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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. It might be as well if I reminded the right hon. Gentleman and the House that the scope for discussion on the new clause is very narrow. An occasional reference to the title of the clause and the need for an annual report does not excuse remarks that cover the substance of other clauses. The new clause would provide for local authorities to report in writing to the Secretary of State on the exercise of the powers conferred by a number of clauses in the Bill. It is not an opportunity for a Second or Third Reading debate.
Mr. Maclean: I accept your admonitions, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The areas that I selected on which local authorities should report in new clause 1 represent some of the key powers conferred by the Bill. One has to be the number of licences granted or renewed to breeding establishments in the local authority area. It will be particularly useful to the Secretary of State and to hon. Members to know how many licences have been refused--that provision is in
paragraph (b) of the new clause. We want to know how many have been renewed and how many refused. We also need to know, as paragraph (f) provides,
Mr. Peter Atkinson (Hexham):
I do not understand my right hon. Friend's logic. If a local authority's annual return to the Secretary of State said that it had issued 12 licences and refused none, that there were no convictions under clauses 4 and 9, no disqualifications under clause 5, no appeals against conviction or disqualification and no relevant matters, does that mean that the local authority is doing a good or bad job?
Mr. Maclean:
I accept my hon. Friend's point. One could not come to a conclusion on the quality of local authority inspection or whether it was licensing in the same way as an authority that had refused the 12 licence applications that it had received. There will be disparities between local authorities. That is where new clause 1(f) comes in. It provides that authorities can report
I do not want to labour my point in advocating new clause 1 because I have another important new clause on which I wish to speak and I know that other hon. Members want to contribute, but I want to touch on convictions. It is important to get a report on them from local authorities. The Minister may say that they are covered somewhere in the annual digest of convictions published by the Home Office. If we ploughed through it, we would find the convictions for various offences and crimes. After much study, we might find those that relate to animal offences or breaches of the Breeding of Dogs Act 1973. Those of us who take an interest in such matters would find it helpful if local authorities responsible for dog licensing and taking out prosecutions included in their reports to the Secretary of State their conclusions on the number of convictions under clause 4, which deals with imprisonment for keeping an unlicensed establishment. Clause 9 deals with the penalties in respect of clause 8 on
the sale of dogs. It would be helpful to have information on convictions under clauses 4 and 9 and information from local authorities on disqualifications under clause 5.
Those who are concerned about inappropriate dog breeding and puppy farming need to know the number of people who have been struck off and the extent of the abuse so that they can get a measure of their success in trying to deal with it. The fact that a local authority may be highly successful in dealing with it is pertinent information to which the rest of us have a right. It would be helpful if other local authorities could see success rates.
Mr. Atkinson:
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way to me a second time. Again, I have lost the logic of his argument. There might be several breeding establishments in some local authority areas--for example, those in rural areas such as those that he and I represent, where people often do such work as a sideline. However, if my right hon. Friend represented Kensington and Chelsea, the chances of finding dog-breeding establishments in that area would be most unlikely--although it is possible that there might be some. My right hon. Friend is comparing one quite different local authority to another; it is difficult to compare the activities of local authorities in rural and urban areas.
Mr. Maclean:
I accept my hon. Friend's point; it may be difficult to compare their activities. Nevertheless, each local authority would have to enforce the same legislation that is passed by the House. If my new clause were accepted, they would be under an obligation to report the same matters.
I think that my hon. Friend's point is not that what I suggest in the new clause is wholly wrong in concept, but that the new clause may be inadequate to deal with what is--yet again--a quality control measure. It is true that the number of people disqualified may vary in different authorities, depending on how active a local authority is in making prosecutions and on how many people are convicted. It will vary according to the attitude of the courts; courts in some areas may take a dimmer view of inappropriate activity under the breeding and sale of dogs legislation than those in other areas. One would hope not. However, the range of penalties will differ. Furthermore, when people are disqualified, there will also be differences from area to area.
Nevertheless, it is worth knowing how local authorities are proceeding, in order that such information can be shared not only by the Secretary of State, but by other local authorities and the rest of us. One of the small, but important, points in my new clause is that
By sharing best practice, we will make substantial improvements to animal welfare throughout the country. We may also achieve greater consistency in the enforcement of the provisions of the legislation, as local authorities take courage and take heart from the ways in which others carry out the provisions. When they study the published reports, they will be able to see the style and format. They will also be able to see any important matters referred to by the Secretary of State under paragraph (f) of the new clause. If he prescribes some quality control measures, the authorities will be aware of how others are carrying out such matters. That will be of general benefit.
