Examination of Witnesses (Questions 560-579)
DR ANNETTE
CROSBIE, MAUREEN
PURVIS, JOHN
HAYNES AND
LORD DAVID
LIPSEY
16 SEPTEMBER 2004
Q560 Joan Ruddock: Except Defra would
be consulting very much with yourselves. If you are already
on track for such an enormous improvement, then I cannot quite
understand why the Government is not able to go with you on that
and codify the very things that you say you want to promote yourselves.
Lord Lipsey: To be honest, I do
not think there is any sign that the draft bill goes as far as
some of the things that the industry itself is voluntarily doing—so
far, at least, as NGRC tracks are concerned. There is, for example,
the Greyhound Charter, which has been agreed between the animal
welfare organisations and the greyhound industry, which goes in
many ways beyond, I think, the kind of thinking we have been having
out of Defra. I have a meeting with the minister this afternoon
to discuss further how we are going forward, and on that obviously
I shall have to satisfy him, as I do this Committee, that I am
right in saying we are making such progress that external regulation
should not be imposed at this point, that we can do the job more
effectively. As I say, if I am wrong and if we do not manage to
deliver what I am absolutely determined we shall deliver, I have
no objection to stern laws coming in in 2010.
Q561 Chairman: Just for the record, am
I not right in saying that the great wave of change which you
have just described only applies to 31 of the greyhound racing
courses that are part of the National Greyhound Racing Club and
that, as your evidence indicates, there are 20 so-called independent
tracks which are doing whatever they want to do. Is that factually
correct?
Lord Lipsey: Yes, it is factually
correct.
Joan Ruddock: I think you raise a very
important point, Chairman, because clearly these tracks are not
under the influence of Lord Lipsey and his organisation and therefore
we, as a committee, have to have regard to the totality of the
greyhound world.
Q562 Alan Simpson: Lord Lipsey, when
the trap is opened, roughly how long does a greyhound race take
from start to finish?
Lord Lipsey: It depends on the
distance. The dog I own took 28.24 seconds to do the trip on Tuesday.
Q563 Chairman: How long is "the
trip"?
Lord Lipsey: Four hundred and
sixty metres.
Q564 Alan Simpson: The greyhounds can
go round the track in 28 seconds but the industry, in terms of
setting up a regulatory framework, could not get round the track
in six years. That is something that I do not understand—I
mean, the length of time that you are suggesting you can make
it round your own self-regulatory track seems to me bizarre. When
you talk about a culture change, you can speed up culture change
remarkably if you say, "Actually, you are not going to be
allowed to do it."
Lord Lipsey: I think you are mistaking
the present situation. There is a system of self-regulation in
place.
Q565 Alan Simpson: Sure, but Greyhound
Rescue Wales in their evidence said you, as a board, have been
unwilling or unable to enforce its own rules regarding welfare
over many years. They would say of your existing framework that
it is next to useless.
Lord Lipsey: In Wales there are
simply four independent tracks—and we may come back to the
problem of independent tracks and the way I see that being resolved
in a minute. Some bad things have been happening down there and
I believe somebody is to appear in court for the second time following
the killing of a dog. I cannot speak for the NGRC, I speak for
the BGRB, but I do not think that in every case NGRC regulation
has been perfect—but they are moving very substantially.
For example, there is a rule 18 which deals with what happens
in terms of notifying them when a dog retires. That is a rule,
but the trouble has been that up to now they have not, because
of the way their computer systems work, been able to be very proactive
in chasing up dogs where they are not notified of retirement but
it seems unlikely a dog is running. The stewards are now coming
up with a scheme whereby proactively, if a dog has not run for
so many months, they will check up with the owner and trainer
to find out what has happened to that dog, and if they are not
satisfied they would be able to take the necessary disciplinary
action. That is the kind of thing I mean by cultural change—and
that, incidentally, is something which is it very, very hard for
Government to do. I mean, is the Government going to keep a register
of every greyhound? I doubt it.
Q566 Alan Simpson: I am saying the industry
could be required to keep a register and I cannot see why that
should not be part of a national regulatory system that is a pre-requisite
of being allowed to have and run a track. I just do not understand.
