Dangerous Dogs

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Westminster Hall

[Chris Evans]

I absolutely agree. That is exactly what I have experienced. When I walked around Battersea dogs home, I felt that if I had seen one Staffie, I had seen a thousand. To be honest, I could not tell the difference between them.

Another element of responsible dog ownership not tackled in the Government’s proposals is the rise of what is known as status dogs among gangs and young people, contributing to antisocial behaviour and illegal activities. Sadly, the victims of those gangs tend to be Staffordshire bull terriers. In 1996, Battersea dogs home took in 380 Staffies. Last year, that figure rose to 1,869, which accounts for 37% of all dogs at the home. It tells me that, between 1996 and 2009, the number of Staffordshire bull terriers at the home increased by 850%.

Battersea dogs home is now seeing a trend towards different breeds, such as the Siberian husky. The number of Siberian huskies at the home has increased by 28% in the past year. Those dogs are often taught to be violent and as a consequence struggle to be rehomed. The problem is made even worse by the rise of backstreet breeding and the sale of dogs over the internet. Such dogs are often abandoned and become stray.

Some 40% of all the Staffordshire bull terriers taken into Battersea dogs home are two years old or younger. Many of those dogs are labelled as pit bulls when they are nothing of the sort. The thing I found most interesting when I finally came face to face with a pit bull terrier was that I realised I did not know what a pit bull looked like. When I thought about what a pit bull looked like, the dog I was thinking of was an American bull dog, which is a far bigger dog and a different breed.

The online quick sale of puppies often takes place, and many of those sold online are banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Those negative aspects of dog ownership are not tackled in the Government’s proposals. It is highly unlikely that a puppy that is bred illegally and sold over the internet will end up in the hands of an owner who will make the effort to microchip them.

There has been success in recent years with the introduction of dog control orders, which prevent the movement of dogs on certain areas of land. Those orders are particularly helpful in safeguarding children’s play areas and parks from overly playful dogs that may scare or injure a child. However, dog control orders are at the discretion of the local authority, and there are playgrounds across the country where dogs are still allowed to roam.

When I spoke to Battersea dogs home about the issue of dog control orders, it told me that it was important for a balance to be struck. Of course, it is important that parents can take their children to parks without fear that they may be approached by a dog. However, at the same time, parks are obvious places for dog owners to walk their dogs.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

In Hackney, three new dog control orders were introduced as of 1 April. Does my hon. Friend agree that the challenge is having the resources to police those orders? Although they send out a signal, without the dog wardens on the ground, they do not have as much value as we may think.

[Chris Evans]

Absolutely. Unless dog control orders can be enforced and policed, they do not mean anything.

Therefore, instead of dog control orders, the Government could have followed the example of the Scottish Government who have introduced dog control notices. The Northern Ireland Assembly has also introduced control notices as a way of monitoring the behaviour of dog owners.

--- Later in debate ---

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. Congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) on securing the debate.

I simply wish to echo some of the points made by my colleagues from London who have spoken already, in particular about gangs and dogs used as weapons. I quote from one of the e-mails that I have received from a constituent:

“I no longer come across normal breeds now”—

this is his impression—

“just staffies and pit bull types. They are everywhere! In the parks where small children play, the dogs are hung on to the trees to strengthen the jaws. They are walked around by intimidating owners and quite frankly it is an epidemic.”

That is only one e-mail, but in the time that I have been an MP I have had a number of constituents contacting me, in particular people who are fearful even of going out of their front door, let alone into a park, because of the aggressive behaviour of some owners, with their deliberate training of dogs to be aggressive and weapon-like.

Hackney council has sought to deal with the problem in a number of ways. It, too, has introduced some controls into the tenancy agreement on the number of pets that people own, although that alone is not a solution. Any irresponsible owner will find ways around most of those measures, which is a point that we must all bear in mind.

