Dog Licensing

Lord Redesdale Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

The noble Lord raises an important point. This is why we have legislated this year to tighten up on the dangerous dogs legislation. Now is not the moment to go into detail, but he has a very important point and the new legislation goes to the particular problems that have arisen in recent years.

[Lord Redesdale (LD)]

My Lords, following on from that point, this is a time of year when the number of postal workers attacked by dogs rises quite considerably. We should not underestimate the number of hospital admissions that also take place due to dangerous dogs. Having campaigned on this issue for a number of years, I was encouraged when the Minister said that the Government were looking at further measures to link the owner to the dog through a microchip. Will he say what measures they might well bring forward to reduce the number of dog attacks?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, we have worked with the Post Office, Royal Mail and the unions on the legislation that went through this year. Largely, they were extremely happy with what we did and are very pleased that microchipping is coming in.