My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 86B and 86C, which propose to extend and strengthen the protection to any protected animal. As Amendment 86A also refers to “any protected animal”, it is reasonable to group the three amendments, but I make the point that even if dog control notices are not accepted, there is still a case under the Bill to extend protection to animals in addition to assistance dogs; I should like briefly to make that case.
The Bill has the commendable aim of seeking to encourage responsible dog ownership and management in a preventive way to reduce attacks on and injury to humans. It extends protection to assistance dogs, which is welcome, presumably on the grounds that they are very important to their owners and perhaps also because such attacks may be indicative of a lack of control of those other dogs which might ultimately present a hazard to humans. I would argue that those same points apply to any pet, and especially dogs and cats.
The social benefit of pets to their owners is well known and acknowledged. Attacks on dogs or cats by a particular dog may well indicate a lack of control on the part of that dog owner and may presage serious attacks on humans.
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There are no accurate figures for the numbers of dog-on-dog or dog-on-cat attacks. It is reasonable to presume that there are many hundreds of dog-on-dog attacks, with serious consequences for at least one of the dogs, and I am informed by Cats Protection that in 2013, 101 attacks on cats were reported. That number is undoubtedly an underestimate, but of those 101 attacks, 89% were fatal. Those attacks are extremely distressing to the owners.
Although it might be argued that various existing laws can be used to tackle this problem, it is simply not happening, for a variety of reasons inherent in the limitations of the laws. As a result, in its evidence to the EFRA Select Committee, the Association of Chief Police Officers indicated the limitations of current legislation, saying that enforcers were,
“without adequate legislation to deal swiftly, and proportionately, with attacks by dogs on other animals”.
Moreover, in its report, the EFRA Select Committee recommended that the Government should consider the potential to extend the law to any protected animal. Indeed, the RSPCA, the BVA and Cats Protection have jointly called for such wider protection. I ask the Minister to give this amendment serious consideration. Will he commit to taking this away for further thought?