Greyhound Racing

John McNally Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank my good friend the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees) for securing today’s debate on greyhound racing. The petition, which received about 105,000 signatures, is to ban greyhound racing and ensure that the welfare of redundant dogs is, via a levy on the industry, absolutely adhered to. May I say how apt it is that the hon. Member for Neath, a person who is absolutely steeped in sport and who understands and appreciates the benefits and value of sport, brings this sport in front of MPs for our attention and debate? I thought her speech was enlightening.

MPs across the room have made excellent points and raised concerns about the welfare of these beautiful animals. I, too, sympathise with the petition—I thank the 160 people from my own constituency of Falkirk who signed it, even though they do not have a dog track in their area—and its merits, aims and ambitions. Who would not do so when they read about the cruelty inflicted on the animals in this so-called sport? Why would we not have sympathy for them?

Sir Roger, let me take you back a wee while. May I take you back in time some 60 years to when, as a young boy growing up in Denny, I and my friends would sneak along to the local dog track? All innocent and all exciting it was, too, to watch these magnificent animals run. Then, as we grew, we started to learn a wee bit more about how the greyhounds were actually treated—including how they were fed a pie before the race to prevent them from running so fast. Goodness knows what else they were being fed or injected with. And of course, when their usefulness was done, they were cruelly destroyed.

We probably did not know any better at the time, so what has improved? There are certainly fewer tracks now. The British Greyhound Racing Fund has awarded, as other hon. Members have said, more than £1 million to improve the racing tracks and welfare. The Greyhound Trust has received approximately £1.4 million to home retired greyhounds. That all sounds good and it leaves us wondering why, if greyhounds are such wonderful pets, there is such a problem with finding them homes. The answer is simple: it is down to the sheer number of dogs involved in greyhound racing. More than 30,000 dogs are surplus to requirements each year. In 2020, the Greyhound Board of Great Britain recorded, if my figures are correct—I think they are—3,575 injuries. In 2018, 324 greyhounds were destroyed; no home could be found for them. In 2019, 14 greyhounds a week died; they were destroyed because of injuries sustained while racing.

In Scotland, the welfare of greyhounds is covered by devolved legislation under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, but significantly there is no statutory legislation on greyhound racing in Scotland. Only two greyhound tracks are currently operating in Scotland. Thornton Greyhounds, in Kirkcaldy, is an unlicensed flapping track, and Shawfield greyhound stadium is licensed under the GBGB. In August 2019, the Glasgow track reduced its activity to a single night of racing per week—there were simply not enough dogs, I am told, to make up two nights’ racing. The position was similar at Thornton. It seems evident that racing greyhound numbers are at their lowest in Scotland, at least, and the sport is on its last legs.

The Greyhound Board of Great Britain is the body responsible for the governance, regulation and management of the sport of licensed greyhound racing in England, Scotland and Wales, but oddly, the regulations on the welfare of the greyhounds do not apply to independent tracks. I find that quite odd. Could the Minister please confirm whether that is true?

The Scottish Government do not currently have plans to ban greyhound racing, but they are very much aware of the Animal Welfare Commission’s interest on this vexatious business. I want to finish up with this letter I received on greyhound racing from Marie, a Falkirk constituent of mine. I am grateful to her for sending such a thoughtful and knowledgeable insight into why we are debating this. Marie said:

“I adopted Morag when she was five and a half. Out of all the wonderful, excited and noisy dogs in the Greyhound Rescue Fife’s kennels that day, Morag was just lying there looking at me with her huge brown eyes. My heart went out to her. She had a rotten life. I’ll never know whether she was just born terrified or whether her early experiences made her that way. Ironically, her racing name was “Honour and Love”, but I saw no signs of her ever having been honoured or loved. She didn’t know anything about the world outside of racetracks. She had never slept on anything except straw and probably old newspapers. Shut up and locked up in a crate for most of the day and night, Morag bears the scars of her racing career—not just mentally, but in the form of ugly, large blackheads on her abdomen, a nasty scar on her face and the loss of 17 teeth.”

Many breeders and trainers do not bother to take care of the hounds’ teeth. Why? It is because they will not have them long enough to have to deal with the resulting decay from the negligence. That happened at Doncaster and Nottingham racetracks. Bookmakers, as the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) said, have a lot of money to put into their sport. They are taking a lot out of it. In the world of gambling, these wonderful, intelligent and innocent sighthounds do not matter. Only their ability to run for their lives at the snapping open of a metal trap matters.

Morag matters. When Morag first wagged her tail, when she first played with her toys and when she sighed contentedly in her basket, she had won the best race of all. She survived to have a better life and got her sweet revenge on those who mishandled her, filled her with drugs, did not show a minute of kindness and would have put a cattle bolt to her head, had the regulations not improved and had there not been the kindness of volunteers at rescue centres.

Due to Morag being so timid and scared, the Greyhound Rescue Fife advised Marie that a male dog companion would bring Morag out of herself. Marie went back up to Kinross and fell in love again, this time with her second sighthound, Hector—a big blue boy only 26 months old. He had been bought from his breeder in Ireland from £12,000. The trainer in Tranent who bought him raced him three times at Newcastle. The blue boy stopped to play at the last bend in each race, so he was disqualified. Luckily, he did not have to put up with a life of being a slave to the gambling industry for long.

Sandside Chief never made money for anyone, but he became a much loved part of her family, and every morning Marie wakes up to the pleasure of her wonderful greyhounds trotting towards her for hugs and food. She says:

“I adore them and all greyhounds. The racing greyhound is a special commodity. I would like to see the breed die out. I would like to see greyhound racing banned. Show greyhounds are looked after. Coursing greyhounds have a healthier lifestyle, but the racing greyhound is born into servitude and from the age of six weeks is trained for only one thing: to make money.”

We have all acknowledged a lot of problems in the industry. There is no doubt about that. If a ban is not forthcoming, then a better life for these greyhounds must be the absolute priority.