6 July 2011 : Column 463WH
6 July 2011 : Column 463WH
Westminster Hall
Wednesday 6 July 2011
[Hugh Bayley in the Chair]
Dangerous Dogs
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Miss Chloe Smith.)
9.30 am
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. I am immensely grateful to Mr Speaker for allowing this debate. We can see from the number of Members present in the Chamber what an important subject this is and how much concern it has caused.
I should declare an interest at the outset as the owner of two adorable cocker spaniels. However, although they are both quite mad, exhibiting all the natural exuberance of the breed, neither has an aggressive bone in its body, and they are dangerous only in their capacity to leap around.
The issue of dangerous dogs affects many rural and urban constituencies and has been raised with me on numerous occasions since last year’s general election. Experiences differ: in one constituency, I have been faced with complaints about dogs being used as weapons and with the problem of dogs exhibiting pack behaviour and attacking farm animals and domestic pets. I will never forget the day when I received in the post a package containing photographs of a Jack Russell terrier that had been ripped to shreds by a larger dog.
Legislation is outdated and ineffective in addressing a problem that evidence indicates is growing. The Dogs Act 1871 is still in force, but it was significantly updated by the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and the Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Act 1997, which made owning certain types of dogs a criminal offence. Until then, to be responsible for a dangerous dog was only a civil offence. The 1991 Act was a legislative reaction to a series of high-profile attacks by pit bull terriers.
I am not saying that that legislation was wrong, but it has caused heartache for the owners of dogs that have done nothing wrong other than appearing to be of the wrong breed or type. It has certainly not prevented further tragedies—indeed, they have increased—and it has caused police forces and local authorities enormous sums in court cases and kennelling fees. It has been in desperate need of updating for a long time.
Why do I believe that now is an appropriate time to update the legislation? At long last, there is widespread agreement among different organisations about the way forward. Some 20 different bodies, including the National Dog Warden Association, the Police Federation, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Communication Workers Union and Battersea Dogs and Cats Home have now reached a level of agreement about what might be effective.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con):
I agree that it is not the dogs but the owners who are dangerous in many respects, especially people with status dogs who train them to be vicious. Such dogs are known to be
6 July 2011 : Column 464WH
vicious, and postal workers and midwives go into homes where such dogs have been trained to be vicious and are attacked. We must do something about that.
Caroline Nokes: I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which I will certainly address later. The crucial point is that in many cases it is the owners who are dangerous, not the dogs.
Any proposed solution must be practical and in the best interests of both dogs and their owners. Not only dog welfare organisations but professional bodies, trade unions and charities covering wide interest areas have all concluded that the current law on irresponsible dog ownership is simply inadequate. New legislation has been passed in both Scotland and Northern Ireland, and consistency across the whole United Kingdom would be helpful. Finally, in an era of austerity, the current legislation places an immense financial burden on hard-pressed bodies, such as local authorities, our police, national health and ambulance services and not to mention animal welfare organisations, which all too often end up picking up the pieces.
Under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, it is a criminal offence for a dog owner or the person in charge of a dog to allow it to be dangerously out of control in a public place. Such a dog is defined as one that has injured someone or that a person has reasonable grounds to believe might do so. The most contentious part of the 1991 Act is section 1, which details the breeds of dog that it is an offence to own or keep. Four types of dog are referred to specifically, including the notorious pit bull terrier, Japanese fighting dogs and Brazilian mastiffs.
The original intention of the 1991 Act was that due to the restraints and conditions placed on owners, such dogs would simply die out, having been destroyed or compulsorily neutered, and that they would all have been eradicated by now. However, that clearly has not been the case. Evidence suggests that their popularity, and hence their number, has risen. The number of bull terriers taken in by Battersea Dogs Home has increased dramatically. I mention Staffordshire bull terriers in particular for reasons that I hope will become clear. In 1996, 380 bull terrier types were received at Battersea. Last year, there were nearly 2,500. Many of those dogs were not pit bulls but Staffies. I appreciate fully the clear difference between a Staffordshire bull terrier and an American pit bull. The Staffie is well known as a bold and fearless dog, but it is also affectionate, particularly with children. By contrast, the pit bull is a breed created by interbreeding terriers and bulldogs specifically for illegal dog fights.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP): I commend the hon. Lady on securing this debate. Does she agree that the trick is to get the balance right so that the law takes action on irresponsible owners of any breed of dog? We need to enact legislation in respect of those owners without penalising responsible dog owners who are prepared to look after their dogs, keep them on a leash and ensure that they do not get out of control.
Caroline Nokes: That is exactly the problem. It is all very well to ban a particular breed, but any dog can be dangerous, whatever the breed. We must consider behaviour and responsible ownership. I am the first to concede that getting that balance right will be difficult. I am sure that that is part of the reason why—
6 July 2011 : Column 465WH
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. On that point, before we all rush to enact more legislation and regulation, in many cases the current legislation is not always enforced properly. Before we introduce another Act, we must ensure that local agencies, the police and so on enforce current legislation. In many cases, they do not.
Caroline Nokes: That is valid. My hon. Friend makes a good point. Enforcement is certainly not consistent. However, I am seeking consolidation of the legislation to make it easier to enforce consistently across the country.
As I was saying, the problem is that Staffordshire bull terriers and pit bulls share many visual characteristics. Naturally affectionate Staffies are either mistaken for pit bulls by the authorities, resulting in seizure, kennelling and lengthy legal battles to prove that they are not one of the banned breeds, or—which is much worse, in my view—are deliberately selected for their status dog appearance and then trained to be aggressive, or not trained at all. As all of us who are dog owners know, any pet requires a reasonable level of training and discipline to become a pleasant, well-behaved member of the family.
