Greyhound Welfare

Paul Monaghan Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dr Paul Monaghan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (SNP)]

It is good to see you in your place again, Mr Rosindell. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate.

The inquiry was conducted by a Sub-Committee of the Select Committee, which was led by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish)—I will call him my honourable friend, in support of the solidarity of the Committee. I was very pleased to participate as a member of that Sub-Committee. We published our report on 10 February 2016, following detailed scrutiny of 65 items of published evidence, four evidence-gathering sessions and two site visits. We framed a number of recommendations, offered the UK Government additional advice and made formal comment on a number of vital matters.

Greyhound racing has been relatively common in the UK since the 1920s. In recent years there has been a sustained decline in the popularity of such racing, but it continues to draw substantial interest, to the extent that in 2014 it supported a £1.3 billion off-course turnover for bookmakers. It is big business.

The Sub-Committee heard very distressing stories of animal abuse and mistreatment. We heard about animals being discarded or destroyed when no longer fit to race. Examples included dogs being thrown out of the back of vans on motorways on the return journey home from a lost race and microchips being transferred from dog to dog to evade scrutiny and legitimate checking processes. There were also allegations of doping. My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) rightly highlighted examples of cruelty identified by those animal charities that care so well for many of these animals.

As we have heard, the report considers carefully the often conflicting interests of enthusiasts and those concerned with animal welfare. However, there is a third interested party: bookmakers, specifically those responsible for the Bookmakers Afternoon Greyhound Service, which in 2014 paid £26 million to dog tracks for the rights to televise and broadcast some 29,000 races each year. In 2007, the Donoghue report into the industry—and it is an industry—found:

“If it were not for BAGS, there would no longer be a sustainable licensed greyhound racing industry”.

The Committee found no reason to disagree with that statement. We found that the all-day racing schedules of BAGS require large numbers of dogs and put enormous pressure on trainers, owners, handlers, tracks and the animals to meet the broadcasting schedule of the large bookmakers that control BAGS.

The Welfare of Racing Greyhounds Regulations 2010, which the report assessed, governs the tracks. Greyhound welfare is also covered by the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which requires recognition of conditions away from the track, including trainers’ kennels, and makes it an offence to be cruel to a greyhound or not provide for its needs. The 2010 regulations were made under that Act and specifically cover conditions at the racing track. The enforcement of the 2006 Act was beyond the scope of the inquiry, but it has been considered subsequently by a second Sub-Committee. The Breeding of Dogs Act 1973, EU Council Regulation 1/2005 and the Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015 are also relevant to the inquiry.

Greyhound racing tracks operate within a hybrid or two-tier system. The majority of racing tracks—24 at the moment in England—are licensed by the Greyhound Board of Great Britain, which means they operate under GBGB’s rules of racing and are subject to inspections by the organisation. The standards that GBGB sets at tracks are independently accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service and are supported at the tracks by the work of track veterinarians.

In England, there are also around five independent or “flapper” tracks that are not licensed by GBGB, but which are regulated and inspected by local authorities. Independent tracks have seen a notable decline in recent years. There were nine when the 2010 regulations were introduced and there are now just five. We found those tracks mostly cater for local hobbyist racing, as opposed to GBGB tracks, which are large-scale, commercially focused and often televised. Although different licensing arrangements exist, tracks under both systems must comply with the 2010 regulations. Askern Greyhound Stadium in Doncaster is one such flapper track, and it was visited by the Sub-Committee. I was pleasantly surprised by the care and attention that is given to animals at that independent track. I found that, in some respects, the standards of care and the attitude towards the animals were better than the standards at the Ladbrokes-owned GBGB track in Crayford, which we visited.

The Sub-Committee was concerned about a number of welfare issues that do not appear to have been fully addressed by the 2010 regulations. First, the regulations do not cover trainers’ kennels, where, as we have heard, racing greyhounds spend approximately 95% of their time. We found that a broad consensus agree that extending the regulations to include those kennels and incorporate them into the UKAS inspection regime is necessary.

Secondly, the fate of retired dogs that are unable to be rehomed at the end of their careers was unclear to the Sub-Committee. We heard from the Greyhound Forum that between 1,000 and 3,700 dogs are unaccounted for each year. I was personally unconvinced that the introduction of microchipping would address that issue, improve traceability or remove the uncertainty about the dogs’ fate. Finally, we were concerned about the inconsistency in the enforcement of greyhound welfare standards across England. For example, Dr Hazel Bentall told us:

“I have seen no evidence that the regulatory framework is consistent and moderated.”

The hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) rightly highlighted the absence and importance of baseline data on issues such as injuries, euthanasia and rehoming, which made it difficult to accurately assess the impact of the 2010 regulations on key welfare issues. Nevertheless, we identified two key questions relating to the effectiveness of the 2010 regulations. First, are adequate standards of greyhound welfare upheld under the current regulatory framework? Secondly, would a self-regulated industry see statutory guidelines as a minimum standard to be proactively built on, or is meeting the minimum requirement the full extent of its ambition?

We argue in our report that DEFRA must amend the 2010 regulations to require the publication of essential welfare data, utilising a database containing microchip data. We also argue that bookmakers profiting from greyhound racing have a responsibility to support greyhound welfare. Members of the Sub-Committee considered a statutory levy of 1% of gross turnover to be the most effective mechanism for achieving that. That recommendation addresses the finding that the existing, voluntary levy is ineffective and, as we heard earlier, not paid at all by Betfair, which is a major online betting exchange. Personally, I consider Betfair’s approach to be an abrogation of its responsibility to an industry that it profits from very significantly. I hope its customers and racing enthusiasts consider that abrogation when choosing where to take their custom in the future. We also argue that the 2010 regulations should extend beyond racetracks to cover standards at trainers’ kennels and include independent verification of those standards.

DEFRA’s response to the Select Committee’s report was published in June 2016. I was disappointed by the UK Government’s failure to support the sustainability of the industry. DEFRA noted its commitment to publishing statistics on injury and euthanasia, but did not require the GBGB to act until 2018. That point was well made by the hon. Member—my hon. Friend, perhaps—for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). It is deeply regrettable that the UK Government made no commitment to extend the regulations to cover trainers’ kennels. However, in September they published “Welfare of racing greyhounds: post implementation review”. That report is sadly an essay in procrastination. That, too, is regrettable.

The EFRA Committee’s report is a significant advance that highlights many of the greyhound racing industry’s failings. The UK Government’s response is not. I recognise the Minister’s personal interest in animal welfare, but the continued lack of commitment from the industry—particularly the large bookmaker-owned tracks—and the UK Government should shock the public.