§ Lords Amendment: No. 13, in page 3. line 39, leave out "prescribe" and insert "appoint".
§ Mr. DoigI beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
981 This is a drafting amendment. In the context of the clause, "appoint" is a more appropriate word than "prescribe".
As this is the last amendment, perhaps I could take this opportunity to say that I regard the Bill as a very small first step in providing much better regulation of the control of dogs and the protection of people from dogs. I hope that it will be so regarded.
The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summersckill)Perhaps I might congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) on having successfully piloted the Bill through all its stages. It is a greatly improved Bill compared with the one he originally presented. There has been very good co-operation between him and the Home Office in making these improvements. I shall watch the results of the Bill with great interest. We await the report, expected later this year, of the Department of the Environment working party set up to consider the general problems posed by dogs.
§ Question put and agreed to.