I contend that much behaviour is learned rather than inherent, and that wrong handling or deliberate training to provoke aggression can turn any dog into a potential problem. The rise of so-called status dogs, which are often linked to antisocial behaviour, cannot necessarily be addressed by breed-specific legislation. The real cause of the problem is the owner’s actions rather than the breed of dog.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP): I congratulate the hon. Lady on obtaining this important debate. I pay tribute to Banbridge high school in my constituency, which has taken a great interest in the matter and made it into a project. She has mentioned Northern Ireland. One blight on Northern Ireland is illegal dog fights for gambling and so on. Does she agree that if illegal dog fights are found to be occurring—we need the general public to provide information about them—the full rigour of the law must be brought to bear on the people who hold such fights? Those people train dogs to be vicious, while people who look after their pets properly are penalised.
Caroline Nokes: I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the problem of illegal dog fighting. He is correct to say there has been a rise in such cases not only in Northern Ireland, but here in the capital, London, in particular. He is right that the full rigour of the law must be brought to bear.
One problem is that, while some dogs may have certain characteristics, it does not mean that they are fighting or status dogs, either by temperament or by upbringing. There is a fundamental problem with the assumption that one breed or type is dangerous and others are not. That misses the point that it is owners, not dogs, who pose the risk, and that a dog’s behaviour will be largely dependent on its upbringing, socialisation and home environment. Ultimately, the law should be targeted at individuals taking responsibility for their dogs, not at dogs for simply being dogs.
6 July 2011 : Column 466WH
There is, however, a significant problem with aggressive and out-of-control dogs. I emphasise that much of the problem stems from irresponsible ownership, but we cannot get away from the fact that eight people have been killed in dog attacks in the past four years. According to the Communication Workers Union, 6,000 postal workers are attacked by dogs every single year. Attacks on farm animals cost in the region of £2.8 million a year, and there have been 74 reported attacks on horses in the past three years. Other dogs are certainly not immune. According to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, there are three attacks a month on guide dogs.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab): I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this incredibly popular debate. I have a constituent whose guide dog was attacked by another dog and, when the guide dog was retired, my constituent was refused a replacement on the grounds that there were too many dangerous dogs in the area. Does the hon. Lady agree that we should ask the Government to look at that specific issue?
Caroline Nokes: The hon. Lady makes a valid point. Guide dogs are not simply pets or companions, because they enable the visually impaired to lead a normal life. It is critical that we look at that problem. It is unacceptable that a blind person should be penalised simply because there is a type of aggressive and unpleasant dog in the surrounding area. Statistics for the number of attacks on family pets in public places are not available, because those attacks are too numerous.
I represent a small corner of New Forest national park, which is extremely popular with dog walkers, and I am conscious from both my own experience and the comments of local residents that not all owners who utilise the area to walk their pets have their dogs adequately under control. I am not suggesting that Wellow common is rife with dog attacks—it is not—but incidents involving out-of-control, aggressive dogs do occur, and for every person or other dog involved, it is not only terrifying, but dangerous.
There is also a significant cost, both to individuals and to the public purse, as a consequence of the rising incidence of dog attacks. Every single strategic health authority has experienced an increase in accident and emergency admissions due to dog bites. It is hard to estimate the financial cost accurately, but attempts to do so indicate that, over the past few years, it has been more than £2.5 million a year. In Hampshire, the local police have experienced a clear rise in the number of incidents involving dangerous dogs, and there is increasing anecdotal evidence of status dogs being used in the county instead of firearms or knives. Among the criminally inclined, there is a growing awareness that the potential punishments for having a dangerous dog are far lower than for other weapons.
Tackling the issue is expensive for my local police force. Last year, it spent about £30,000 on kennelling fees, but that is tiny in comparison with the Metropolitan police, which spends £9,000 a day and has budgeted for £10 million to be available for the seizure and kennelling of dogs over the next three years. For every dog seized, there is a human cost. As owners struggle to prove that their family pet is innocent of any crime, families are deprived of its companionship, and the poor animal
6 July 2011 : Column 467WH
itself is deprived of its liberty and the chance to have a normal existence. The great irony is that the stress placed on a kennelled dog makes that pet more likely to develop behavioural issues.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con): This is an important debate. Perhaps the Minister will address this later, but does the hon. Lady have any information about the tests that are available nowadays which show the DNA of a dog’s parents and their breed types in a matter of minutes? We can use technology to accelerate decisions and make sure that dogs that should not be kept in kennels are released back to their families.
Caroline Nokes: My hon. Friend is right. DNA testing to determine the type of dog is much easier now than it was when the legislation was introduced. It is interesting that, in the past week, the Government have acknowledged the dreadful stress placed on dogs in quarantine and have announced a relaxation of those time limits, yet some dogs whose breed type is under question end up kennelled for several years.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP): In our previous jobs, my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) and I were members of the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development in the Northern Ireland Assembly and were involved in legislative change in relation to dangerous dogs in Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be helpful for the Minister and his Department to make direct contact with the Northern Ireland Assembly in order to gauge the lessons that we learned about important legislative changes?
Caroline Nokes: I thank the hon. Gentleman. Progress towards legislative change has been made not only in Northern Ireland, but in Scotland. Such progress has, sadly, been lacking here.
Any legislation must be evidence based, proportionate and, importantly, best debated and drafted away from the perfectly understandable reaction that is always to the fore when there has been a dreadful attack. I do not seek to undermine the importance of and need for legislation to protect the public from dogs that are a danger, that have been trained and encouraged to be aggressive, and that, in increasing instances, are used as a weapon. That is why I welcome several of the components of Lord Redesdale’s Dog Control Bill, which was introduced in the other place and is currently on Third Reading. It aims to consolidate existing legislation, give greater flexibility and discretion to enforcers and the courts, include a genuine preventive effect, improve public safety and animal welfare and reduce the costs of enforcement.
At present, enforcers have to wait for an incident to occur before they can step in and deal with the animal. As we have heard, there is a lack of consistent enforcement, but if police have a dog of a banned type drawn to their attention, they must act, whether that dog has done anything aggressive or not.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con):
I have agreed entirely with every word my hon. Friend has said until now, but she seems to have slipped back from her argument of a moment ago that it is the deed, not the breed, that matters. She now seems to be saying that it is
6 July 2011 : Column 468WH
the breed that matters and that, if the police are aware of a particular breed and that there is DNA evidence or a microchip to prove it, they should step in prior to an incident. Surely the process should be incident-driven, not breed-driven.