As a result of situations such as the one I cited, Hackney council has introduced three new dog control orders, which came into effect from April. One is a dog exclusion order, which enables the council to stop dogs entering certain areas, including children’s playgrounds, sports courts, multi-use games areas and marked pitches when games are in play.

A second order requires dogs to be on leads and prohibits owners from exercising their dogs off the lead on roads, in small parks and gardens, on the canal towpath and in car parks and churchyards. That is an example of how irresponsible dog ownership has affected responsible dog owners. Many dog owners are quite able to control their dog on the canal towpath or in churchyards, for instance, without causing a problem for children at play or other adults. Hackney has felt the need to introduce the orders because of the fear factor and some irresponsible dog owners. We will see how that plays out, but it is a worry to me that we must go that way. I still welcome the move, however, at this point.

A third order requires dogs to be on leads when a request is made to owners. That gives officers the power to request that dogs should be put on leads if they are not under appropriate control or if they are causing damage or acting aggressively. That latter point is the most important, but the key issue, of course, with the new or even with existing powers, is enforcement. We already have the powers in Hackney to issue fines for dog fouling in public, for instance, but when I talk to constituents about that there is a certain cynicism about the likelihood of enforcement. Some of the people who are intent on using their dogs as weapons will not be where the dog wardens are. If they see the dog wardens, they will tend to disappear.

Good dog owners will do all the things that are required anyway. I am in favour of microchipping and think that the arguments have been well put today. Microchipping is a good thing. On its own, it is not a solution; it is something that good owners will do, but the bad owners, who breed and sell, will not play that game.

There have been proposals about exclusive dog breeders, and about being able to buy only from some licensed dog breeders. I would be wary of that approach, which it seems to me would create a sort of cartel. It would be difficult to control what happened, especially in rural areas where dogs are born without being, shall I say, planned and bred in the same way as elsewhere. I mean that I know farmers here who tell me that one in seven dogs is likely to become a sheep dog; they do not know which, when they are born, so of course they tend not to keep them all.

I welcome the fact that Hackney has taken on such important powers; however, the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) has made some sensible and reasonable points about what Parliament needs to do. There is clearly cross-party support for some measures, but we need to work, as the hon. Gentleman said, on ensuring that the Bill is put together properly. We have seen what seemed like the benefits of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. There was a lot of support for it. The danger is that we chase the headlines and pick up the bad examples, without thinking of the consequences.

We need to tease through every consequence to see what the impact will be on different areas of our constituencies, and on our constituents. It may be early for the Minister to reflect on this, but there can be a danger of including in primary legislation things that can be changed only with further primary legislation. The legislation may need to be adapted for the future use of dogs, and we need it to enable minor changes to be made through regulation, once the basic principles are established. That will give the Government and Parliament the freedom to change the law and adapt and adjust it as new breeds come to fruition, or as people try to use dogs in new ways. I feel strongly about that. We cannot wait for primary legislation if we do not get things right, or the situation changes.

[Mr Burrowes]

I welcome the points that the hon. Lady has made, about things that affect London communities as well as the rest of the country.

The Government have made a proposal about kennelling costs, and ways to make the action that is taken proportionate. I know as a solicitor how long dogs effectively await trial. The cost of that, just in London, is £2.75 million. If we can deal proportionately with dogs that will not be a risk, that must be welcome. If dogs are a risk they need to be on bail conditions, so to speak, of muzzling and a lead, and so forth.

[Meg Hillier]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was just about to move on to the issue of the cost of kennelling. Responsible owners—and irresponsible ones—can contribute to that, but it is a cost to Londoners, and I think the money would be better spent on enforcement. We need to consider all the consequences. At the moment, because of the breed-based nature of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, it is difficult for the police to establish what they need to, and it takes them a long time. In my constituency there are higher priorities for police funding than kennelling, so we need to think about how the issue is tackled.

We clearly have a cross-party consensus and agree that we want to proceed positively. I hope that the Minister will take our suggestions in good part, and work with me and others who have an interest in ensuring that responsible dog owners can enjoy their dogs, and that other people will not be made afraid because of those who are irresponsible.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I thank the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) for securing the debate.