It is the 2010 figure that absolutely baffles me. It is not as
though we are starting from a blank sheet of paper: the issues
about greyhound welfare will have been known within the industry
as long as it has been running. I am puzzled that we seem to have
made so little progress round an effective regulatory track on
a self-regulatory basis and wonder why you are saying we need
a further six years to make it round the full course.
Lord Lipsey: I will ask John Haynes,
who chairs the BGRB Welfare Committee, in a moment to list some
of the things that have happened through regulation and in other
ways on the welfare front, so that you can see the progress that
has been made. The 2010 figure is not our figure; it is what the
Government have said they want to do. My own feeling is that if
we impose a hefty system of track regulation now you will impede
the process of change that is going on in the industry. Perhaps
I may just give you some examples. The money spent by the fund
on welfare has trebled over the last four years. The amount of
money going to the Retired Greyhound Trust has gone up to £850,000
in the current year and it will more than double in the coming
year. That is a huge welfare gain. As I say, the NGRC is completely
reviewing the rule book. I have protected vets on track from the
kind of "being sacked" problems that came up. In all
these ways we are moving things forward. I do not need government
regulation; I am moving as fast as I can, but I do welcome actually
pressure from organisations like Greyhounds UK and, indeed, the
early day motion that has been put down in this House because
that helps persuaded laggards in the industry that they have really
got to do something. I do not think an externally imposed legislative
code at this point would help me at all. John, would you like
to add on some of the welfare measures you have in hand?
Mr Haynes: Surely. Over the last
three years, since taking up the position of the Chairman of the
Welfare Committee which I hold, we have made the awareness of
greyhound welfare a priority amongst everybody involved in our
sport: promoters, trainers, kennel-hands, everybody. We have done
some projects. We have done air management work in racing kennels.
There was a problem three years ago: a greyhound died in the racing
kennels. We now ensure that every track in the country has an
air management system.
Q567 Chairman: You say "every track
in the country". Is that the 31 who are part of your organisation?
Mr Haynes: I am sorry, Chairman,
I can only speak for the NGRC tracks.
Q568 Chairman: So I would be right in
saying that on the 20 independent tracks we do not really have
any clear idea of the standards to which they are operating.
Mr Haynes: I would not think they
would have those standards. I do not know. But that is one of
the projects, which cost well over £1 million to complete.
We work very closely with the Society of Greyhound Vets now. We
are funding them up to £50,000 for a project for next year.
We are doing a training programme for kennel staff, track maintenance
people, to try to make the track safe. We have spent £75,000
on a track in Poole, on research to discover how we can make the
track safer for injuries—which is very, very successful.
The awareness of welfare now is very, very high. I believe that
some of the incidents which Greyhounds UK are talking about are
isolated incidents which happened in the past, and I believe that
they would agree that we are improving very, very fast in our
welfare concerns.
Q569 Chairman: Let me ask a question
following on from that. Lord Lipsey, you said you like the pressure
from Greyhounds UK and other organisations. Therefore, Mr Haynes,
in terms of the list of improvements you have identified, one
area which you did not touch on—and I appreciate you may
not have been able to give as comprehensive an answer as you might
have liked—was on matters connected with the frequency of
the racing of dogs. Indeed, in their evidence to us Greyhounds
UK draw our attention to the fact that, "Their view"—which
is your view—"about the frequency of racing is that
a dog should race not more than twice a day, whereas veterinary
surgeons consider that a race once a week is desirable."
How do you respond to that? It is a pretty sharp comment about
your practices if the welfare awareness is going up by leaps and
bounds, as you suggest.
Mr Haynes: Actually, that is very
easy, Chairman. Twice a day goes back to the old days, when they
used to have two sprint races, the first two races, and for the
last race on the programme they would have a sprint final. I have
not seen one of those for years. I can speak as an expert, as
a greyhound trainer, that we look for a race for a greyhound every
five days. I would want my greyhound to race very five days to
keep him in peak fitness. If it had to be three or four days,
if the dog was up to it, fine, but if a dog had to wait for seven
days, we would have to give him hard gallops in between to keep
him at his peak. I do not believe that is right—seven days
between a race—at all.
Q570 Chairman: Ms Purvis, how do you
respond to that, because you have put it down in the evidence
here in bold: "twice a day" and it caught my eye. I
could not miss it.
