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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of extending enforcement powers to cover incidents where dogs are not kept under control in public before they become dangerously out of control.

The police and local authorities have a range of powers available to tackle dangerous dogs and irresponsible dog ownership across all breeds of dog. Defra is working with the police, local authorities and animal welfare groups to encourage responsible dog ownership, to ensure dog control issues are addressed before they escalate and to make sure the full force of the law is applied. As part of this work, we reconvened the Responsible Dog Ownership taskforce to explore measures to promote responsible dog ownership, including the consideration of enforcement. We look forward to receiving the findings and recommendations from the taskforce in due course.