Caroline Nokes: With respect to my hon. Friend, that is my exact point. Under the current legislation, if a banned type or breed is drawn to the police’s attention, the police must act, regardless of its behaviour. There is currently no provision for an owner to be able to apply to a court for a seized dog to be returned, and the 1991 Act predicts a dog’s behaviour based on its physical conformation, which, I would contend, is simply wrong.
Indeed, to drift off into the anecdotal, the dog that made me run in the opposite direction fastest during last year’s general election campaign was a golden retriever. That breed is never going to appear on a list of dangerous dogs, but the one that I encountered seemed rather enamoured by the prospect of chewing my leg off. We need to establish in law the principle that it is the deed, not the breed, that determines whether a dog is dangerous or not. That view is widely held, even at the very highest levels of Government.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP): As my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has indicated, I used to chair the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development in the Northern Ireland Assembly, which is a grand place. Whenever we dealt with the issue of legislation, the key point was that it was backed up by adequate resources, so that the police or whoever was responsible for enforcement—it could be another agency, such as a local authority—would be able to enforce it. The most important issue was that the local authority was adequately resourced by central Government. Whatever legislative change the hon. Lady goes for, I urge her to insist that the necessary resources be made available to allow it to take proper effect.
Caroline Nokes: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution and hope that the Minister will comment on it later.
I would appreciate the Minister’s comments on the range of possible measures to tackle the problem. The possible solutions include dog control notices, compulsory microchipping, muzzling in public places and, importantly, training for owners. Rather than generalising a type or a breed, those are practical suggestions that directly address the specific behaviour and the ways to ameliorate it.
Failure to comply with a dog control notice could lead to the responsible person becoming liable to a fine and potentially being disqualified from owning or keeping a dog for a prescribed period. This issue has been the subject of numerous written and oral questions, consultation and reviews of existing legislation. The issue is not confined to cities, but I highlight the work of the deputy Mayor of London, the Metropolitan police and many hon. and right hon. Members who represent constituencies in the capital, where there are certainly greater issues than in other parts of the country. Yet still we have unsatisfactory legislation that does not address the rise of the so-called status dog, which has impacted on the police and on their ability to carry out their role. The legislation desperately needs updating.
6 July 2011 : Column 469WH
I urge the Minister to publish the Government’s response to the consultation on dangerous dogs, for which we have been waiting a considerable time. Will he also indicate whether he supports the measures in Lord Redesdale’s Bill, and whether he will consider introducing compulsory microchipping? I am the first to acknowledge that that is a measure of traceability rather than prevention, but it was simply not an option in 1991 when the Dangerous Dogs Act was introduced. Microchipping was first introduced in the UK in about 2000. The procedure is now commonplace and can be carried out by not only vets but registered practitioners, which has brought down the cost. I appreciate that microchipping will inevitably be most prevalent among the law-abiding majority, but it will indelibly link dog to owner and provide an important step forward.
Obviously there will need to be a register that is updated at every change of ownership, but dogs do not change hands that often. The vast majority of owners have dogs for life and, although I understand concerns that a register will be another imposition on responsible citizens, it will also be a way to steadily move towards a situation in which owners are accountable and dogs behaving in an antisocial way are identifiable. If there is no excuse for mistaken identity, enforcement officers will be able to judge the deed not the breed.
Mr Gray: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend up to now. However, does she not remember the days when we had dog licences? They did not work. The bad guys did not have them; only the good guys had them. Surely what she is proposing is a bureaucratic, interventionist, centralised solution to the issue. If we want to deal with the problem of people who have criminal intent and behave badly, licensing dogs will not achieve that.
Caroline Nokes: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, but I disagree with him. This is not about licensing; this is about being able to scientifically identify a dog that has perpetrated some sort of unpleasant deed. Many other types of animals are microchipped and are identifiable from birth. We could easily have registers that trace any transfer of ownership. As I have said and as the Dogs Trust has taught us, a dog is for life, not just for Christmas. They rarely change hands, and we simply need to move to a situation whereby we can identify who is responsible for which dog.
As I said at the outset, we are 20 years on from the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Police forces, animal welfare organisations, vets and nurses all believe that that legislation failed to solve the problem. It is high time that that failure was addressed.
Hugh Bayley (in the Chair): Order. It is clear that there is likely to be more demand than supply when it comes to speeches. I intend to start the winding-up speeches at 10.40 am, so we have about 50 minutes for debate. I do not have any power to stop Members speaking, but I ask people to try to be kind to their colleagues.
6 July 2011 : Column 470WH
9.53 am
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab): It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. I congratulate the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing this important and timely debate. The vital context for many of her comments is the consensus, to which she referred, around the need to introduce, update and consolidate the laws on dog control. The fact that Scotland and Northern Ireland are legislating makes it important that we follow the lead of the devolved Assemblies and update the legislation.
The hon. Lady set out clearly the case for changing the law. Between 2004 and 2008, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has seen a twelvefold increase in reports of dog-fighting. As she mentioned, more than 6,000 postal workers are injured every year by dogs. The estimated cost to the state of dealing with issues relating to irresponsible dog ownership is £76.8 million, which does not include the costs of dog welfare enforcement. That figure alone indicates the need to update the legislation, prevent and educate in order to reduce the incidence of irresponsible dog ownership, thereby reducing the overall cost.
Some 2,500 adults and 2,200 children were either treated in A and E or admitted to hospital for dog-related incidents in 2006-07, and eight people were killed by dogs in the past four years—six children and two adults. I think we would all agree that that is six children and two adults too many. In addition, some 197 people were seriously injured.