It is good to have the Minister here. We are all very much in favour of microchipping, and I want to ask him about the database in particular. Microchipping is all very well, but the database must be right and it must work. The information must be correct. The Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs launched its inquiry at Battersea yesterday, and we found out that for a third of microchipped dogs the information is not accurate or up to date.

It is right to make sure that we have an accurate database. When a puppy is sold, the first owner or breeder must be responsible for ensuring that the information about where the dog then goes is correct. Thereafter, somewhat as with the licensing of a car, it is possible to follow the dog through its life. Otherwise it will disappear off the database. The idea is also good from a breeding point of view. It will make it possible to be sure that the breeding is correct, without in-breeding or the breeding of bad aspects into a certain breed of dog—so that the buyer gets a healthy dog. From all those points of view, the proposal is a good thing.

People always say, however, that the law works for the law-abiding, and we must be careful that we do not just make it more onerous for the law-abiding to get their dogs microchipped. We need to be able to tackle the other dogs out there, whose owners will never want to have them microchipped.

As to problems with postal workers and social workers, if someone is inviting someone to push a letter through their door and knows that their dog is likely to bite the person who puts it through, they are responsible for the dog and should take action so that that does not happen. The same is true if a social worker comes into their house. That is a key point. As a farmer, I know that occasionally—and this would be more difficult in law—a dog that has never turned before will turn suddenly. That will probably make for interesting cases, and we cannot get everything right, although we must try to.

I want to mention status dogs, quickly. Having looked around Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, it is clear to me—in relation to the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991—that breed-specific legislation does not work, for the simple reason that, as we were told, some of the cross-bred dogs that are now being bred weigh 8 stone. We can imagine that once a dog of that kind has been trained to be vicious, it will be a hell of a weapon. To be blunt, that is what some criminal elements do: they breed those dogs in the back streets, and train them to be vicious weapons. The other problem is that if they abandon those dogs, most of them are so vicious that they cannot be rehabilitated and rehomed: there is a death sentence on those dogs, because of the way they are brought up.

It is not often the dogs that are to blame—it is the individual or gangs who bring them up. That is probably the most difficult aspect of the measures to get right. There is currently law enabling the police to act in relation to dangerous dogs. We need to be able to allow the RSPCA and others to take up the cudgels. We need to act when a dog is obviously starting to get vicious, when that is obvious from the way that it is being taken around—whether the owner is hanging around the parks with it, or whatever they are doing—and from the behaviour of the dog and the people around it. Even before the dog has viciously bitten anyone, that is the time to pounce on it, and at least try to get it microchipped, so that a link back can be traced. In films where gangs use such dogs as weapons, the one great advantage that they have is the fact that the dog cannot be traced back to an individual member of the gang.

[Meg Hillier]

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that if aggressive behaviour is witnessed by the police they should have the power in law to enforce microchipping of the dogs? I would support that; it might tackle some of the irresponsible dog owners that we agreed about.

[Neil Parish]

That is exactly what I am suggesting, because we must try to take action. If someone has been bitten, or a dog has been used as a weapon—as an attack dog—we have failed. If we get hold of the dogs before that happens, and link them to their owners, those owners who want to use them as a weapon will be much less likely to be able to do so. We must send a clear message to those people that the situation cannot continue. It destroys not just our society, but many healthy dogs who should not have ended up as they did. I strongly believe that in most cases it is the fault not of the dog, but of the way in which it was brought up. That is why we must pin the dog to those who perpetrate the problem.

I know that it is difficult to get everything right, but I urge the Minister to ensure that we have an accurate database that will continue into the future, that we target not breeds but the behaviour of dogs, and, most importantly, that we make sure that when dogs are used as a weapon we use all the powers we have to link them back to their owners so that they can be properly prosecuted. That will send the message to everyone else.