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Dog Attacks on Dogs

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support, which shows that, although the Chamber may not be packed, this is a great concern right across the country in all of our constituencies—I also know that from looking at social media. He is absolutely right, and I will come to sentencing and the fact that incidents can sometimes lead to personal injury or even fatality, particularly of young children. He makes an excellent point.

The amendments to the 1991 Act extended the maximum penalty in a case involving the death of a person to 14 years, to five years where a person is injured and to three years in any case involving the death or injury of an assistance dog. That is welcome, but it still does not give the legal rights to dogs when they are attacked that it gives to humans and guide and assistance dogs. It is important that all dogs have the same protections, and that local authorities and the police have the power to properly punish the owner of the dog responsible. I am interested to hear more about the Minister’s current thinking on that.

As well as the 2014 Act, Ministers have introduced new powers to help frontline professionals to tackle antisocial behaviour involving dogs. Police and local authorities can intervene and issue community protection notices if a dog is causing a nuisance by repeatedly escaping or acting aggressively, while the owners of such dogs can be required to take a range of remedial action, such as attending dog training classes, keeping the dog on a lead in public or repairing fences to prevent the dog leaving their property. Those are clearly steps in the right direction.

However, that brings me to the other reason that I applied for the debate: local authorities and police forces need to be made properly aware of the existing powers the Government have provided to successfully

tackle the problem. I know the Minister is working on this. Last December, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs animal welfare team issued a voluntary survey to police forces, local authorities and social landlords on measures to address dog control and reduce dog attacks in England. The survey’s aim was to inform the team of the existing measures’ effectiveness, and to allow them to identify how intervention can be made more effective with minimal burden on enforcement agencies. I look forward to hearing the outcome of that survey.

Charnwood Borough Council in my constituency responded to that survey and raised some interesting points that I will raise with the Minister. First, it feels that the incremental approach to processing dog attacks, as well as the need to prove persistence, makes the process lengthy, which can often lead to frustration for the victim. The need to prove a breach of process means that a dog has to attack three times before the owner can face the ultimate sanction of prosecution. That is clearly concerning because it provides the opportunity for a dangerous dog to attack two further times with potentially tragic or fatal consequences for another dog, or even a child or adult, exactly as the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) has said.

Sadly, that is what happened in another case that I am assisting with. My constituent’s niece, four-year-old Lexi Branson, was killed by a dog at her home in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar). Her family had adopted the dog from a local rehoming centre and were unaware that it had previously attacked another dog. I will raise specific issues from that case with the Minister separately, I wanted to mention it today because it demonstrates the need for urgent action to be taken to ensure that a dangerous dog is not free to attack again. I cannot emphasise enough that, just because a dog has attacked another dog, it does not mean that there might not later be an attack on a human involving serious injury or potentially fatal consequences. One fatal incident is one incident too many. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that.