HC Deb 22 March 1996 vol 274 cc659-68

1 pm

Mr. Hunter

I beg to move amendment No. 9, in page 3, line 32, leave out `in relation to any land'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this, it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 10, in page 3, line 35, at end insert `in relation to any land to which this Act applies'.

Mr. Hunter

Amendment Nos. 9 and 10 seek to grant local authorities the facility to retain dog fouling byelaws for land where the Bill does not allow designation. The amendments would prevent areas of land such as rural commons that cannot be designated under the Bill from forfeiting dog fouling byelaws that, if not replaced by designation, would lapse after 10 years. Clause 6 addresses the complicated matter of how designations will interact with existing dog fouling byelaws. Clause 6(2)(a) provides that when local authorities designate poop-scoop zones, any existing dog fouling byelaws applicable to the zoned area will cease to have effect.

Clause 6(3) provides that any dog fouling byelaws that have been replaced by poop-scoop designations will cease to have effect 10 years after the enactment of the Bill. The 10-year period does not apply to byelaws made by local authorities other than those defined in clause 7. In England, that means in effect that byelaws made by county and parish councils will remain in force, although by virtue of clause 6(4) they cannot have effect if designation exists on the land.

However, there is a class of district council byelaws that would be subject to the 10-year cut-off but should perhaps be allowed to remain—those that apply to land to which the Bill cannot. I am thinking particularly of land described in clause 1. We would not wish to remove existing byelaws for land where the Bill does not allow designation. Local authorities may therefore retain existing dog fouling byelaws for land such as rural commons. That is what the amendments seek to achieve.

Clause 6 would ensure that where an offence could be committed under clause 3 or under a dog fouling byelaw, no offence is committed under the byelaw. Put simply, the Bill, if enacted, will supersede any existing byelaw. In conjunction with that, it must be right to grant local authorities the facility to retain dog fouling byelaws for land where the Bill does not allow designation.

Mr. Clappison

The Government consider it important that when a designation is introduced, no local authority dog fouling byelaws should remain in force in the same area as the designation. We fully support the effect of clause 6(2)(a) because it would mean that local authorities need not be concerned that they might have overlooked an old byelaw on dog fouling. Similarly, we support the 10-year transition period. However, there will be local authority dog fouling byelaws that apply to land that cannot be designated because it is excluded by clause 1. We would not wish such existing dog fouling byelaws to cease to have effect under clause 6(3). We accept the amendment for the reasons that my hon. Friend has given.

Amendment agreed to.

Order for Third Reading read.

1.3 pm

Mr. Patrick Thompson

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly on Third Reading. I am only sorry that I did not have a chance to speak on some its earlier proceedings.

I certainly strongly support the Bill; it is a good Bill and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) on his work to date. I wish the Bill every success as it goes to the other place and I hope that it makes reasonably rapid progress there.

I can confirm that there is strong support for the Bill in the constituencies. After all, I am reliably informed that there are 7 million dogs in this country—we have heard figures during the debate. As I said in an earlier intervention, 1,000 tonnes of faeces are deposited every day. The Bill certainly tackles a real problem. I have checked with my local authorities and, as far as I am aware, Norwich city council is in favour of the Bill. I certainly know that Broadland district council is in favour of it, because it is correspondence that I have received from that council that has moved me to speak in the Third Reading debate and to support the Bill.

In a letter to me a month or so ago, Broadland district council said that it was keen on the Bill because it would remove the difficulty Local Authorities experience in obtaining approval for bye-laws"— and would give them far greater discretion and flexibility to exercise dog fouling controls. The letter also said that the Bill would offer owners the opportunity to discharge liability for conviction by payment of a fixed penalty fine. It is clear from today's debate that the Bill is along similar lines to measures that are strongly supported by the local councils in my constituency. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke said that the Bill would simplify the means whereby local authorities can tackle dog fouling. He said that byelaws were cumbersome, time consuming and costly. As we have heard in the debate, it sometimes takes 18 months, or even years, for the byelaws to come into effect. There is no doubt that the Bill is necessary; it is a good measure that will simplify the procedures and help local authorities to tackle the problems.

Like hon. Members on both sides of the House, at the top of the list of topics in the considerable correspondence that I receive is that of animals and dog fouling. The matter culminated in the correspondence that I received from Broadland district council urging me to support the Bill. That correspondence followed a meeting of the council's health and housing committee on 21 January this year.