In an age of austerity, we can’t go on like this, to borrow a phrase from the general election. We need to educate, prevent and enforce. Many hon. Members have long been persuaded of the need to act. For me, the starting point was Christmas 2006, when there was a horrendous attack on a postal worker called Paul Coleman in Sheffield. He was dragged to the ground by a dog in a street outside the property at which the dog resided. Paul Coleman suffered horrendous injuries. He needed plastic surgery and skin grafts to his leg to try to repair the damage. I have met him and the scars from that attack are visible to this day. The psychological scars will remain for ever, along with the physical ones.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP): I accept that it is vital that on the mainland in the United Kingdom there is an essential strengthening of the legislation, and we must get it right. However, that in itself is not the answer. We need to ensure that the legislation is enforced. How does the hon. Lady think that will be done in reality?
Angela Smith: I will come on to that later, because it is a very important point.
After the attack I mentioned, the Communication Workers Union—the postal workers’ union—launched its bite-back campaign, which has been incredibly successful in raising the profile of the issue. I think that the Minister acknowledges that. I place on the record today the importance of the work done by the CWU in partnership with the RSPCA. They have played a critical role in bringing us to where we are today. About three years ago, I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill based on the bite-back campaign to try to get the law changed.
6 July 2011 : Column 471WH
However, before I could get the Bill on the Floor of the House, there was another serious attack involving a postal worker in Cambridge, who nearly lost his arm as a result of a dog escaping from inside the gates of a property. Two Rottweilers dragged him to the ground and, as I say, he nearly lost his arm.
In that case, there was an attempt at prosecution on the grounds that the dog attacked on public property. However, the case was thrown out because the attack happened in an unadopted cul-de-sac. That judgment effectively means that there is very little protection not just on private property, but beyond the boundaries of what most of us would understand to be private property. That case alone highlights and underlines the need not only to consolidate, but to strengthen the law, as the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) mentioned a moment ago.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con): I would like to mention a case in my constituency, where a young child was attacked by a dog on private property. After the child had been taken to hospital and things had calmed down, the parents understandably rang the police and said, “Can you do something?”. They were told, “We can’t act because it’s on private property and therefore it’s a civil matter.” Surely we must do something about such cases.
Angela Smith: We must absolutely do something about that. Every single time a child is seriously attacked or killed on private property, usually in the home of a grandmother or a relative, it makes it incumbent on legislators to strengthen the law, so that we can reduce and possibly eliminate such attacks. It is absolutely critical that we act. I am fed up of being asked to go on radio or television to comment on yet another attack on a child on private property, or another attack on a postal worker, a midwife, a health visitor and so on. It goes on and on.
Last year, Labour Members persuaded the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), to initiate the consultation that we are discussing. I place on the record my appreciation of the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who was then Home Secretary, and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), who was at that time a Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. They were both absolutely instrumental in persuading the then Prime Minister of the need for change. The consultation finished more than a year ago, and since then the case for updating the law has not changed. The health costs of dealing with dog-related injuries have not reduced. In fact, if anything, the case since June last year has strengthened.
What needs to be done? The hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North laid out the case for change very well indeed. We need to prevent. We need dog prevention notices, or dog ASBOs, as they are often called. That may require a range of measures on the part of a dog owner to restrain and control a dog properly, including muzzling in public and keeping a dog on a lead at all times. There are all sorts of measures that could be included in a dog penalty notice to encourage more responsible ownership. I agree with the hon. Lady
6 July 2011 : Column 472WH
that we need to repeal section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. It is deed, not breed, and it is the owner, not the dog, that we need to focus on in legislation.
We need to enforce, which is a point that was raised earlier. We need the law to apply to private property, so that enforcement can be initiated. At the moment, it is impossible to do anything at all. We need a range of penalties for irresponsible dog ownership, including disqualification if necessary and/or deprivation of ownership. We need more severe penalties, especially at the extreme end of irresponsible dog control, involving dogs as weapons. We need more consistent and effective enforcement of dog control measures, including, if necessary, more dog wardens and police dog legislation officers. That is the point about the microchip and the reintroduction of a licensing system. That system not only helps with enforcement, but means that we can raise the funds necessary to enforce more consistently across the country; that is the key point. Local authorities will lose 28% of their budgets in the next four years. They need the funds to enforce properly, as do the police.
We need education. We need dedicated budgets for local authorities and trained officers to be made available, not just to enforce new legislation, but to ensure that owners are educated about responsible dog ownership. I met a woman a couple of years ago whose dog attacked her own child on her own property. She was in the house doing a bit of hoovering. The dog attacked her boy in the garden, and she has never reconciled herself to what happened that day. She is now passionate about the need to educate owners about responsible dog ownership.
I think it seems obvious to everyone in the Chamber that nobody should ever leave a dog alone with a child, but people out there do need to be educated on these points—they need that. Education is critical to the success of any legislation. There is public support for updating the legislation: 78% of the public want the law updated and consolidated. I call on the Minister to put on the record today that he will inform the House, before the recess, of his response to the consultation, and that he will recommend that we update and consolidate the legislation.
Finally, the Prime Minister sent a letter to the Communication Workers Union on 30 April 2010, in which he stated that his party’s manifesto pledged support for
“updating the Act in such a way that it provides adequate protection for all and ensures that dog owners are fully responsible for their dogs.”
“We support extending dangerous dogs law to cover all places including private property”.
I therefore call on the Minister to fulfil the manifesto commitment, and the commitment made by the Prime Minister last year.
10.3 am
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con): I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing this important debate.
I first raised the issue of dangerous dogs in my maiden speech in the House last year. Having heard a number of horror stories from constituents about out-of-control dogs terrorising parks and open spaces, it
6 July 2011 : Column 473WH
was quickly obvious that Ealing and Acton, like the rest of London, has a serious problem. I put on record my support for the approach in the coalition agreement—cracking down on irresponsible owners who use their dogs as weapons—and I hope that we still agree that that is the correct approach. This debate is important, a year on, because we really need to see some action.
There have been some whisperings that an announcement from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs might be imminent. I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s words this morning. It is true that last year’s DEFRA public consultation provided some interesting responses and talking points, as I am sure the recent Home Office consultation on antisocial behaviour will. Yet, in essence, that is part of the problem. The issue of dangerous dogs cuts across several Government Departments. We need a co-ordinated approach to finally get something done.
