Legislation on Dangerous Dogs

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Christopher Chope

Monday 27th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Gray, to serve under your chairmanship and to participate in this excellent debate.

What concerns me is that 600,000-plus people have signed the main petition that we are debating today, and on 31 October the Government laid a statutory instrument under the negative procedure, so unless the Government agree to a debate under that negative procedure, this will be the last opportunity for Members of this House to express an opinion on this sensitive subject.

To try to prompt the Government into holding a debate, I have today tabled an early-day motion praying against the statutory instrument. It asks:

“That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Dangerous Dogs (Designated Types) (England and Wales) Order 2023 (S.I., 2023, No. 1164), dated 31 October 2023, a copy of which was laid before this House on 31 October 2023, be annulled.”

When my right hon. Friend the Minister responds to this debate, if he does not agree to withdraw the order and think again in the light of this debate, I hope that he will allow a debate on this very sensitive statutory instrument. We are a lawmaking body and at the moment we have a statutory instrument that has been laid and that will come into force automatically, the drafting of which leaves much to be desired, not least because it does not have any clear or precise definition of what an XL bully dog is and a requirement under the 1991 Act is that there should be such a definition in any subsidiary legislation.

This whole debate takes me back to 1991 and the circumstances in which the dangerous dogs legislation was introduced. I was a junior Minister at that time and I owned a rottweiler, which frequently used to come into the precincts of the Palace of Westminster, in the days when there was no ban on dogs, of whatever breed, coming into the Palace. My wife, who worked for me then and continues to work for me, and I used to look after this rottweiler within the precincts of this House when we were here working.

In 1991, the late Dame Angela Rumbold was charged as a Home Office Minister to make an urgent reaction to public concern being expressed about dog attacks on children, largely by rottweilers, that were being reported in the press. It became apparent that a distorted picture of the pattern of dog attacks and the dog breeds responsible for those attacks was emerging. I think there are 22,000 incidents of dogs biting humans every year, and if the dog concerned in an incident was of a particular breed that was under focus at that time, then that resulted in a report in the newspapers, which would not happen otherwise.

As a result of pressure put on the Minister from within Government by the late Alan Clark—he was the only other member of the House who had a rottweiler and he was also a Minister at the time—and I, we were able to persuade Dame Angela that, as she could see from our rottweilers, they were not inherently dangerous dogs that should be banned and whose owners should be effectively criminalised if they did not take action. I remind the House of that.

What happened after that? In the context of that debate, Alastair Campbell—when he was running the Daily Mirror—thought it would make a very good story, because he found out that I had rottweiler, to show me going out with my rottweiler and walking on Southampton common, and thereby endangering everybody else on the common. He paid for one of his junior staff to camp outside my house in Southampton—I was then representing Southampton, Itchen—to try and see me, or somebody else, going out on to Southampton common with our rottweiler so that he could take a picture of it. He failed to do that because we were alert to the risk, but that did not stop him putting an article in the Daily Mirror referring to me and describing my rottweiler as a “Minister’s devil dog”, with a picture of our dear rottie.

That was the emotion at the time, and it was being played up by what was then Her Majesty’s official Opposition. I think that contributed to the Government rushing into what was essentially emergency legislation. I fear that, with the Prime Minister’s announcement and the announcements that have followed, the current Government are similarly being pushed into doing something perhaps against their better judgment, in a rush, and without thinking it through properly.

Particularly, if we are going to ban a particular type or breed of dog, then we need a robust definition. We cannot leave it to individual owners to decide for themselves whether their dog complies with the new definitions. The Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir Robert Goodwill), said that there are people whose XL bullies fit that: their parents were registered as XL bullies, and so on. That is fine, but what we are discussing today is a situation where a lot of dogs, which were never bought or officially described as XL bullies, may well be caught by this legislation because it is so vaguely drafted. To then have guidance that says, “If you think that you may be in this category, then you should self-police and report yourself to the authorities, because you think you may have what is described as an XL bully-type”—that is just not the way in which we should be legislating in this House.

I also fear that this debate is undermined by the lack of data. There is no hard data on how many dog bites, resulting in either fatality or serious injury, in this country have come from different breeds of dog. I used that great resource, the internet, and came across a website, askadamskutner.com, that gives us these statistics for what happens in America. The most recent statistics by breed for dog bite-related fatalities included the following: pit bulls, 284 deaths; rottweilers, 45 deaths; German shepherds, 20 deaths; mixed breeds, 17 deaths; American bully dogs, 15 deaths; mastiffs, 14 deaths; and Siberian huskies, 13 deaths—the list goes on. After those statistics, however, the major finding is that Adam Kutner believes that irresponsible ownership to be responsible for most of these dog bite-related fatalities.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

We have statistics in the UK showing that 12 of the last 23 deaths were from American XLs. Other breeds are not blameless. In fact, on 8 August, a 77-year-old gentleman, Mr Vic Franklin, was bitten by two rottweilers and had to have an arm, leg and part of a finger amputated following the attack. There are other breeds, but they do not feature disproportionately in the statistics.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The problem is that the statistics are of a moment. My right hon. Friend is talking about the statistics over recent months, but if one looks back at statistics since 1991, they might be able to show that there have been a number of rottweiler attacks, and rottweilers were exempt from the dangerous dogs legislation in the circumstances that I have described. We are now picking on a particular breed—and not even a precise definition of that breed—instead of doing what all informed opinion has been asking for, which is to look back at the legislation itself and legislate against those who have allowed their dogs, of whatever breed, to get out of control and attack other dogs or humans.

