Dangerous Dogs

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Westminster Hall

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

I am the organising secretary of the Communications Workers Union group of liaison MPs, and I am proud of that. I compliment the CWU’s Bite Back campaign, which has put some steel into the issue since 2008—particularly Dave Joyce, who is the health and safety officer. Trade unions do good work for people.

Some 23,000 postal workers have been attacked by dogs in the past four years, and 6,000 go to hospital for treatment every year because they have been seriously attacked by dogs. Twelve deaths have been recorded in the UK since 2005—seven children and five adults. Nothing that we do is good enough if another life is lost. I have here a photograph of Lena Gane, a postman who was attacked by a dog in Bristol on Thursday 3 May 2012, and whose hand was almost severed. That is not uncommon for postal workers and other direct-contact public workers.

The union’s assessment of the present consultation is that it is yet another fudge, and a missed opportunity. A two-year consultation has just finished, and there are no proposals other than to consider extending the legislation to dogs on private property.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) mentioned microchipping. If people were compelled to microchip and insure their dogs, they would think twice about buying a dog and the responsibility involved. The Dogs Trust says that too many dogs are given as presents and then abandoned. Some, having not been controlled and trained, become a problem for the owner and the public, but many are kept on as family pets. I have seen someone in the park across the road from where I live releasing a dog—an Alsatian or German Shepherd—when children were playing in the small child’s play park. I quake when I see that, because no one knows what that dog will do, no matter how good the owner is.

It is important to put on the record the measures that the Bite Back campaign wants. Until they are granted, the Government—any Government, because the campaign started in 2008 under the previous Government—will be under pressure from those who want the problem solved. The campaign says that those measures should include UK-wide consolidated and strengthened dog control legislation, not tinkering, to prevent attacks on children and the general public, postal and telecom workers, and other public-contact workers who may go to places where there is a dog.

There should be dog control legislation that applies everywhere, including on private property. Preventive dog control notices, which exist in Scotland, should be introduced. The fudge of a wrap-around general control order will not do. The notices must be specific, as in Scotland and, I believe, Northern Ireland. All dogs should be compulsorily microchipped, so that people who take on a dog know that that will be recorded. I accept the good points that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) made about the database being kept up to date and compulsory. That happens for cars, and if someone forgets to make a statutory off road notification, they are fined. I know farmers who have been fined for having cars abandoned in their fields, because they forgot to register that they had been abandoned.

There should be compulsory third party insurance cover for dogs and better criminal compensation orders. The Government must reverse their appalling proposal that people will not receive criminal injuries compensation if they are attacked by a dog when someone has been proven to be irresponsible with the dog. There should be good local authority dog wardens with powers for them and the police to intervene immediately if they think a situation needs investigation, and to have the dog removed.

There should be harsher sentences by the courts for irresponsible owners of dangerous dogs. There should be better information and education, but the question is how much should be spent to get that education. It should be compulsory for people to train and control their dogs. There should be large public information campaigns to persuade people not to take on dogs if they are not willing to be responsible for them in every situation, and to generate compliance.

The Bite Back campaign is supported not just by the postal workers, but by all law enforcement agencies, the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, the Dogs Trust, Blue Cross, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, the Kennel Club, the Royal College of Nursing and the British Veterinary Association. That is a large body of opinion. Some 250,000 people are bitten by a dog every year. That means a lot of dogs that are not controlled. Some of the bites are severe, as we heard from the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax)—he has now left the Chamber—who told us about a young girl who was bitten in the face. The problem is common and endemic, and the Government have a duty to do something about it.

It was wrong to make the existing legislation breed specific, and I have said that time and again. We must do better, do it right, and do it all.