CONTROL OF DOGS (Hansard, 2 July 1951)

§ Lieut.-Commander Baldock (Harborough)
Late as is the hour, it may be of interest to hon. Members, or at any rate to those who have had the misfortune to miss their last train home, to discuss the serious result arising from the increased population of dogs in this country and the apparent increase in the numbers of irresponsible owners of them. The principal and most serious result of this increase is the reduction in the number of sheep in the United Kingdom.
At the very time when the utmost production of wool and mutton is needed to balance our export-import position and to increase our rations, farmers, particularly in the neighbourhood of large towns, are having to abandon sheep grazing and, to a lesser extent, the keeping of poultry. Not that dogs are less of a menace to poultry but that the menace only applies to those poultry on free range, which are apparently small in number nowadays, though dogs are inevitably reducing the numbers in those areas.
This destruction of valuable livestock, both sheep and poultry, is going on the whole time. We had a particularly unpleasant example in my own constituency only recently, which I was glad to see was given considerable publicity in the Press. I say that because I will suggest later that it is mainly by the force of public opinion being directed against these irresponsible people that the problem can be best handled.
To my own knowledge many farmers in Leicestershire have given up sheep-rearing because of this menace. It is not possible, of course, to give the figures because it is a subject upon which statistics could never be gathered. There is no means of finding out how many people have changed their plans because of this trouble. But it is small wonder that farmers have given up sheep in those areas.
I have been watching the papers only recently to find information to supplement my limited experience. In the course of the last few weeks, I have found such cases 2107 as that in which 368 sheep were recently killed and many more were missing in only six weeks in the small Rochdale area of Lancashire. In another case, in four months in seven northern counties 800 sheep were reported killed. In another five counties last year 1,000 sheep were reported killed and more than 300 injured in 12 months. And those were only the reported cases. There might well have been more. There was the case of the farmer who turned to poultry-keeping and lost 53 head of poultry in one day. I know that incidents in which a dozen or 20 poultry are killed are happening very frequently all over the country. I have had that experience myself on more than one occasion.
As the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture possibly knows, the Farmers' Union in Scotland estimate that 250,000 meat rations are lost every year through this cause. No doubt the situation is still worse in England because there are far more large towns and a far higher population of dogs in areas where sheep are accessible to them. That is the loss by the actual killing and damaging of sheep. It does not take into account the number which are lost when farmers give up sheep rearing. As I said, there are not statistics available on that point. There have recently been reports from such counties as Essex, Lancashire, Surrey and Kent of farmers giving up sheep-rearing for this reason.
In addition to the fully-grown animals, there is also the loss of lambs through the worrying and chasing of ewes in lamb, a figure which can never be computed. The act of chasing the sheep, especially if they are on the hills and in remote districts, may never be witnessed and it is very unlikely that the dog or dogs responsible—very often there are several of them—and the owners will ever be known. It is becoming more difficult to obtain shepherds to stand about to watch the sheep and protect them from marauding dogs, and it is often only when the abortions and stillbirths start that it is realised that damage was done weeks before. There have been cases where lamb crops, or large proportions of them, have been lost, and I know from personal experience the effect on the small farmer if he loses a large proportion of his lamb crop, which may be his mainstay.
2108 Even if the owner of the dog responsible for the damage is known, it may often be that he is a person of very little substance and quite incapable of paying the very heavy damages which might be obtained if civil action was taken in the courts, but that would require long attendance at the courts and possibly heavy expenditure and it is a very difficult thing for the farmer to undertake.
The farmer is left with little redress in the case of the chasing about of sheep, especially those in lamb, because, unless the dog is actually molesting and attacking the sheep, the farmer is not permitted to shoot at it and to protect himself in that way. Comparatively recently 13 guineas damages were awarded against a farmer who shot a dog which was chasing some sheep round an orchard. This puts the farmer in a very difficult position. He has no redress but to get the dog declared by the local magistrates to be dangerous and ordered to be kept under control. That is the full extent of the protection which he can obtain at the present time.
Another situation which has given me a certain amount of anxiety is that the situation will probably be aggravated by the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. People with dogs will be allowed access to practically any part of the country with their dogs. Judging by the present degree of irresponsibility of certain dog owners, the expression "under control," which is the only thing governing the admission of dogs to these areas, will not have any very great meaning, especially as it is not defined under the Act.
The circumstances of these killings and harryings are in most cases highly unpleasant. I will spare the House some of the most gruesome details, but as an instance there was a case at Bridgnorth, Shropshire, lately where 63 in-lamb ewes worth £500 were driven by dogs on to a frozen pond and fell through the ice and were drowned. In Devonshire five ewes and a lamb had to be slaughtered because of the dreadful state they were in. and a ram which had been trying to protect them and was still alive had no face or ear left and its head and nose were bared to the bone. The sooner we leave these gruesome details the better, but the matter has many aspects, and there is not only the economic aspect. 2109 It is a highly undesirable situation at the present time.
In view of the facts, it is hardly surprising that there are fewer sheep now in the United Kingdom than there were before the war, in spite of the greatly increased need for them and the targets for higher productivity of agriculture. I realise that sheep worrying is not the only cause for the reduction of the sheep population. There have been other factors—the weather, and so on—but it is certainly an important contributory factor, and that is emphasised by the figures.
If we take 1938 and compare it with 1950, the United Kingdom sheep population between 1938 and 1950 fell from 26,775,000 to 24,430,000. But what is much more significant, comparing England and Wales for those two years, we find that the drop is from 17,912,000 of 9,538,000—a drop of almost 50 per cent. in the more highly populated areas. That illustrates conclusively how significant a factor is this worrying by dogs. Another result, which I appreciate does not come under the Department of the hon. Gentleman, but which is worth mentioning, is the considerable number of road accidents caused by some sections of the public not keeping their dogs under control. I have examined figures for Leicestershire, and I find that dogs are the second principal cause of accidents in the county, pedestrians being the chief. Dogs were the cause of 500 accidents in Leicestershire alone in 1950, so that over the whole country dogs must be the cause of an enormous number of accidents.
I believe that in the light of this information—the loss of life on the roads, the loss of sheep, poultry and eggs, and of the dogs themselves through the accidents and what occurs after them—the Government should have an uneasy conscience about what is going on and should be endeavouring to take action to reduce the suffering and wastage of human and animal life which is taking place. But, as far as I can understand, no such view appears to be held.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Hurd) asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department only last Thursday for some figures about the position with regard to sheep worrying. The reply he received was that the Home 2110 Secretary had consulted his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, who was of opinion that the value of the results which would be obtained from collecting such information would not be commensurate with the labour involved. That is a disappointing attitude on the part of the Government—that they do not consider this question is worth much investigation and that these figures are not even worth collecting—because I believe this to be an important problem and one that should be faced.
While I realise that the main method of dealing with it must be to endeavour to enlighten public opinion on how antisocial and undesirable it is for people to have dogs when they are unable or disinclined to keep them under proper control, and that the main force must be the focussing of public opinion against those people, I hope that the Government will do everything possible in their power to enlighten public opinion in that direction.
But I believe that there are other things that could be done. The situation at the moment is that magistrates and police have fairly considerable powers, but they are not entirely satisfactory. The police are able to impound and have destroyed any stray dogs, and the magistrates can direct that a dog be called dangerous and be destroyed or, alternatively, kept under control with the penalty of £1 a day fine if it is not so controlled. If those powers were exercised more frequently, they would have a deterrent effect. Perhaps something can be done in that direction.
Then, the local authority is also able to pass regulations to the effect that dogs shall be kept under control, but the extraordinary thing is that it can only so provide between the hours of sunset and sunrise. Surely, if a local authority is to have this power it is just as important that dogs should be controlled during the day as during the hours of darkness. I see that the Lord Chief Justice himself has said that in his opinion the law in this respect requires amendment.
Then, also, there might be improvements in the method of licensing dogs. Some deterrent effect might be introduced by the causing of dog licences to bear some description on them of the dogs concerned there should not be merely a licence for "a dog," but a licence bear- 2111 ing the age and description of the animal. That, I believe, is done in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, the fee for a licence for a bitch should be higher than for a dog. A dog is just as good a companion and a guard—and possibly better—and that, too, would be a step in the right direction.
I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to consider these points and realise that they are of great importance. There is much suffering and cruelty, as well as damage on farms with consequent loss to the meat ration.