1 am conscious of the fact that speeches on Third Reading should not be long, as most of the issues have been discussed. I simply say that the experience of Broadland district council—which is the basis of my contribution—is that the complaints have increased by 291 per cent. over the past three years. It receives literally hundreds of complaints each year on the subject of dog fouling. The local authority holds regular meetings with residents on all the topics for which it is responsible. Once again, among the topics most frequently raised is that of the problems caused by a minority of irresponsible dog owners. Dog fouling problems are high on the list of concerns expressed to local councillors and officials.

I compliment Broadland district council on the way in which it has tackled the problems—it takes the Bill seriously and has corresponded with me about it. It has provided 80 bins over the past two years as receptacles for dog faeces; poop-scoop packs are available for a small charge. It has also produced an information pack and a pamphlet to encourage responsible dog ownership. It has introduced many other measures which I do not have time to outline today. The Bill deals with irresponsible dog ownership and encourages responsible dog ownership.

I support the work of Broadland district council and I agree that the Bill is a good measure. I hope that it will reach the statute book as soon as possible.

1.10 pm
Mr. Jenkin

As my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson) has said, the Bill contains important powers for local authorities—and we hope that they will use them responsibly. The consideration of the Bill in the House has not been 100 per cent. It is disappointing that we should receive a Bill for Report and Third Reading without having had a proper scrutiny in Committee—from which the Bill would certainly have benefited. This is the sort of Bill—particularly if it goes through the Second Reading on the nod—that should have been dealt with by a Special Standing Committee. The Bill would have benefited from proper evidence-taking sessions, and from formal consultation by Parliament with local authorities and with other interested parties. Such a procedure would have ensured that the Bill got into a shape that people generally understood and supported.

I fully concur with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter)—that we are looking to the other place perhaps to scrutinise the Bill—something of which we have not been capable. It is perhaps a sad reflection on the pressures on the House that we have not been able to deal with the Bill in the detail that we should. Sadly, the situation also extends to other debates. It was a sad occasion yesterday when a former Prime Minister was not able to speak for more than 10 minutes on the greatest issue facing us today—and we are under similar pressure today.

We could have remedied the situation by better scrutiny in Committee. It is up to hon. Members to organise such things more effectively so that we do not spend so much time dealing with these issues of the Floor of the House when they could have been satisfactorily dealt with in Committee. The Bill, framed as it is, should be let through for fuller scrutiny in the other place, and I look forward to hearing what it has to say on the matter.

1.12 pm
Mr. Merchant

I am grateful for the opportunity to support the Third Reading of the Bill. As I hope will have been gathered from my speech on Report, I fully support the measure introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter), and I do so without the benefit of the amendments that were suggested earlier, which I felt would not have helped the Bill. The Bill seeks to address a real problem—it may not be a huge problem in the order of world problems, but it causes great concern to people at local level. Therefore, it is right for the House to try to find a way to improve matters, and I believe that the Bill does so in a balanced fashion.

The Bill has various virtues. First, it will simplify the law. The law, at present, is confused. It is based on byelaws that are different—some authorities have them and some do not. As we have heard, it takes time to obtain new byelaws. This Bill will provide a framework in which local authorities can act and it will considerably simplify the law.

Secondly, the Bill will clarify the law. Instead of having different byelaws—with different impacts and capable of different interpretation—there will be a standard means of addressing a problem. The local authority will merely have to tick and it will come into effect in its area.

Thirdly, the Bill is devolutionary—in other words, the decision is made ultimately by local people acting through their local authority, rather than being centralised. I am all in favour of that concept, and I would like more decision making to be brought back to local government level. I welcome the fact that the Bill achieves that in a small way.

Finally, the Bill is comprehensive—that is, it can provide wide powers for local authorities to act, not in an authoritarian way but in a way that enables them to deal with the problem fully. I welcome the fact that the Bill is comprehensive. Basically, the Bill is about a balance of interests. Dog owners rightfully have responsibilities in society, but I would not, in any sense, wish to suggest that the Bill is doggist—I am not a doggist. I am all in favour of dog owners as long as they ensure that their pets do not make life disagreeable for other members of the public. That is the other side of the balance. The purpose of the Bill is to protect the legitimate interests of those who wish to live without risk of nuisance or unhygienic conditions stemming from lack of proper care of dogs and their residue.

In many places, the problems to which we have alluded in earlier debate on the Bill no longer exist because effective action has been taken by local authorities. In recent years, in my local area of Bromley, the local authority has introduced several effective measures, accepted by the dog-owning population as well as by those who do not have dogs, to protect visitors to local parks. We have two especially big and well-known local parks, Crystal Palace park and Kelsey park. Special bins are provided in both, ensuring that owners clear up after their dogs, protecting the rest of the population from the problems that used to exist.

