Welfare of Racing Greyhounds Regulations 2010

My Lords, I must, as the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, implied, declare and admit that I am currently a half-owner of not just a slow but an increasingly slower greyhound. I should add that although she is among my many loss-making investments, she is the most beautiful and much preferable to any of the others. I chaired the recent committee of inquiry into the sport whose report put dog welfare at the centre. I should declare that, when a young teenager, I was an assistant to the bookmaker at the old Earls Barton track, certainly a flapper by any standards. I have never forgotten the occasion when he was driving home and he pulled a revolver from his pocket, showed it to me while driving and simply said, ““You get some dodgy people at the greyhounds””. You get some nice ones too, though. I support these regulations. I know that for some dog welfare people they do not go far enough, but that is always the case. I spoke to a leading executive from the Dogs Trust this week and she said that they were not quite enough, but they were pretty good. We can be pleased with that. The independent tracks are the main welfare issue. We suggested the regulations, and they are the most practical way to approach the issue. On a visit to a flapping track in Lancashire, near Bolton, I had the most pleasurable greyhound evening of my life, so the objective should not be, as some people suggested to my committee, to eliminate these independent tracks; rather, we should help them and encourage them in stages—they cannot do it immediately—to become UKAS-accredited and part of the mainstream. We should not claim to be against them. The noble Lord referred to the ““greyhound scandal””. That is an unfortunate and excessive phrase to use about the sport. Frankly, that is typical of media trash. When I was on the committee, I deliberately asked that journalist to come to give evidence so that we could question him. Not to my surprise, having worked on the same newspaper myself, he was too busy to come to be grilled. Do not talk about the greyhound scandal, especially because of the enormous improvement that has taken place and is continuing. The issue of retired greyhounds is a major factor, but the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, when he was chairman, did an enormous amount to advance that. The provisions for retired greyhounds are now excellent and are wholly to the credit of the committee. I thank the Government. I have a question regarding paragraph (6)(2) in Part 1 of the schedule, on greyhound injuries. It rightly relates to licensed tracks keeping, through the vet, records of injuries. I am unclear as to whether tracks are encouraged or required to publish those records. My impression was that different tracks, because they have different configurations and surfaces, keep different records. It would be helpful if the sport was aware that some tracks were more injury-prone than others. Perhaps they could be encouraged to alter and improve the surfaces. Apart from those points, I congratulate the Government and the department on the progress that they have made. I hope that noble Lords will wholly approve of what is before them.