Welfare of Racing Greyhounds Regulations 2010

I am never quite certain when it is appropriate to speak in these Committees so if I am out of order tell me now. I speak as an owner of greyhounds, past and present, and I have two concerns to raise today. The first has to do with the greyhound orphanages, which are wonderful creations but very expensive to put your dogs into. It costs roughly £5.50 a day to lodge them there; it can take up to 200 days or more to find them a home; and you can face a bill for £1,000 for a dog that has retired. How much better it would be if a subsidy could come into those orphanages from the racetracks themselves in some form of earlier levy that would make it a better incentive for the owners to contribute their dogs to the orphanages. They are beautifully run and very successful, but they take time. I come to my second and far greater concern. I currently have two dogs that raced for me and are now retired. Both are subject to one thing that is quite appalling: they have been tattooed in each ear. As a result, they have a lifelong aversion to anybody touching their ears, to the point where they scream. It was done very painfully and it is not a nice process. The Irish are particularly brutal on it because they use a longer number. Furthermore, the dogs that come from Ireland—this is deplorable—are all terrified of their ears being touched because they are dragged around by plastic pincers in the yards there. We ought to make some sort of law against those dogs being imported to this country as a disincentive to the Irish to do that. We should have some far stricter control on this deplorable treatment of these lovely animals.