By supporting the Bill, I simply want to ensure that similar protection may be extended throughout the country, subject always to the views of the people in those areas as expressed through their local authority. The Bill presents the best, most effective way of achieving that and provides a framework which I believe will ensure that that can be properly extended nationwide; therefore, I have great pleasure in giving my full support to this excellent Bill.

1.15 pm
Mr. Hargreaves

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate on Third Reading.

As you and your predecessor in the Chair will have gathered, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have reservations about aspects of the Bill, but before I mention them it might be useful if I explain to Opposition Front Benchers, who have suggested that every Conservative speaker is merely filibustering to prevent the arrival of another Bill, that I have no such motives. I do not wish to prevent a good hearing of the Bill to be introduced by the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon), nor do I wish, as some others might, to prevent any other Bill from being discussed later.

Furthermore, I greatly resent the misuse of Sir Gordon Downey's position in the House when the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) makes remarks in the national newspapers to the effect that speaking on Friday mornings before Bills that precede his proposed Bill is an attempt to pervert the course of Parliament and indeed that people should make declarations when speaking on other Bills simply because they are, in his view, attempts to delay his measure. I have cause for concern about such a practice, and I hope that Madam Speaker will inquire into it in due course.

I have concerns about the Bill because it raises issues related to the sensible use of powers to ensure that, as my hon. Friends have said, people do what good dog owners do naturally.

I declare my interest in that I have a dog. Other Conservative Members may have dogs. We therefore have an interest in ensuring that the ownership of dogs remains respected by other people and that we do not make our dogs' behaviour a nuisance to other people. I support the motives of my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke in introducing the Bill. It is an entirely appropriate way to start the process of seriously tackling the problem of dog fouling in suburban and urban areas, large villages and elsewhere, parks, recreation grounds, village squares, commons, and all areas where children are likely to play and where other people are likely to walk in an unprotected fashion and might unsuspectingly pick up dog excrement on their shoes or elsewhere. We should take that nuisance seriously.

As my hon. Friends the Member for Basingstoke and the Minister know, I have serious anxieties about the Bill's scope. I am especially worried about how it might affect Moseley bog, adjacent to my constituency in Birmingham—a woodland area of natural beauty where dog owners go with their dogs to let them run wild and free, and to enjoy the benefits of that facility.

I remain concerned about the issue of towpaths and footpaths. My hon. Friend the Minister referred to footpaths that go for miles and miles and my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) described his walk with Freddie, the dog belonging to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh). Perhaps the issue could be re-examined in another place; I hope that we can reach a sensible conclusion on the scope of the Bill.

I hope that, when the Bill is considered in another place, amendment No. 19, proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Thomason), will be regarded favourably. Perhaps a small change could be made to encompass the sense of my hon. Friend's proposition, if not the exact wording. The Minister referred to private landowners, and I believe that the Bill is deeply flawed in that regard. I hope that their Lordships will consider allowing private landowners to be excluded naturally from the Bill's provisions unless they decide to opt in.

I believe that the benefits that the Bill delivers to urban. suburban and large village communities and residential areas—as they were called this morning—outweigh my specific cares and concerns. Therefore, like my hon. Friends, I commend the Bill to the House.

1.21 pm
Ms Armstrong

As I have listened to the debate all morning, I feel obliged to offer the Opposition's view. In spite of the remarks of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Hargreaves), it is difficult for Opposition Members to believe that this morning's debate has been conducted simply in the interests of improving the Bill. The House has considered similar measures in detail in the past two years. The Bill passed through the Committee stage within an hour, and we have debated the Report stage for nearly four times as long a period. On that basis, Opposition Members believe that we have witnessed another attempt at filibustering this morning, not to prevent the passage of this Bill—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The hon. Lady knows that, if there had been a filibuster, the Chair would have drawn attention to it immediately and ruled accordingly.

Ms Armstrong

I accept your comments totally, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, I am not sure that all Conservative Members have been completely genuine in their approach to the legislation.

I am the Opposition spokesperson on local government issues and I heard some very revealing views on that subject this morning. I commend the comments of the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson) on the valuable work performed by local authorities in his area. It is my experience that local authorities up and down the country have worked very hard to balance the interests of dog owners and common land usage. They have paid particular attention to the dangers that fouled land poses to children.