My Adjournment debate on dangerous dogs, this time last year, touched on that. In my speech, I focused on two measures that I thought might be helpful as a way forward. At the time, the Minister reacted positively. The first measure would be to attach court orders to the sentence of anyone found guilty of a crime involving violence or drug dealing. Those court orders would ban the person from being in control of a dog in a public place for a fixed amount of time. My local police assure me that that would be easily enforceable—they know their local criminals. That would not deal with the problem entirely, but would provide a measure of reassurance to the public. The second idea is to make local authorities attach conditions on dog ownership to tenancy agreements. I am pleased to hear that a number of local authorities are considering that and beginning to apply it. That would go some way towards dealing with dogs that are a nuisance to neighbours, as would a requirement to microchip, which is essential to ensure proper responsibility. I am aware, however, that neither of the measures are necessarily areas that DEFRA could take the lead on. Nevertheless, this is a pressing problem, and we need a common approach across Departments.
The issue filters down to a local level, too. Our local dog warden in Ealing has told me on a number of occasions how frustrating it is that doing something about dangerous dogs is talked about endlessly, but nothing ever actually gets done. Similarly, he cannot understand why each borough attempts to tackle their own problem in their own way, often quite differently. He feels that a common approach is surely needed. We need direction from the top.
The Deputy Mayor of London, Kit Malthouse, has been leading the way on the issue for the Mayor of London, as my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North mentioned. His focus on getting tougher sentences for owners of weapon dogs or status dogs—whatever you want to call them—who use their dogs for crime, is entirely right and a good example to follow. I hope that we start to see some action soon. He also wants tougher enforcement against ownership of banned breeds. I take the point that we are talking about deeds rather than breeds. I also suggest that it tends to be dangerous owners who are more of a problem than dangerous dogs. We have to recognise,
6 July 2011 : Column 474WH
however, that there are breeds that very much lend themselves to weapon status, and they must be controlled. Kit Malthouse says, rightly, that the whole court process must be speeded up, partly to save the public purse from the costs of kennelling, which costs £2.5 million a year in London alone, but also because it is cruel to keep animals cooped up for weeks on end.
Speaking as a London MP, I am only too aware that our open spaces are especially precious in built-up areas. That is why it is so galling when some thug dominates the space with a weapon dog kitted out with the usual status paraphernalia and spoils everyone’s pleasure. Not so long ago a puppy was ripped to pieces in Walpole park in my constituency, in front of a distraught mother and her son. I also recognise, however, that we need to amend the law to cover private land. The law must be able to intervene when a dog attack takes place on private property, just as it can in a case of domestic abuse. Somebody pointed out the other day that it seems ridiculous that if a postman puts his hand through a letter box and is bitten by a dog, no action can be taken. However, if the owner of the house happened to be standing behind the letterbox and for some reason decided to bite the hand of the postman, that would automatically be an assault—an offence that the police would look into. We need a proper balance. We must protect those workers who need access to private properties and children who are at risk.
The problem will not go away. It is getting worse and we need our Ministers, right across Government, to get together and sort it out before we are all confronted by yet another terrible tragedy.
10.9 am
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab): It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this morning, Mr Bayley. I congratulate the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who saw off a lot of competition to secure this debate, on giving us all the opportunity to have this discussion with the Minister.
I asked about dangerous dogs twice last week in the House, at Home Office questions and in Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions. As the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) has just said, because the issue is cross-departmental, it is more complicated. However, I was grateful for the positive responses from both Ministers on the Treasury Bench. Also, as was referred to earlier, the coalition agreement is positive in that its programme for government states:
“We will promote responsible pet ownership…and will ensure that enforcement agencies target irresponsible owners of dangerous dogs.”
On the back of last year’s DEFRA consultation, which received more than 4,000 responses, I and other colleagues hope that the Minister will indicate the Government’s conclusions and the way forward.
I have had, as have many colleagues, various meetings with a number of organisations, most recently with the Dogs Trust, the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Association of Chief Police Officers. They all want a Bill. I am grateful to them for their briefings, and the consensus across the piece is that any Bill must consolidate legislation concerning dog control, allow
6 July 2011 : Column 475WH
greater flexibility and discretion to enforcers and the courts, include a genuine preventive effect, update some offences, improve public safety and animal welfare and reduce the cost of enforcement, all of which have been referred to by colleagues so far.
As the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North said, breed-specific legislation is not effective in tackling the real cause of the problem, but should—there is agreement—relate to the owner’s acts and omissions rather than the type of dog. All the groups mentioned also believe that, without the political will to repeal breed-specific legislation, it must be amended to ensure better canine welfare and a clear strategy must be put in place to phase out the breed-specific legislation. The third main pillar of the consensus is that the scope of updated legislation must be extended to cover all places, including private property, to ensure better public safety and animal welfare. It must also provide suitable defences for responsible dog owners—for example, if people are attacked and their dog defends them. I want to focus a few remarks on the third point.
I was e-mailed by two constituents, Mr and Mrs Sprosson of Wapping. They were walking their dog last Friday and were subjected to a vicious attack by a dogo Argentino. Both their dog and Mr Sprosson were seriously injured. It was very much the usual story, with no owner in sight, although one eventually came into the open. My constituents are very unhappy with the response to their 999 calls to both the police and the ambulance—I am pursuing those concerns with the borough police commander and the chief executive of the London ambulance service—but those responses were almost symptomatic of the problem caused by inadequate legislation, which does not give the emergency services clear indications of how they ought to respond. Mrs Sprosson, in her e-mail, concluded:
“It is only a matter of time before this dog attacks again. Judging by its size, strength and alarming aggression it could easily kill a child and very badly damage an adult. What will it take for the police to address this terrible situation? How many more people will it be allowed to damage before they are forced to take action?”
