Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the number of assistance dogs that have been attacked by other dogs since the amendment of the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 to include injury caused to assistance dogs.

The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 was amended in 2014 specifically to include a separate penalty of up to 3 years imprisonment for a dog attack on an assistance dog. This is, however, within the overall single offence of allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control. Dog attacks on assistance dogs are therefore not recorded separately. As part of their campaign to change the law Guide Dogs UK reported in June 2013 that there were around ten such attacks a month.