Most local authorities have tried to deal with the problem in a very sensible way, so I was particularly disappointed to hear the Minister's comments. His Department is responsible for local authorities and it is quite distressing to see a Minister with such responsibilities having so little faith or trust in local authorities' activities and their ability to behave in a commonsense way. I can give several examples of good practice on the part of local authorities that have tried to strike the right balance. Easington district council, in the county of Durham where I live, is one such council.

The Bills that follow are very important. Even if they do not reach a vote, I want to make sure that they are at least aired in the House; therefore, I shall be brief.

Although the changes to the Bill this year will make it easier for it to become law, it avoids problems to which the House will have to return. The health problems that are caused by the manner in which sporting dogs are raised will certainly come back to the House. This week, we heard about the problem of diseased cattle getting into the food chain. I understand that, almost without exception, sporting dogs feed on the meat and organs of livestock that die on farms. That has created a significant health problem which causes about 10 deaths a year. There are certainly real problems with livestock. I was given that information by farmers in my constituency, so I am sure that we shall return to the issue. I accept, however, that by excluding sporting dogs from the Bill we shall make sure that it becomes law.

The hon. Member for Hall Green was really upset because I am not a dog owner. The Bill is not about those who are dog owners and those who are not. We are trying to ensure that people who own dogs act responsibly. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that if I owned a dog I would not be acting responsibly. My home and my constituency are 260 miles from the House, so it would be impossible for me to look after a dog properly. Many hon. Members take a responsible attitude by not owning dogs. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not try to create unnecessary divisions between dog owners and non-dog owners about the designation of public areas, particularly so that children can play safely without suffering the awful diseases that can result from dog fouling that has not been cleared up.

The Bill seeks to encourage common sense and responsibility. Local authorities should be able to designate land to which an offence of failing to clear up after a dog would apply. I am sure that many local authorities and many of our constituents have been looking for such legislation for many a long year; however, it will not solve the problem. The problem will be solved only if those who own dogs act responsibly. Whatever we do in the House, we cannot legislate for how people act. We can only threaten action if they continue to act irresponsibly.

The aims of the measure will be properly met only when all dog owners are responsible. It should have been approved last year. It was not approved, because of vested interests in the other place. I hope that this year's amended and changed measure proceeds smoothly and quickly so that we can restore confidence in the public health aspect of our parks and public places.

1.28 pm
Mr. Clappison

This important and worthwhile measure serves an important purpose. It is entirely appropriate that it should receive detailed consideration this morning, and we have considered some important and relevant issues.

The hon. Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong) averted to the fate of the previous measure dealing with the same subject. This morning's debate may have helped to resolve some of the issues that were involved in that legislation and may be helpful to the progress of the Bill. I do not want to be drawn by the hon. Lady down the road of contentious political issues. It feels strange to be chastised for supporting a measure that will devolve power and decision making to local authorities and give them the opportunity to adopt a nationally defined offence if they wish.

Before the hon. Lady becomes too contentious, I remind her that the Bill is widely supported by local authorities and the public. Whatever the activities of certain local authorities—which often speak for themselves—one hopes that they will all listen to the views of residents and take commonsense decisions.

I agree strongly with the excellent contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant). One hopes that local authorities will exercise their common sense in deciding whether or not to take advantage of the legislation. I take issue with my hon. Friend on one point, which may have been a slip of the tongue. I urge him to exercise caution when describing anything as anti-this or anti-that. He introduced a phrase that I have not heard before—anti-doggism. He may have used it on the spur of the moment and lightheartedly, but some people may take his remark seriously. The next thing, we will all have in our postbags letters and representations from the chairperson of the campaign against anti-doggism. We shall find ourselves in anti-doggist zones, non-anti-doggist zones and goodness knows what else.

This sensible legislation will be widely welcomed, including by responsible dog owners—who will warmly greet it every bit as much as other members of the public who want dog fouling effectively tackled, and swiftly where needed. The legislation will enable that to happen.

1.31 pm
Mr. Hunter

The fact that my Bill received a Second Reading on the nod on 19 January and was considered in Committee in February has been commented upon, but there has been no shortage of debate or scrutiny today. The Bill has its origins in the advisory group's 1994 report, and it emerged following consideration and consultation. The Bill's merits are threefold. It acknowledges the need to simplify the byelaw system, which was not working effectively in dealing with dog fouling. The Bill concentrates its fire on the urban environment, where the problem is greatest. Finally, it recognises that dog fouling is a local problem and best dealt with locally, by local powers.

My Bill's purpose is to encourage and promote responsible dog ownership. I believe that it will be welcomed by dog owners and others. I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

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