Ms Purvis: This is what the National
Greyhound Racing Club chief executive said to us, that that was
the rule: that they must not race more than twice a day. We brought
to him several months' experience of a track in Glasgow, where
the same dogs were racing every other day. We took him the itemised
information and asked, "Haven't you got a rule about this
sort of thing?" "No, that's our rule."
Mr Haynes: Would you like to name
that track for us, please?
Ms Purvis: That track was Shawfield.
Mr Haynes: Every other day?
Lord Lipsey: When was the information?
Mr Haynes: I do not believe it.
Q571 Chairman: Dr Crosbie wants to pour
some oil on the troubled waters that have been created perhaps.
Dr Crosbie: Obviously John does
not know about this, but, something like a fortnight ago, I was
talking to a handler at Wimbledon race track who informed me that
in all that humid weather in August, when temperatures were up
in the 30 degrees, Wimbledon track had no air conditioning in
its kennels and dogs were running at midday—a BAGS race
on a Sunday. It was a Sunday when I was at the kennels, and that
is why the subject came up. The air conditioning had been changed
in the hospitality suites; the trainers thought/assumed/hoped
that what had been taken out from there would be put into the
kennel area. They were not. The dogs were there still without
air conditioning in the heat.
Lord Lipsey: May I just—
Q572 Chairman: Just a minute. I will
let everybody have their say, but let's hear what Dr Crosbie has
to say.
Dr Crosbie: This is part of the
problem. This is why we want independent scrutiny, regulations
laid down that can be inspected independently. We have had assurances
that things will get better for the last seven years that I have
been connected to greyhound racing. It has always been promises:
everything will get better in the future. With the best will in
the world, you may not be here, Lord Lipsey, in 2010, and then
what happens? Does somebody else take over?—we hope with
the same ideals for welfare. There should be a rule book; there
should be systems; there should be structures and there are not.
There simply are not. And this is the Welfare Bill.
Q573 Chairman: I am going to give Lord
Lipsey a quick burst, then David Lepper wants to come in and Joan
Ruddock.
Lord Lipsey: I do think what has
just been said illustrates the danger of traveller's tales: "A
kennel-hand said . . . " At Wimbledon they had a booster
system put in for the summer on the kennel air management system.
"It is the end of August, it is going to be cold from now
on," so they took the thing out. Then the hot spell came
and, it is quite right, for a day there was not any air conditioning,
so they moved it back in. That was a mistake on Wimbledon's part—though
after the summer we have had you cannot be terribly surprised
at it. I do not think it is something that, to be honest, would
have been likely to have been prevented by any feasible system
of regulation.
Chairman: We have a flavour of some of
the problems with ensuring that standards are kept, universally,
both in a practical way as well as in reflection of the bill.
Q574 Mr Lepper: We have concentrated
on conditions at tracks so far and how they should or should not
be regulated. I am interested in the views of both organisations
about the transportation of greyhounds. I think the Bill at the
moment does not have anything to say about that. I just wonder
what the view of Greyhounds UK and of the Board is on that issue.
Dr Crosbie: A lot of greyhound
re-homing kennels—and this is Retired Greyhound Trust kennels
as well as the independent kennels there are, and there are a
lot of them—have to arrange their own transport to pick
up dogs from wherever. It is more difficult to re-home greyhounds,
for example, in the Sheffield area, and a lot of the kennels get
in touch with kennels down here and say, "Do you have room?"
because it is easier to re-home from here. These dogs have to
be transported and that is done in people's cars. There is no
transport laid on. The kennels do not have transport attached
to them automatically; they have to arrange their own to pick
up dogs and to go for home inspections and to then take the dog
to that home if it is re-homed.
Mr Haynes: For greyhound transport
by our trainers, which we are regulating now, we supply air management
systems to their vans free of charge. We are trying to make it
a rule. We have asked the NGRC to make it a rule that all greyhound
trainers' vans must have air management fitted. Also, when there
are more than two greyhounds travelling in a van, cages are supplied,
and the BGRB pay 50% towards those cages to be fitted. That is
a rule and we are hoping that the NGRC will make air management
a rule as well, as it is free to the trainers—no charge
to the trainers. We believe that gives the dogs comfort. The cages
we are talking about are a certain size, stipulated by the NGRC
and the greyhounds travel in comfort.