I conclude by pointing out that I have suggested new clause 1 as a possible improvement. I am happy to accept the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere or of the Minister that it is not necessary and that it is not an improvement, or that it would destabilise the coalition of interests that has come together to get the Bill into a negotiated state. I think that my new clause is a possible improvement. I should be happy if my hon. Friend accepts the substance of the new clause. Perhaps, in another place, we may come up with better wording or suggest a better means of drafting it. I should be happy if the Minister suggested that. At present, I commend the new clause to the House as worthy of some consideration.
Mr. Peter Atkinson:
In another debate earlier today, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) mentioned his suspicions of Bills that were consensus Bills. My suspicions too are aroused, because this is a consensus Bill. It was not debated on Second Reading, as it received an unopposed Second Reading several Fridays ago. It was discussed only briefly in Committee. Therefore, at this late stage, on Report, it is right that we test the Bill as much as we possibly can, to ensure that it has a reasonable chance of achieving that which it seeks to achieve. The test of a Friday morning Bill that tries to increase regulation or prevent people from doing things is whether its outcome is worth the bother. New clause 1 does not in any way compensate for the Bill's central weakness--the difficulty in identifying a puppy farm. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) will discuss that weakness at a later stage of the Bill.
New clause 1 seeks to place an additional burden on local authorities. That is unacceptable, unless it can be shown that the Bill is strengthened by making local authorities undergo such a rigorous and bureaucratic procedure. As I tried--possibly not successfully--to point out in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean), I cannot see what use it would be if one local authority said that it had had no appeals, no convictions, no disqualifications and no relevant matters of discussion, whereas another local authority said that, in the same year, it had turned down two licences and prosecuted once. That would not allow comparison between the performance of different local authorities. That is a weakness of the new clause.
If local authorities are given that burden and they report a nil scoresheet--if I may use that cricketing expression--it will aggravate dog lovers. We know what the British or the English dog lover is like. If dog lovers were to think that their local authority was not properly doing its job of
looking after the interests of dogs, they would get very angry with that authority, even though it might be doing a perfectly good job. There might simply be no such establishments or identifiable establishments in its area. What a waste of time.
In another sense, legitimate breeders of dogs might be damaged. If one gives a local authority a sensitive target such as this one, it becomes rather like the parking warden who must issue a certain number of tickets to show that he is doing his job properly. We do not want local authority environmental health inspectors or enforcement officers--or whoever is given the duty--to run a league table to see how miserable they can make the life of perfectly legitimate and responsible dog breeders in the local authority area. There would be a temptation for local authorities to seek to interfere hugely and over- burdensomely in such establishments.
"any other relevant matter as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State."
I hope that, if my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere accepts new clause 1, one of the relevant matters might be that local authorities would have to give explanations of why licences were refused. The bare statistics on refused licences are relevant. If more licences have been refused than in previous years, is it a statistical quirk or are local authorities applying the law more tightly? If so, it would be helpful for us and the Secretary of State to know the reasons.
"any other relevant matter as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State."
Even with my inadequate wording, it might be possible to have a quality control threshold. The Secretary of State might ask authorities to respond in terms of best value. I am not sure whether local authorities would be inspected on their enforcement of the Bill, but the Government are insisting on best value throughout the country. Rightly, part of that regime will be audit or quality control. I accept that the inadequate wording of my new clause means that we cannot be sure whether a local authority is doing a good job by refusing every licence or a sloppy one by granting them all. Paragraph (f) would allow the Secretary of State to build in mechanisms to allow us to make a guess about that or at least to get some information.
12.45 pm
"Each local authority shall publish and present to the Secretary of State".
The benefit of publishing is that it would allow best practice in local authorities to be shown. They could publish anywhere, either in a written document that people could read and say, "Ah, that's the way they're doing it in that local authority", or by putting the information on the internet or on their web pages. Many local authorities now do that with their annual reports and their charters. I commend that as a good way for local authorities to make that information easily available for people to see.
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