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Dr. Evan Harris : As my hon. Friend is standing down from his Front-Bench position, may I take this opportunity to pay tribute to his work on animal welfare? I am pleased to be able to agree with him on this issue; I do not agree with him on everything. The key point is that the onus must be placed on those who wish tail docking to continue to demonstrate their case. The safest option, given the scientific doubt that exists, is to introduce a ban and see whether there is an increase in the number of reports of tail damage in working dogs as a result. We could then review the position in five years' time. However, the default position should be to go along with the experts' opinion, to avoid taking a disproportionate approach to the issue.
Norman Baker: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In fact, he has stolen my conclusion from me. It is for those who wish to mutilate dogs to prove their case. I do not believe that the case is proven, or that mutilation is necessary, and I shall therefore vote in support of the new clause and of the amendment to it that has been sensibly tabled by the Under-Secretary.
Paddy Tipping (Sherwood) (Lab): I am grateful to be able to speak in this debate and to be able to support my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary in his rather uncomfortable position of voting against his own amendments. Like him, I want a ban on cosmetic docking, but with an exemption for working dogs. There are many different, deeply held views in the Chamber on this matter.
I am relatively new to this issue, and I come to it with no preconceptions. I became involved in it when I was a member of the Select Committee that looked at the draft Animal Welfare Bill. I also had the opportunity to take part in the debate as a member of the Standing Committee. The report produced by the Select Committee was a good one; it was unanimous, and among its findings was the recommendation that
It also commented that allowing an exemption for working dogs was difficult in view of the practicalities involved, but concluded that the best way forward was to introduce an exemption, provided that the procedure was carried out by a vet. The vet should take the necessary steps to establish that the dog was to be a working dog, and should maintain records and microchip the dog with details of who had done the docking. The vet should also give the owner a certificate showing why the dog had been docked. I think those are good recommendations from the Select Committee; I have not changed my view on them at all.
Dr. Nick Palmer (Broxtowe) (Lab): On that point, has my hon. Friend seen the letter from the RCVS? On whether a puppy is likely to be used as a working dog, it says:
"In the College's view it would not be appropriate for a veterinary surgeon to offer such an opinion. Veterinary surgeons are trained to diagnose and treat disease . . . and their expertise
- does not extend to assessing the intentions of the current or a future owner . . . . It is . . . not possible . . . to judge whether a particular puppy in a litter will prove suitable for training".
Paddy Tipping: Of course I have seen the RCVS letter and I have had discussions with the RCVS. I want to make the point—my hon. Friend was not in the Chamber—that the vets who work for the RCVS will do whatever Parliament decides. It is up to Parliament to decide on this issue, not the vets. Vets have a long training, and if that is too difficult an issue to discuss with an owner in relation to their intention—that is all vets are being asked to do and to certify best intent—I think vets are putting themselves down fairly badly.
I support the Select Committee report and I am delighted by the new clause, which takes all the points that the Select Committee has asked for and puts them down in detail. My hon. Friend the Minister has made the point that the strong aspect of the new clause is the unique proposal that will stop the showing of dogs that have been docked. That will stop the impetus towards docking dogs for cosmetic reasons.
The new clause has been carefully crafted, and I support it. It will do the things that I want to be done. I accept that this is a difficult area, but the Government and the parliamentary draftsmen have used their best endeavours—the new clause is perfectly clear. What is not clear is the scientific basis. Everyone who has spoken in the Chamber has acknowledged that. The only people to produce any reliable statistics are the police, and they have been accused of being anecdotal.
It is interesting to note that the police, Customs and search and rescue organisations, as well as those connected with shooting, all agree that there is a case for an exemption for working dogs. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) rightly said that this Chamber is searched each day by dogs that have been docked. It is important to see what evidence the police can produce. The Metropolitan police dog training school says very clearly that 10 dogs have had full amputations as a result of accidents at work.
Mr. Borrow: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a difference between tail docking and full tail amputation, and that those dogs that have their tails docked as puppies retain most of their tail? The advantage they get from having a tail in terms of wagging and balance is also largely retained. Those dogs that injure themselves and have the whole tail docked lose the whole of that advantage and are in a much worse position.
Paddy Tipping: My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac), who is a good friend of mine and normally has similar views to mine, dismissed the notion of amputation by saying that only 20 dogs are involved, but it is important to those 20 dogs, as it is for working dogs. The Bill is about animal welfare. I want animal welfare for all animals. I want dogs that go out and work to be protected. That is what the new clause will do.
I want protection for working dogs and I want to listen to the voice of the rural community on this issue. I have met many dog owners who go out shooting whose dogs have been docked. Again, I have listened to the
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anecdotal evidence. I want to hear and respond to the voice of the organisations involved—the police, the rescue services and the shooting sector.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on the new clause and I hope very much that Parliament will reflect on it and vote for it tonight.
6.45 pm
Mr. Atkinson : I will be brief—I know that many other hon. Members want to take part in this short debate—and I start by drawing the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests, which is relevant to the debate.
The hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) made an extremely good case for the exemption for gun dogs. I think he is playing it wise in deciding how to vote on this. Sadly, I cannot agree with him, as I shall oppose the new clause and the Minister's amendments, which he does not agree with, because I believe that we should retain the status quo.
My particular reason for thinking that way is that I dislike bans. Parliament is increasingly getting into the habit of telling people what to do and not allowing individuals to make up their own mind on important issues. We did that with the Hunting Bill quite recently, and just the other day Parliament was telling pub owners, club owners and restaurateurs whether they would be allowed to have smokers or non-smokers in their establishments.
Today, we are once again producing a ban. In relation to anything to do with animals, reason often seems to flee the Chamber. I wonder what some of the people from history who sat on these Benches and debated matters of huge importance would think about the House spending two hours talking about whether a third of a puppy's tail should be removed. Perhaps this shows that ours is becoming a very nannyish state.
Norman Baker: I hope that history will look on us and see that we have shown some interest in animals, which is a good thing for the House to do. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that it is perfectly proper, as he says, to consider bans a last resort, which is a view I share, but must he not balance the right of individuals to do what they wish with the consequence for the animals? If he believes that the consequence for the animals is harmless, fair enough, but he must weigh those two together.
Mr. Atkinson: The answer to the hon. Gentleman's point is that the evidence is not conclusive on either side, which is why we should leave this to individuals. It is also why I believe that the hunting ban is wrong. People should make their own mind up on these issues.
Another reason for my voting against is that we are in danger of producing bad legislation. Goodness knows, the Hunting Bill was a bad enough muddle; this Bill will be a muddle even if it contains an exemption for gun dogs. I asked the Minister early in his speech what would happen if I acquired a dog with a docked tail, born after the legislation had come into force, and I could not produce any microchip evidence or a certificate from the
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vet. I could just say, "Well, guv, an Irishman sold it to me at a fair." It might be a stray or I might have got it from a man in a pub.
As the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) said, it is easy for people to dock their own dogs. It is estimated that there are 1 million docked dogs in this country and very few vets that do it. Even today, there must be quite a number of illegally docked dogs. It will be easy to get round the legislation.
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