It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Rosindell, particularly as, if my memory serves me well, you take a personal interest in these matters. I am sure that apart from the usual general interest, the report will contain things of specific interest to you and your constituents.
It is good to follow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), the Select Committee Chairman. As he did in the previous debate, he covered the vast majority of the points that the Committee wanted to make, so I shall not waste time repeating what he said. He made an excellent job of representing the Committee’s views, as he always does. I look forward to the Minister’s remarks; I am not sure that he was the architect of the Government response, but he will speak on behalf of the Department so it is none the less his. I look forward, also, to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon), the shadow Minister, and those of my fellow member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Dr Monaghan), who is the Front-Bench spokesman for the Scottish National party on these matters.
The Select Committee Chairman made reference on page 3 of the report to a commitment to producing injury data. When the Minister was responsible for the issue he pressed GBGB to produce that, and it has said that it will do so. However, as the Chairman said, 2018 seems a long way off for data that are available now; they could be anonymised, made available and published now. On the matter of the number of dogs euthanised, I understand that animal welfare charities calculate that at the moment between 3,000 and 4,000 dogs disappear each year. When I introduced my first ten-minute rule Bill on the issue, in 1998, the figure was much higher, so there has been significant progress; but thousands of dogs still disappear, which is a cause of huge concern to those interested in animal welfare.
I must confess that I stumbled over the word “trainer’s” under recommendation 4; it looked to me as if it meant a single trainer’s kennel, whereas we are talking about all trainers’ kennels. I thought that the apostrophe should have been at the end. It could be argued that it is in the right place, but that does not suit the way I was taught English at Holyrood secondary school in Glasgow. The question of trainers’ kennels is a key issue. As the Chairman of the Select Committee outlined, the dogs are estimated to spend 90% to 95% of their time in the kennels. The Dogs Trust has produced recommendations on the welfare needs of dogs—a suitable environment and diet, the ability to exhibit normal behaviour patterns and be housed with or apart from other animals as appropriate, and that they should be protected from pain and suffering. Given that most of the dogs’ time is spent in kennels, the fact that the regulations published in 2010 do not address the issue of trainers’ kennels is a huge omission. The Government should move on that as quickly as possible.
The second paragraph of the Government’s response to the same recommendation states:
“As previously mentioned, Defra are currently considering all the evidence gathered as part of its review before considering whether any changes are needed to the 2010 Regulations.”
That reinforces the concern articulated by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton about the time within which they are responding to the issues raised by the Committee.
The question of rehoming is mentioned at the top of page 5. GBGB has already agreed to the Minister’s request to publish data on injuries, and that is welcome. However, the information is available and we would accept anonymised data for bona fide research and academic purposes, so 2018 seems a bit of a way off.
My hon. Friend the Chairman—I call him my hon. Friend for the purposes of Select Committee solidarity—made some points about the betting levy and how much it is worth. I would be grateful if he could respond specifically to this point. As he outlined, £200 million is generated and £33 million goes back to the industry, so I am not sure how significant half a million pounds is. What is his perspective on that? The third paragraph on page 6 of the Government’s response says:
“The remote betting industry estimates that this will add about £2m to the overall transfer of value from the online betting industry to the greyhound industry.”
Is the half a million pounds coming from that £2 million, or is it additional money? I was not clear how the figures relate to each other.
In conclusion, there is widespread concern among animal welfare charities. I am sure we all received representations from the RSPCA, the League Against Cruel Sports, the Dogs Trust, Blue Cross and others. When this issue was part of the Minister’s portfolio, he took it seriously and was heavily involved. The Department’s response refers to 2017 and 2018 and having another look at things in due course, once we have a better assessment of whether the 2010 regulations have worked or not, but they clearly have worked. The vast majority of people and certainly the Select Committee believe that the regulations should be extended. They certainly should be extended to the kennels of trainers. They should be extended to bring forward data on injuries and closer scrutiny of how many dogs are disappearing, so that we can eventually get that number down to zero.
3.31 pm