It is telling that about a year ago, in response to a petition asking for the Government to review the dangerous dogs legislation, the Government set up a review because they recognised that there might be a problem with the current legislation. However, as soon as there were a few headlines about XL bullies, in what I think was a knee-jerk reaction, the Prime Minister decided, “I must take action on this and so I must announce a ban.” That ban comes into effect on 31 December, with, as I have described, the legislation laid and no opportunity whatsoever for the Government or Parliament to consider the detail of it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) said that we need to continue to look at these issues and ensure that there is an iterative process. There is no iterative process now. The statutory instrument has been laid and will come into law on 31 December, unless or until this House forces the Government to bring forward a motion so we can then vote it down, or the Government themselves decide to withdraw it and think again.

We are talking about desperate measures, imposed in an autocratic style over a short space of time, with challenging consequences for our constituents up and down the country. Members on both sides of the House have referred to individual constituents who have written to them. A number of mine have written to me in very persuasive and emotional letters and emails explaining why their particular dog should not have to be muzzled, or ultimately even euthanised, as a result of this legislation, which they think is totally disproportionate.

One particular person who wrote to me is the owner of a mastiff cross, which he and his wife believe may satisfy the definition of an XL bully as contained in the guidance issued by the Government. Why should somebody with a mastiff cross find their dog defined as an XL bully type when it is not? It just happens to be a large and thickset dog. That family took the dog from a rescue centre about five years ago following a family disaster, and it has been their way out of a difficult, mentally stressful situation. Given that they may find that their dog will no longer have the freedom to walk through the New Forest, on beaches, or in the hills of Dartmoor as a normal dog would, one can understand how upset they are. The dog, who is called Ronnie, is not an XL bully but could be classed as one under this vague and imprecise legislation.

My daughter was born in 1990, and when she was one— at the time of the Dangerous Dogs Act—she was living with our rottweiler. I think that was another factor that Angela Rumbold took into account, because here was a rottweiler—a so-called dangerous dog—living a perfectly quiet existence in the same household as one of Her Majesty’s Ministers.

I do not know whether it was because of the legislation, but my daughter ultimately became a member of the esteemed veterinary profession. She is now part of the cohort of experts who are saying, “This is not the right way forward.” They have said that the Government’s legislation is completely the wrong way to go about it, so why are the Government not listening? It is perhaps—dare one say it?—the arrogance of having too large a majority, or deference to the Prime Minister, who decreed that this will happen on the basis of little evidence at the time. In scrambling to get the evidence together, Ministers perhaps feel that they have to deliver on the Prime Minister’s will, rather than stand up to him and say, “Hang on a minute. I think your knee-jerk reaction was wrong.”

The people concerned about the ban, including vets, are in the Dog Control Coalition, which is made up of the RSPCA, Blue Cross, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, Dogs Trust, Hope Rescue, the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Royal Kennel Club and the British Veterinary Association. They say:

“The Dog Control Coalition agrees that urgent action needs to be taken to protect the public from out-of-control dogs”—

not specific breeds—

“but we are disappointed that the Government hasn’t taken the opportunity to completely overhaul the Dangerous Dogs Act. With its continued focus on specific breeds, rather than a focus on prevention and implementation of tougher penalties for those owners not in control of their dogs, it is not fit for purpose.”

Those organisations say that this legislation is not fit for purpose, and yet the Government—unless we hear something to the contrary from the Minister—will not even allow the House to have a vote on it so that Members can be held to account by their constituents and express whether they think it is good legislation or not.

Even if the intention of the legislation is good, surely we should look at the detail, because we are talking about new criminal penalties that will affect people’s freedom. Do we want to criminalise owning or handling dogs of a description so vague that people will not be certain in advance whether they will be offending by not registering their dog as being an XL bully type?

In my view, this is one of the worst pieces of legislation brought forward by this Government—that is quite a high bar to get over, given what has happened since the 2019 general election. I thought my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) introduced the debate in such a mild, rational way that he would single-handedly persuade the Government to think again. My style is perhaps slightly different from his, but I hope that between us we will be able to persuade the Government and, ultimately, the Prime Minister, because nothing can be changed unless he says so, to change their view and listen to the voices of the 600,000-plus people who signed the petitions.

Mr Gray, you and I know how difficult it is to get people to sign petitions, so to get 600,000 signatures is no mean feat. We ignore that mass of opinion at our peril, unless we are able to show that we have done everything possible to examine alternative ways of dealing with this problem and introduced proper safeguards in terms of definitions. Ultimately, we must recognise the plea that has been there ever since the 1991 legislation that we should not legislate in haste, but should actually deal with the underlying problem. That problem is just as bad as it has ever been, which is that there is a significant number of dog owners who are irresponsible.

Some people have talked about having a licensing system for dogs. Perhaps we should have a licensing system for dog owners in the same way that we have one for car drivers. Why not have a licensing system for dog owners? I put that forward as a proposition. I do not normally campaign in favour of more legislation and regulation, but I put that forward as a reasonable alternative to the rotten legislation we have here.