Greyhound Racing: Animal Welfare
(asked on 17th June 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural affairs, what steps he is taking to improve welfare standards in greyhound racing.
Answered by
David Rutley
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government takes the welfare of all racing animals very seriously. We are working closely with the main racing greyhound industry regulatory body, the Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB) to ensure it delivers on the commitments it made to the Government, following the Government’s Post Implementation Review of the Welfare of Racing Greyhounds Regulations 2010. This includes the annual publication of injury and retirement data to improve transparency in the sport. The second set of annual figures were published on 12 June 2019.
The annual publication of the injury and retirement data was accompanied by an update on the progress made by the GBGB against their ‘Greyhound Commitment’. The Commitment sets out an eight point manifesto on how the GBGB is aiming to improve the welfare of racing greyhounds, and includes a commitment to ensure more greyhounds are successfully rehomed at the end of their racing lives. The GBGB have also delivered an independent welfare standard for trainers’ kennels and are also developing a UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service) accredited trainers’ licensing scheme for GBGB trainers. The Government is also considering whether further regulatory changes are required to protect the welfare of racing greyhounds used by professional trainers not running greyhounds on GBGB tracks.
To help ensure more funding for greyhound welfare, on 10 January 2019, the Government announced a new funding commitment from bookmakers worth an estimated additional £3 million this year to ensure the welfare of greyhounds is protected and improved. We expect thousands of racing greyhounds are to be better cared for as a result of this new deal. The commitment is set to increase the total amount of funding from bookmakers to the British Greyhound Racing Fund to an estimated £10 million this year.