation that will be specific enough to cover every possible eventuality. One of the things that we are talking about is criminalising the behaviour of people who do not know that their animals are potentially attacking sheep. You can commit a criminal offence, even though you did not know that you were doing so. Then the definition of “irresponsibility” becomes very difficult when a dog is in somebody’s back yard. Do you have any views on that?

Dr Wright: We have had a lot of conversations with members about how things happen with livestock worrying after the horse bolted, because, in effect, you are trying to find the culprit of an attack that has already happened. I do not think that we will ever get to a situation whereby we can prevent every single attack—that is absolutely correct. I am hoping that the Bill will increase the seriousness of the offence, so that people understand that even if they are not present at the time and there are no witnesses, a police officer could knock at the door with a warrant, take a DNA sample from the dog and compare it with DNA collected at a crime scene. You do not have to have been around at the time of the offence.

I am hoping that intelligence within communities will help as well. When you do not legitimise something and say that it is just one of those things, when legislation comes in and says, “Actually, we’re taking this seriously, because this is a very important issue,” the fines, the powers for police, the enforcement and the investigation display our strength with this and how important we feel it is, and that will feed back to communities where there have been problems and help the police in their ability to do something about it. In some respects, I know it is after the horses have bolted, but I am hoping we can close the door to stop any more horses escaping. That is the analogy I give to farmers, because as you say, you would never solve it 100% of the time. What we need to get to is that when dog owners are thinking about their dogs, they understand that there are serious consequences to this.

There is a responsibility on industry to communicate that as well. I happen to sit on the Animal Welfare Network Wales, which has a lot of animal charities on it as well, and I have been using their groups to disseminate to their members—the people who would not necessarily speak to the union but would speak to, say, other animal charities about how to look after their dogs. So there are ways and means to get the intelligence out there to those people who maybe would not have known about it before. As you say, we are not going to get everyone, but I am hoping that by committing what we have done so far to it we can potentially stop future attacks.