I support the Government’s gradualist and sensible approach and I urge the Minister to resist new clause 3. We all regret and are desperately unhappy about vicious attacks by dogs, particularly on children—although also on anybody else—and if legislation could solve that problem and new clause 3 could deal with it without causing massive potential inconvenience to millions of peaceable people who own dogs, I would be in favour of it. However, like all such amendments, it would probably, sadly, do little to control the vicious people who use dogs as weapons and it could impact severely on millions of ordinary, peaceable dog owners.
I declare an interest because, like you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am a dog owner. My dog, a little border terrier called William, is a lot smaller than yours. I saw yours in the Westminster dog show last year and many people think that your breed of dog is quite powerful, but I know from having witnessed your dog that it is well brought up and peaceable.
Let us be sensible about this. I know that new clause 3 is well intentioned, but it could have draconian effects. All it states is:
“Where an authorised officer has reasonable cause to believe that a dog is not under sufficient control”.
It requires a reasonable belief—that is not probability. We all know that there are disputes between neighbours, or that people have rows with other people. That is such a small bar to get over for an “authorised officer”.