I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Second Report of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee of Session 2015-16, Greyhound Welfare, HC 478, and the Government response, HC 133.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. There are around 15,000 active racing greyhounds in the UK today. Although there has been a sustained decline in the popularity of greyhound racing in recent decades, the sport continues to draw crowds and in 2014 it supported a £1.3 billion off-course turnover for bookmakers. I will concentrate a little later on the amount of money being made from the betting on greyhounds and ask whether enough of it is getting back to support greyhound welfare and retirement.
Animal welfare standards expected by the public today are higher than at any time in the past. However, within the greyhound industry, there are sometimes two conflicting priorities—the welfare and integrity standards during a dog’s racing career; and the view of a greyhound as a commercial betting asset. The Welfare of Racing Greyhounds Regulations 2010 introduced minimum standards for all greyhound tracks in the country.
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee published its report on greyhound welfare in February. It focused on the effectiveness of the 2010 regulations and their success in safeguarding racing greyhound welfare standards. It was timely, as it fed into the Government’s overdue review of the 2010 regulations, which was published in September.
I will focus today on three of the Committee’s recommendations: the need for greater transparency; kennelling standards away from the track, as well as on the track; and the financing of the industry. Greyhound racing tracks operate within a hybrid or two-tier system. The majority of racing tracks—24—are licensed by the Greyhound Board of Great Britain, or GBGB. That means that they operate under the GBGB’s rules of racing and are subject to inspection by the organisation. The standards that the GBGB sets at tracks are also independently accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service, and supported by the work of track veterinarians. Any track that meets the required standards may apply to be licensed by the GBGB.
In England, there are also a small number of independent tracks that are not licensed by the GBGB but regulated and inspected by local authorities. These tracks mostly cater for local hobbyists, who keep racing greyhounds mainly as a hobby.
Although different licensing arrangements exist, tracks under both systems must comply with the 2010 regulations. I accept that those regulations have succeeded in improving the welfare of greyhounds at tracks, but there is still much to be done. More transparency is definitely needed in the industry. There are currently no sources of reliable data on greyhound welfare in the public domain. It is therefore difficult to assess accurately the current level of welfare provision or to gauge improvements or deterioration over time.
The Dogs Trust believes that approximately 3,500 greyhounds are unaccounted for every year in the UK. However, as statistics are not published, the true scale of the problem is difficult to assess. The regulations must be amended to require the publication of essential welfare data relating to injury, euthanasia and rehoming. DEFRA’s approach is to rely on a non-regulatory agreement with the Greyhound Board of Great Britain to publish statistics from 2018.