§ Mr. Anthony Greenwood (Rossendale)
I should like to thank the hon. Member for having raised this subject tonight, for it is of tremendous importance to farmers throughout the country. In my own constituency, 16 farmers have grazing rights on the moors between Rawtenstall, Heywood, Rochdale and Bacup, and between November and May they lost 400 sheep as a result of injury by dogs. Apart from the considerable suffering, that means a loss of thousands of meat rations for the public, and a loss to the farmers of about £3,000. I am told that three farmers in the Rossendale district have been forced out of business, while others are giving up sheep keeping.
Most of the trouble was believed to be due to two dogs, one of which has now been destroyed. I may say that the police in the district were most helpful, and I wish that I could say the same of the Ministry of Agriculture. It had been suggested that the pest officers should help in getting rid of the killer dogs, but when the Pennine Sheepkeepers' Association approached the Ministry with this suggestion, the reply was that the trouble occurred during the hours of darkness, which were outside the pest officers' normal hours of duty. I do hope that my hon. Friend's Department will be more helpful to farmers injured in this way.
Because there has been an outbreak of sheep worrying, I hope that we shall not be forced into a hysterical campaign against dogs as a whole. I would like to quote from the current number of "Animal Life," where it states: Every week a large batch of Press reports reach us from newspapers and journals all over the country, attacking dogs for sheep killing and worrying, and demanding new measures 2112 incorporating anything from the increase of the dog licence to £5 per annum to the right for farmers and others to shoot on sight any dog found trespassing. Mr. A. G. Street, writing in the 'Farmers' Weekly' goes even further and demands that if any dog is found running at large on the public highway, either in the country, or in town, the animal should be destroyed and the owner fined. We are in danger of blaming the innocent, as well as the guilty, and I do hope that dog-owners will in future show greater responsibility and keep their dogs under adequate control.