The statistics, quoted by many and in the speeches this morning, are quite clear. We have seen a twelvefold increase in dog fighting between 2004 and 2008, according to figures from the RSPCA; 6,000-plus attacks on postal workers every year, according to the Communication Workers Union; 1,000-plus dogs seized by the Metropolitan police in 2009 and 2010, according to the Mayor of London’s office; and, sadly, as has been referred to, eight people killed and 197 seriously injured in the past four years. All of that is costing the taxpayer money, quite apart from the untold suffering.
I have not mentioned compulsory microchipping for all dogs, which many of us support, although perhaps not the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray). That would be a modern, 21st-century solution to registering dogs, tracking owners and ensuring that those responsible are held to account when things go wrong.
In conclusion, there is cross-party, animal welfare, police and public support for a Bill dealing with dangerous dogs and irresponsible owners. The Minister is sympathetic and DEFRA and the Home Office want to make progress. Colleagues in the Chamber are not being over-critical but genuinely trying to be helpful in giving momentum to what Ministers and civil servants want to achieve, which is updating the legislation.
6 July 2011 : Column 476WH
10.15 am
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con): I am grateful to you, Mr Bayley, for allowing me to speak now. I join in the congratulations for my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes).
I will deal with two issues, one of which is to add to the momentum about consolidation, and the other is to touch on the law of unintended consequences. I have been fascinated and to some extent enlightened by the rare outbreak of consensus among all parties—we seldom hear so many hon. Members making the same points for the right reasons in Westminster Hall or the main Chamber—but one issue does concern me. There has been much reference to evidence and statistics that suggest an increase in attacks by dangerous dogs or, indeed, by dogs. Is that a trend with evidence to which the Minister can refer us, or is there simply a greater awareness or reporting of such incidents? Is there perhaps greater enforcement of which we are not aware, because we might not be privy to the statistics, and can the Minister put us right?
Another important point was the reference to the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 as amended. If ever there was an example of a piece of legislation that has clearly had no effect, the 1991 Act is surely it. Many of the speeches made today were made then as well, back in 1991, with just as much passion and feeling. Legislation was forthcoming, and those in Parliament at the time presumably felt that they had done the right thing by voting for the legislation; yet, a few years on, here we are, having the same debate and referring to statistics that appear to have got worse rather than better. So I ask the Minister to exercise some caution in thinking that the solution to the problem mentioned by so many Members is simply further legislation. Unless we deal with the problem of enforcement, such legislation will serve only to restrict legitimate dog owners, while not restricting illegitimate ones, which is contrary to what we are all attempting to do.
I want to touch on the six pieces of existing legislation, although I will not go into them all. There are provisions in the Dogs Act 1871, as amended in 1989, for some civil recourse for people such as postmen who might be the victims of vicious dog attacks. I note that no one has highlighted the plight of poor old parliamentary candidates—apart from my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North, who touched on the issue—who might also find themselves being attacked on private property.
Angela Smith: To satisfy the hon. Gentleman, I put on the record that I was attacked in the general election last year, in precisely the circumstances outlined earlier—the hand through the letter box and the dog on the other side—so I sympathise with the plight of parliamentary candidates in elections.
Simon Hart: I do not think that there would be much public sympathy for our plight, but it might be the only area in which we could generate some sympathy for ourselves. That is why I made the point. I accept that such an incident is a civil rather than a criminal matter, so that might need some attention as part of any consolidation process that follows. We must also not overlook the Animal Welfare Act 2006 or the Policing and Crime Act 2009, which do at least provide an opportunity for injunctions forbidding ownership.
6 July 2011 : Column 477WH
As other Members have mentioned, there is therefore quite a lot of legislation, dealing with quite a lot of issues, varying from using dogs as a form of weapon to using dogs in a way that might cause them suffering, let alone the people that they might come into contact with—indeed, there is a power to prevent some people from owning dogs at all. Such provisions already exist, suggesting that instead of new legislation necessarily being the solution, the proper and cross-departmental consolidation of existing legislation might be the way to proceed.
I also want to touch on the law of unintended consequences. There are some grey areas in what constitutes a dangerous dog or activity that might cause alarm and distress to members of the public. Plenty of dog owners have fallen foul of concerned if not mischievous people who are worried that the activity of a dog might be dangerous, although it is not at all. We must protect those whose livelihoods depend on working dogs. There is a distinct line to be drawn between legitimate scrutiny by law enforcement agencies and individuals, and people who may simply be caught up as a consequence of owning a dog responsibly and thoughtfully, but which might seem to an outsider to pose a danger. There have been numerous examples of people who have fallen foul of that distinction.
This debate has shown, if nothing else, that the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 did not have the desired effect, nor did the Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Act 1997. Clearly, there is much work to be done on the activities of irresponsible dog owners, for which the dog usually gets the blame. One wonders whether some of the measures for dog control notices that have been suggested or are in place would be better applied to the owner instead of the dog. The point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North about attitude and education is crucial. I fiercely defend the Minister’s position that the Government are not bossy and that it is not their business to interfere with people’s daily lives, but there is line to be drawn.
With a little knowledge, a lot of progress can be made in persuading, educating and informing people about the difference between irresponsible dog ownership and responsible dog ownership, and that could be easily and cheaply achieved. Consolidation of existing legislation, coupled with other measures, would be a sensible and proportionate way forward.
10.22 am
Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing this debate. The behaviour of aggressive, violent dogs and their irresponsible owners has been raised with me by constituents time and again. Earlier this year, I was presented with a petition of more than 350 signatures from residents living in the West Pottergate area of the city demanding that local authorities take action. I heard terrible stories from some of those residents about pets that had been mauled to death by loose dogs running freely around their neighbourhood. Patricia McAndrews saw her dog killed by a Staffordshire bull terrier in September, and Patricia Harker lost her kitten to another aggressive dog in the same area.
6 July 2011 : Column 478WH
The residents who came to see me told me of their fears, not only for their pets and their neighbours’ pets, but for children. Horrifyingly, their fears were realised on Friday last week when a 10-year-old child was attacked by two dogs in a park near West Pottergate and sustained injuries to his arms and legs. Those residents are right to call for action and right to call for protection, so that they can enjoy their neighbourhood without fear of what may happen to them or their own loved pets if confronted by a dangerous dog.