Q575 Mr Lepper: Would that apply to greyhounds
that have reached the end of their racing life and are going off
for re-homing, as Dr Crosbie has been talking about?
Mr Haynes: I do not know. I am
talking about greyhound trainers who are licensed by the NGRC.
I cannot talk for anybody other than the NGRC-licensed trainers.
Q576 Mr Lepper: Could I therefore ask
what arrangements the Board makes for retired greyhounds and what
happens to them when they have reached the end of their racing
ability—or, indeed, if they have proved not to be very good
at racing.
Lord Lipsey: The main organisations
responsible for getting dogs re-homed is the Retired Greyhound
Trust. As I think I said earlier, its income has gone up from
a feeble £250,000, before I had my debate in the Lords, up
to £850,000 this year and it will be an extra £1 million
next year. It works mostly through individual re-homing associations
attached to tracks and run on a voluntary basis. The biggest problem
we have is lack of people to re-home dogs, because it is no substitute
just to stick a dog in a kennel for the rest of their life. What
greyhound's like is to be on our sofas at home and they make wonderful
pets for that purpose. One of the things on which we are going
to spend the increased RGT resource is a major press and media
advertising campaign. Lots of people think that a greyhound can
need a lot of exercise: "It is a great big thing; I don't
want one of them" and we are going to launch a major advertising
programme which will carry on over a period of years to try to
get the number re-homed up, because that is where the constraint
lies at the moment. RGT re-homed about 2,000 dogs last year and
about 2,600 this year. The hope obviously is that if we can get
many more people to offer homes we will be able to increase that
figure many times over. I will give you one statistic: if one
in 1,000 households which at present own a dog (which is not a
greyhound) each year went over to a greyhound, we would be re-homing
every single greyhound that is capable of being re-homed from
this industry. So it is not an impossible task, and that is the
way we will tackle it.
Q577 Mr Lepper: The scheme you have been
sketching out there would be more likely to operate among those
tracks and trainers who are associated with you rather than with
the independent tracks. Am I right?
Lord Lipsey: Yes, that is right.
Q578 Mr Lepper: Or would you hope that
the influence would extend to the independents as well?
Lord Lipsey: In practice, when
you are re-homing greyhounds and they are earmarked, it is not
always possible to distinguish an NGRC greyhound from an independent
greyhound, and sometimes a greyhound has been both. But that does
bring me back to the question of independents which was raised
and which we did not tackle directly. My own view, if you look
at the nature of most of these independent tracks is that they
are disappearing at a rate of knots. They are mostly man and boy
operations, and, as time goes by, they go out of business at a
rate of knots, as I say. In my view, there are only two courses
for them: go out of business or join the NGRC with all the regulation
that that implies. There has been a difficulty, which is that
some of them say, "Yes, we would like to migrate but how
are we going to be able to afford to do that, because there are
all the extra things we need to do in terms of employing vets
and so on to do it?" I would like to see the industry—and
I have not yet convinced everybody but I think I am getting on
reasonably well now—introduce a scheme whereby we provide
loans to independent tracks to convert to full NGRC status and
regulation. It has been done. Kinsley, which is a wonderful little
track in Yorkshire run by a member of my Board, John Curren, has
converted extremely successfully and it is a lovely race track
and it is great. Not everybody will manage to do that and I am
afraid these tracks will shut. I also have to say that when they
do shut we often get letters from members of parliament that say,
"What's this about my local greyhound stadium shutting? This
is probably because there is too much regulation. Why can't you
do something to support it?" So we do have a dual problem.
Chairman: I will bring in Joan Ruddock,
because time is pressing on.
Q579 Joan Ruddock: I was going to ask
exactly that about the independents. I presume you are not suggesting
that the Bill says they must join your organisation. Over what
sort of time period are you expecting all these people to go out
of business if they do not join you?
Lord Lipsey: It is having to have
vets on track that will persuade them. There is a calculation
in the Bill, but it is north of £200 a night to have a vet
on track and, to be honest, very few of them would have that sort
of resource.
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