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. Champion)
I am grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for Harborough (Lieut.-Commander Baldock) for having raised tonight a matter of tremendous importance, both to the Ministry and farmers as a whole. I am grateful too to the hon. and gallant Member for having raised a matter in which there is some measure of agreement, despite what he says, because this happens to be my first innings at this Box. I would have chosen another time, of course, but the choice is not mine.
Despite what has been said, the Ministry and successive Ministers have exercised their minds over this problem of the worrying of farm animals by dogs. It is true that there is a considerable number of sheep and poultry killed and injured every year. The Ministry receives many reports of very distressing cases in which pain and suffering has been inflicted on animals as well as involving the farmers themselves in substantial losses.
What is the extent of this? We have tried to obtain figures which will really be comprehensive. We have not been able to do this, but the Ministry has collected details of those cases which were reported to the police. The figures for 1949, the latest complete year, show there were about 6,250 cases of attacks by dogs on livestock; just about one-half of these cases were on poultry and the other half on sheep. But there is very little evidence—indeed, it has not been mentioned tonight—of any attacks on any other livestock.
In these attacks there were some 8,000 sheep and nearly 20,000 poultry killed or injured. For 1950 we have only the sheep figures, and here we see that the figure has gone up from the 8,000 of 1949 to just 2113 over 10,000 in 1950. This is obviously, as was rightly stressed, an extremely serious matter. The value of the losses may be estimated as roughly £50,000 a year for sheep and about half that amount for poultry. The Ministry deplores the amount of suffering that is shown by these figures, but we have got to put the figures in their right economic perspective. Sheep losses are the most serious, but unfortunately other and more important sources of loss to sheep-farmers occur.
Indeed, it is estimated that the losses caused by dogs do not exceed 2 per cent. of the losses of sheep and lambs through natural causes—that is, weather, disease, etc. So we must not exaggerate the economic importance of the losses due to dogs.

§ Mr. Champion
I have not very much time.

§ Lieut.-Commander Baldock
Is it not the case that these losses are concentrated in comparatively small areas and are rather high around the towns?

§ Mr. Champion
It is true, of course, that there is a greater concentration round the towns. I think the highest figure is in the County of Glamorgan where there is a tremendous urban population and a large sheep population not adequately fenced and so on. This does not, and I do not, diminish or depreciate the loss to farmers or the loss of the meat we can ill-afford. There is, as the hon. and gallant Member rightly said, a considerable reluctance among farmers to keep sheep near towns.
The Ministry is not complacent about this problem, and the thoughts we have exercised fall in two parts; what we can do to make the present measures of control of dogs more effective and what we can do to improve those measures. Obviously, I cannot discuss the second, for it would need new legislation, which we cannot discuss on an adjournment. But we have to remember when we talk of new legislation that we have not got to impose a disproportionate amount of hardship on dog owners. There are some three million dogs licensed in Great Britain, and the great majority do no harm to livestock. We must preserve a balance.
2114 I was going to discuss existing measures, but the hon. and gallant Member has dealt with them. The only measure that he did not mention is that the owner is liable to damages for injury to sheep caused by dogs. We have no reason to think that the police are not enforcing the statutory requirements, or not co-operating fully with farmers. And, may I say, that this is a police matter and certainly not a matter for the pest officer?
We have looked at these 6,250 cases for 1949. The police traced nearly 5,600 dogs, and of these 3,250 were destroyed and 760 ordered under control by the courts. Detection is obviously only one aspect of the matter. Prevention is even more important. The police rightly look for co-operation from all sections of the rural community.
We think, however, that there is very little more that the Ministry can do without legislation, and we have got to look for local initiative to ensure that measures already existing are carried out to the full. Here, it seems, there is ground for work by the N.F.U., or any other appropriate local body, to approach chief constables to discuss the steps which are available, with the resources in legislation and so on, to secure enforcement. There is room for plenty of publicity. The Ministry is continually issuing Press notices and doing all in its power. The N.F.U. and at least one animal welfare organisation undertake considerable publicity. There is an excellent section, too, in the booklet, "Country Code," published recently by the National Parks Commission.
The Ministry will continue to try to bring home to dog owners their responsibilities, and the points that have been brought to our attention will be given careful consideration. This also applies to the fact that the N.F.U. is likely to make representations to the Ministry shortly on this, and I can give the House the undertaking that the Ministry will look very carefully at everything that is presented to us in order that we might end this frightful loss of sheep and the suffering involved.