As we have heard, the problem is generally with so-called status dogs, which are kept not as pets but as symbols of aggression or, even worse, as weapons. We would not allow young men on the streets waving knives around, but dogs in the wrong hands can be just as dangerous. Many dogs have been deliberately trained by irresponsible owners to be aggressive and violent, and others have been neglected, abused and deprived of the love and attention that other pets receive and develop an aggressive personality as a result. Those owners have no respect for their animal, and instead see them as a means of gaining respect for themselves, but fear does not equate to respect.
One breed that has been abused as a status dog is the Staffordshire bull terrier, but I want to say a few words of support for the Staffie. It gets some dreadful press, partly due to its historic use as a fighting dog, and because it is also associated with many reported incidents, including some of those that I mentioned in Norwich. My brother is the proud owner of a Staffie called Milo—a lovely dog with an affectionate and playful personality. To assume that all Staffies are aggressive is far from the truth, as I have seen for myself. Indeed, the UK Kennel Club describes Staffies as
“Extremely reliable, highly intelligent and affectionate, especially with children.”
The temperament of any animal will always be due in large part to the care and attention that it receives at a young age from its owner. When we talk about dangerous dogs, it would often be more reasonable, as other hon. Members have said, to refer to dangerous owners. Government policy should focus on responsible ownership over and above a breed-specific approach.
Returning to the situation in West Pottergate, I have been asking Norwich city council to introduce a dog control order to require owners to keep their dogs on leads in public in that part of the city. Compelling people to keep dogs on leads raises questions about whether it is fair for responsible owners of harmless dogs to have their liberty constrained, but I do not believe that that argument holds up in areas with an established problem. Many responsible pet owners are terrified of what could happen to their animal, and many would gladly exchange the right to allow their animal to run free in problem areas for greater peace of mind. I will continue to make the case for dog control orders as part of a proportionate response to a real problem, and I hope that there will be no more incidents before the council changes its mind.
The compulsory microchipping of dogs has been mentioned and is endorsed by the RSPCA and others. There is merit in such a policy, and it would certainly be of huge help in tracing stray and lost animals, but in the context of today’s debate, it would also help authorities to identify ownership and accountability of dangerous dogs immediately. However, if a compulsory scheme is
6 July 2011 : Column 479WH
introduced, it needs to be done in such a way that it will make a difference. I suspect that responsible dog owners will be queuing up with their pets, and the irresponsible—those whom we are most concerned about in today’s debate—will try to find ways of avoiding the system. Any system must be watertight.
A significant issue is who should bear the burden of cost. It would almost certainly be the owners of the pets, but if the system were not watertight, it would not be fair for responsible owners to shell out £35, while those whom we are most concerned about today fail to do so. The system must be drawn up in such a way that it would minimise the risk of large numbers of dogs being made homeless by owners who would sooner dump their pet than pay for microchipping. That prospect could be minimised by applying the new compulsion at times of change of ownership of the animal, or by exempting groups of owners who find it hardest to pay the charges. Microchipping may have an important role to play, but these issues need to be clearly addressed in any scheme.
This debate is important, and my constituents are eagerly awaiting the Minister’s response. I appreciate the Government’s difficulties in reconciling the rights of responsible pet owners with irresponsible ones. The issues are quite complex, and proposals cannot be rushed. However, many of my constituents are appalled by the dreadful treatment that many dogs receive at the hands of their owners, and horrified by the all-too-real consequences on the safety of the wider community. They are calling out for the Government to help to make our neighbourhoods and areas such as West Pottergate safe for animal lovers, for children and for all who wish to enjoy public spaces without fear of out-of-control dogs. If the Minister can explain how new measures can make all pets safer from both aggressive dogs and abusive owners, he will have the support of animal lovers throughout the country. We must address this issue before more pets and children become victims of aggressive dogs and dangerous dog owners.
Hugh Bayley (in the Chair): Order. Three hon. Members are trying to catch my eye, and 12 minutes remain.
10.28 am
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con): I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing this valuable debate. You will be pleased to hear, Mr Bayley, that my comments will be brief. I shall concentrate on the increasing incidences of status dogs—dogs that have been bred and, more importantly, trained to be weapons.
The Government have made inroads in tackling antisocial behaviour and violence on our streets. Knife crime has been vilified, and serious steps are being taken to stem the gang culture and youth violence that fuelled its rise. In place of the knives and offensive weapons that people carry in their pockets, more imaginative ways are springing up for people to look scary, fierce and suitably menacing. Status dogs should be seen for what they are: a violent weapon, a source of fear and something that fuels the rise in crime and antisocial behaviour.
6 July 2011 : Column 480WH
As my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) said, we do not necessarily need more legislation, but we must ensure that existing legislation is interpreted correctly and is flexible enough to get to the heart of the problem. We need to bring about a culture of more responsible and positive dog ownership.
The rise of the status dog is striking. Between 2004 and 2008, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals reported a twelvefold increase in reports of dog-fighting. Over half those cases involved youths fighting with their dogs in the street. A clear connection exists between the breeding and training of such dogs and criminal activity, and dogs are often used as a way of threatening and coercing others. As many of my colleagues have mentioned, attacks on humans have also increased and convictions have doubled over the past decade.
That troubling rise has been confirmed by my experiences and those of my constituents in Gosport. A great number of constituents have contacted me, sometimes in great distress, following attacks on much-loved family pets in public places. Dangerous dogs make the streets less safe for all by supporting and exacerbating violent crime. Current legislation is failing to deal effectively with the use of dangerous dogs as weapons, and ownership of the four breeds prohibited under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 has increased. Perversely, the pariah status of such dogs is an attraction for youths involved in violence.
I want to see a more cohesive vision for tackling the use of dogs as weapons. We must recognise that such dogs are part of a wider network of street violence and antisocial behaviour. The most troubling attacks—those linked to gang warfare—must be met with immediate and severe penalties. Furthermore, courts must be enabled to disqualify offenders from dog ownership altogether when the clear intention is for dogs to be used to cause harm.
