Public Places(Hygiene) (Hansard, 20 June 1989)

§ Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to control the fouling of public places by dogs. After the European elections, I can safely say that dogs are the No. 2 subject of the month. The public are rightly concerned about the increasing number of attacks on people by savage dogs, and the Government have responded to that concern. Last week, the Home Secretary promised to strengthen the power of the courts to deal with dangerous animals and with stray dogs and to apply heavier fines to irresponsible dog owners. The Secretary of State for the Environment promised to increase pressure on local authorities to clear up dogs' mess and to charge owners who allow their dogs to stray. Therefore, to some extent, the Government have pre-empted some of the matters that I wanted to deal with in my Bill. I am most especially concerned, however, with the hygiene aspect of the problem.

I decided to introduce this Bill when a mother came to my surgery a few Saturdays ago and pointed out that her small daughter, who had been playing on a grass verge, had slipped into some dog's mess—verges are often used as public latrines by animals—and had been very seriously ill in hospital. It was at that point that I began to discover the number of diseases that are transmitted through dog's mess. It is not just an aesthetic, but a serious hygiene, problem, and, quite rightly, the Government take the problem of public hygiene very seriously.

In addition to the well-known worms, toxocara, which can affect people's spleens and livers and, of course, cause blindness, dogs' faeces also contain salmonella and campylobacter. Those are the diseases with which the child I have mentioned had been afflicted. They can cause serious damage to the intestines of small children and are quite common in adults. There are a number of complaints from which people suffer without realising that the problem stems from dog faeces. Whenever we breathe and smell those faeces, we are taking into our bodies some of the organisms that are present.

A solution to the problem would be privately owned streets. The people who owned their streets would then ensure that they were kept free from dog fouling. As it is, the public own the streets through the local authorities. The Secretary of State has rightly empowered local authorities to take more steps to encourage local councils to introduce pooper-scoop schemes and heavier fines. In Westminster, the fines are up to £100, but that has not entirely persuaded people to do something about this unpleasant problem.

When, in the old days, people had the problem of disposing of soil, they simply threw it out of the window, with the warning of, "Guar-e-loo". Then, when I was a child, the nasty habit of spitting required "do not spit" notices on all the buses. Why do we still tolerate the problem of dogs using the streets as if they were public lavatories?

As I have said, I am concerned about the hygiene problem, as well as how to control dogs on the streets. I draw the House's attention to the situation in several American cities, including the city of Charleston in North Carolina, where there is a dog lead requirement. No dogs are allowed on public streets unless they are on a lead, and 148 that copes with the problem of identifying the person who owns the dog. That is one of the main concerns expressed when we talk about the prospect of legislation in this place. I recommend to the Secretary of State that at some time in the future he thinks about that problem. I am waiting to see, however, how the measures that the Government have recently introduced will affect it.

When there are food poisoning incidents, the Government step in immediately to reassure the public that they are doing all they can to control the problem. They inspect, and they require people preparing food for the public to adopt very high standards. Yet still we allow people with dogs to walk the streets and leave behind them potential disease-causing piles on the pavements.

Next time that we have registration for the community charge we should examine the possibility of people putting their dogs on the community charge form. We could then charge the dog owners for cleaning up after their animals. Meanwhile, my main concern is for health. I should like to propose in my Bill that dog owners be required to obtain a certificate—an MOT of health—from a vet before they are allowed to take their dogs on to the streets.

People will say that that cannot be enforced, but one might as well say that one cannot enforce any sort of public hygiene. Of course it can be enforced, and, last week, the Government stated that they would permit the authorities to introduce more wardens to catch irresponsible people.

We cannot continue to tiptoe around the problem or sweep it under the carpet. It is important that our streets are kept clean and beautiful in the same way as some cities in America. In addition to the current regulations operated in many of our cities and in the Isle of Wight, dog owners in this country should be required to obtain from a vet a certificate that the dog has at least been tested to see that it does not contain worms and other diseases, that it is vaccinated against rabies in addition to the ordinary diseases, and that it cannot cause the problems that currently exist.