Foxes

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

The noble Baroness is absolutely correct to say that food waste is a problem. However, I do not believe that we should give a message to local authorities that they should not insist on separating food waste; it is for the local authorities themselves to decide on the best way of disposing of and collecting their waste of one sort or another. If food waste is put in secure bins, there is no reason why it should create a problem.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on his clear statement that pest control is a matter for local authorities. It is not the job of Secretaries of State and other Ministers to solve every local problem in the country. However, does he agree that this question needs to be kept in perspective in view of the fact that two years ago more than 5,000 people were treated in hospital for injuries caused by domestic dogs and, of those, 1,250 were children? Perhaps that is a bigger problem than foxes.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his support for our localist agenda, which we believe is very important. He is correct to put these matters in perspective, although, obviously, if you have had two children bitten by a fox, you tend to take the matter seriously.