Midlothian District Council Order Confirmation Bill (Hansard, 17 December 1981)

§ Lord Lyell
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.

§ Lord Ross of Marnock
My Lords, this will be the last time on which I shall have to weary the House on the problem of stray dogs in relation to a council order confirmation Bill, because another Bill that is at present before the House contains, in Clause 124, these words: Any enactment in any local Act which amends section 3 of the said Act of 1906"— blah-blah— … as it applies to the area of the council shall cease to have effect". That means that what we are passing here today, taking up the time of the House and resulting in cost to the District Council of Midlothian, will be wiped out when later in the Session the other Bill to which I have referred becomes law. Is it not absolute nonsense? The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, told us that this is such a vital problem that Midlothian must have these powers now, that the gap, which has been there since 1906, should not be allowed to continue, and that we must plug the gap for the few months that remain. What utter nonsense! In addition to that we are told, "Well, this is what they want".
I shall be troubling the House about stray dogs. There are two clauses in the Civil Government (Scotland) Bill about stray dogs, and the local government section of the Scottish Office has been very helpful. The suggestion has been that after the amendments relating to Clauses 73 and 123 go through, we shall then have the right statute about stray dogs in Scotland. Will we? Where are the eagle eyes of the Minister of State, the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, and the noble Lord, Lord Lyell? They are concerned about registers. We are to have registers for all the things that are to be licensed in Scotland, and I put down an amendment to provide that the local authority should be allowed to charge anyone who wanted to see the registers, but I was told, No, it was contrary to modern practice. I suggested that I could, if I troubled my memory, produce other Acts in which it was provided that the public had to pay for the sight of registers.
I hope we have a look at this Bill. We will discover that anyone who wants to see the register for stray dogs and what has happened to them has got to pay not less than 10p. But the Scottish Office is moving on! If we have a look at the amendments in relation to the Civic Government (Scotland) Bill we will see that there has to be the register of stray dogs but they have forgotten to amend (and, of course, it will fall to me to put down an amendment, and people will say, "There's Ross with his amendments again") what is the cost in the 1906 Bill. It is in Section 7: 285 A dog seized under this section shall not be disposed of"— that is going to be put in— by transferring it to an establishment for the reception of stray dogs unless a register is kept"— that is the same as in the present Bill— for that establishment containing such particulars as to dogs received in the establishments as are above mentioned, and such register is open to inspection by the public on payment of a fee not exceeding one shilling". What is a shilling? I think there must be a stray civil servant, as well as stray dogs around. They have not amended this.
So, please, my Lords, consider me and my problems with the Scottish Office when you see another string of amendments. Because I shall need to put one down to change the "one shilling" to—what? One shilling in 1906—what will it be now? Or shall we leave it out altogether? If we do that, of course, we are robbing this Bill that we have before us now of its great value to local authorities. They will not be able to charge 10p. They will be in a dilemma as to how they are going to charge less than a shilling. Or shall we leave it out altogether?
These are the problems that are in these simple little Bills, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, will report to the Scottish Office that once again they are slipping up and hammering local authorities, taking away their 10p. for this valuable register that is going to be produced. Other than that, I think that this Bill deserves a Third Reading if only from the point of view that it is the last such Bill that we shall see. It is the last of, I think, over 20 that we have had—which I consider to be a complete waste of money.

§ Lord Lyell
My Lords, the noble Lord would not expect as lengthy a reply from me or, indeed, from the Scottish Office as his remarks in possible complaint about the very simple Bill that I have moved today for the third time and hope to see on the statute book. This is a problem, and I am sure that every potential victim of dogs in the Midlothian district will note with rueful tenderness, probably, the views of the noble Lord that dogs should be allowed to roam about choosing their victims at will. The noble Lord shakes his head. Possibly he should come with me to various other areas which are afflicted by this problem.
This is a simple Bill. I hope the noble Lord will allow Midlothian to deal with this problem, which they feel important enough. I am sure that in the many years that the noble Lord, Lord Ross, had in control of the Scottish Office—this (I hesitate to say) empire, of which he was the jewel head for many years—he will have had experience of these problems; and I hope that he will allow the dogs of Midlothian to be controlled in a respectable and humane manner by the district council. I believe we should give them these powers.
The noble Lord mentioned the problem of one shilling in 1906. Without notice, I could not possibly give him the statistical answer there, but the noble Lord suggested to me that legislation of Scotland contained currencies that were out of date. I would remind him that certainly when the noble Lord was the Secretary of State at the Scottish Office I happened to be studying the legal problems of bankruptcy in Scotland and trust law. I recall that in the law of Scotland in 1964 we read about pounds (Scots). I 286 think there were £8 (Scots) to the current £1 sterling. So the noble Lord should not criticise me, or indeed the Scottish Office, for having out-of-date currencies in Scottish legislation, certainly not today. But, that said, I hope that we may possibly agree that this Bill should now be read a third time.

§ Lord Ross of Marnock
My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I do not think he should mislead the House. All we are doing here is to give to the district council powers which are already available to the police. So there is no problem in relation to no one looking after stray dogs. So far as concerns his facts about the pound sterling and the Scots pound, he had better have another look at that again, because he will find that his relationship is quite wrong as from time to time it changed.