On behalf of the Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the committee’s scrutiny of the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 with colleagues from across the chamber, and across parties, this afternoon.
In May 2018, members debated a motion by Alex Neil, who is a member of the committee, calling for post-legislative scrutiny of the 2010 act. After hearing stories from other members of the committee of out-of-control and dangerous dogs throughout Scotland, the committee unanimously agreed that it was important that the effectiveness of the 2010 act be scrutinised.
The committee issued its call for evidence on 3 July 2019 and received 49 responses from local authorities, animal welfare organisations, medical practitioners, representative bodies and members of the public. From the submissions that we received, it quickly became clear that wider dog control issues, primarily those falling under the scope of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, were also of great concern to members of the public.
The committee began its scrutiny by holding three public engagement events, in Airdrie, Dalkeith and Dundee, where members heard shocking stories of people and pets being attacked by out-of-control dogs. Members of the public attending those sessions also shared their frustrations around the subsequent actions of the enforcement bodies, primarily police and local councils.
The committee began its formal oral evidence taking by hearing from parents whose young children had been attacked and seriously injured by dogs. I think that we all felt that it was one of the most powerful committee meetings that we had ever attended. We listened in horror as Claire Booth and Lisa Grady spoke of the dog attacks on their children and the life-changing injuries that they received as a result. We were humbled as Veronica and John Lynch bravely shared with us the events around the tragic incident in which their daughter Kellie, at only 11 years of age, sustained fatal injuries when she was attacked by two Rottweilers. The summer that that happened, Kellie had been due to start at St John’s high school with me. Our year group was much the poorer for her absence.
The committee and I thank those parents for their bravery, and we thank each person who shared their experiences with us. That reinforced to the committee how important it is to have effective dog control legislation in place and the consequences if it is not in place.
We also heard from medical professionals who treat patients who have been injured in dog attacks. Dr Alasdair Corfield, from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, considers that every dog bite injury is a significant event. Dr Judy Evans, from the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, told us that in every case of a child coming in to see the plastic surgeons with a dog bite injury, there is not just one patient; there will be at least five. There will be parents and, perhaps, grandparents; that all adds to the burden for our national health service.
The Communication Workers Union told us that, since the 2010 act, 2,500 postal workers have been attacked. Local authorities and dog wardens told us of the challenges that they face when they attempt to enforce dog control legislation.
Some of the members of the Communication Workers Union have joined us in the public gallery today. They are posties, some of whom have been savagely attacked by dogs. Since April this year, there have been 129 attacks on Royal Mail employees in Scotland. If there had been 129 assaults on postal workers by people, that would be taken a lot more seriously.
John is in the gallery. He is a postie and he works in Dumfries. A year ago, he was savagely attacked by a dog. His arm was horrifically injured and he has a permanent disfigurement and disability. He is 60. He told me that he had three firsts that day: he had never been in an ambulance, he had never had an operation—that tells us about the burden on the NHS—and, surprisingly enough, he had never been in Glasgow. John is bravely but necessarily back at his work.
That is the scale of the threat that our workers face every day. They have more and more contact with householders, and, as a consequence, dogs, because they deliver an increasing number of parcels, which forces them to go to the door and be welcomed into the house or have a transaction on the doorstep.
The stories and safety of other delivery people, such as Amazon drivers, and of care workers, who spend a lot of time in people’s homes, are untold, because those industries are not as well organised or represented. Make no mistake, however—the threat to them is just as grave.
I turn to the committee’s conclusions. We heard the evidence and we concluded that current dog control law in Scotland is not fit for purpose. We thought that that was a national crisis of safety for our children and citizens in general. We recommended that, without delay, the Scottish Government undertake a comprehensive review of all dog control legislation. In its report, the committee also set out recommendations to improve the implementation of the 2010 act in the interim.
I thank the Minister for Community Safety for her response to the committee’s report. I welcome her commitment to undertake a review to look at improving the operational effectiveness of the 2010 act, followed by a wider review of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.
However, today, I seek assurances that the minister fully understands the gravity and public safety aspects of the situation. When she appeared before the committee, I was not convinced that she demonstrated full understanding of the issues.
In its report, the committee set out a range of issues that should be addressed as part of that wider review. It stated that action needs to be taken now to tackle dog attacks and it identified actions that would allow us to do so.
The committee welcomes the minister’s commitment to undertake those two reviews and asks that she provide the Parliament with detailed timescales for those reviews and, crucially, what issues she anticipates that they will include.
The committee asked that a public awareness campaign around the 2010 act be undertaken as a matter of urgency and said that it must include material that is directed at children and parents.
The committee notes the Scottish Government’s intention to develop a social media campaign in the next few months. Today, we would like a clearer indication of the timescale for that and how the Government plans to direct the campaign at children.
The committee also seeks a timescale for the Scottish Government to engage with local authorities on more tailored approaches to raising awareness of the 2010 act.
As part of the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010, Parliament voted to establish a dog control notice database. That is important because, as the Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee has identified across a range of Government policy, there is a grave absence of data and evidence for the Government to base its policy on. Way back in 2010, when Christine Grahame’s bill was passed, Parliament agreed that a database was a sensible way forward. It would allow the Government to keep track of where dogs are, where attacks have happened and whether dogs that have attacked move around the country with families to other local authority areas.
However, to date—nine years later—the Government has failed to enact that provision. The National Dog Warden Association Scotland told the committee that the Scottish Government’s failure to set up a database was a big miss. I ask the minister today why she feels the need to consult again on the database, when Parliament already consulted on and debated its merits nine years ago. Why put us through more expense and delay on this? If she could commit today to enact the powers that Parliament has already passed and establish that database, it would give committee members some comfort.