We must not lose sight, however, of the suffering of the animals. Despite the danger that they pose to the public, in many cases their experience involves severe animal abuse. Through a partnership between the police, councils and animal welfare charities, it is possible to combine effective enforcement with wider educative goals. Dog ownership can have a beneficial and socialising effect on disadvantaged and demonised youths. Pioneering work has been done by organisations such as BARK—Borough Action for Responsible K9s—which seeks to teach responsible animal ownership in deprived and crime-ridden areas.
The beneficial and socialising effects of dog ownership on disadvantaged youths presents a powerful case for thinking imaginatively about future legislation. The straightforward ban on breeds and the reactive enforcement action of the current legislation has proved ineffective in the face of an increasing use of dogs as weapons. Such animals present a serious threat to the public; they are a significant prop for street violence, but in themselves a tragic example of animal abuse. I welcome this debate, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on proactive steps that could be taken to address the issue of dangerous dogs and the wider culture of gang crime and animal cruelty that perpetuates their use.
6 July 2011 : Column 481WH
10.33 am
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD): I, too, will try to be brief. I congratulate the hon. Members for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), and for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on their accurate and appropriate comments about this serious issue.
I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the latest in a long series of cases that have hit the headlines in my constituency. On 7 May, the headline in the local paper stated: “Savage dog went in for the kill”. It recounted the story of an Alsatian cross called Cleo that suffered horrific injuries at the teeth, I suppose, of a husky-type dog in Springfield park in Cheltenham. Her owner was 71-year-old Mr Robbins, who has already had a triple heart bypass. I imagine that he was terrified by the whole incident. It probably posed a threat to his health, and it would certainly have terrified any bystanders, especially parents, who may have imagined what could have happened had it been their child, rather than another animal, that irritated the dog. Mr Robbins said:
“It was a vicious attack and it was horrible to watch…The man was kicking his dog to get him to stop.”
The dog that attacked Cleo was on a lead, but dragged its owner to the ground as it pounced. According to the article,
“Police have not established whether the owner of the other dog could be charged with breaching the dangerous dogs act.”
That may provoke looks of astonishment from the Minister and other hon. Members, but we can draw a few conclusions from that story. First, the dog in question was not one of the four banned breeds—I am not sure when a Japanese Tosa was last seen in Gloucestershire, or whether Gloucestershire constabulary would recognise it if it saw one. Although that part of the legislation should remain—I would not want to be the Minister who removed it and later saw an attack by a dog of that breed—emphasis needs to shift away from breed and towards behaviour.
Secondly, because the attack was on an animal rather than a human, it carries less weight under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, and that issue needs to be tackled. Thirdly, the owner tried to control his dog by kicking it which, as we have often noted, suggests that the origin of the dog’s problem lies with the owner. As the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton rightly pointed out, there is no definitive way of identifying a dog’s owner. I know from Cheltenham animal shelter and other places that at times, people have claimed ownership of a dog until they realised that they were at risk of prosecution, at which point they passed the animal to someone else. That also has to be tackled. Universal microchipping is ready to roll. Welfare charities know how to run the system; it takes seconds and costs a few pounds, and if it makes a surplus to enable the provision of more resources for dog control, that would be desirable. The time for universal microchipping has arrived.
We must not, however, wear rose-tinted spectacles when looking at this issue. As well as owner behaviour we must tackle dog behaviour. If a dog is showing extremely aggressive behaviour, as in the case I mentioned in my constituency and other such instances, we need powers to deal with that. The Association of Chief Police Officers, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and other organisations have pointed
6 July 2011 : Column 482WH
out the importance of early intervention. Whether or not that involves control orders—dog ASBOs, as they have been called—we need something to enable properly licensed persons in a local area, including those who work in animal shelters, local authority employers and the police, to exercise professional judgment about whether a dog is dangerous.
One animal I saw at Cheltenham animal shelter was so aggressive that the well-trained staff could approach it only with a humane version of a cattle prod. They were not clear who the owner was, and did not know whether, if someone claimed to be its owner, they would have to release that dog out into the community. The dog that attacked poor Cleo is still at large in Cheltenham. Something is badly wrong if we cannot confiscate a dog when necessary. Even if no attack has taken place on a human being or been documented to the satisfaction of current legislation, if a dog is clearly aggressive in the eyes of professionals, they should have the power to confiscate it. They do not necessarily need to put it down; it could be neutered, trained or re-homed. In extremis, sometimes a dog may need to be put down. Unless such matters are tackled with care and a degree of urgency, I fear that I will read more headlines like the one that I quoted from the Gloucestershire Echo, and I would not want that. I hope that the Minister understands the urgency of the problem.
10.38 am
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing this debate. I have one minute and 30 seconds for my speech, so I will make one basic point. For me, the issue comes down to basic common sense, and in that respect, dog owners are like parents. I echo the sentiment that the issue is not about dangerous dogs, but dangerous owners.
I am a parent of three children, and in the minute that remains I would like to repeat a brief quote. When I was a candidate, the wisest thing said to me came from an individual in a mosque who recited a saying that I believe is 3,500 years old. It is an Indian Veda; it may be apocryphal, but its essence is as follows: we spend time with children from the age of nought to seven; from seven to 14 we educate them; and from 14 to 21 we love them unconditionally. If dogs are brought up in an environment where they have little engagement with their owners and little emotional input, are we surprised that society has to pick up the pieces? In essence, it is about responsibility.
I will finish by echoing the words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. If a person chooses to own and look after a dog, they should be legally responsible for the actions of that dog. In agreeing to take the dog into their home, they must ensure that the dog is safe and behaves appropriately wherever it is. That is the essence of the issue. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will cover all the other points about breed and deed, microchipping and so on, but for me, the essence of the issue is the ownership of the dogs.
10.40 am
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab):
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship again, Mr Bayley. I congratulate the hon. Member for Romsey
6 July 2011 : Column 483WH
and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing the debate. It has been remarkably well attended and has shown great insight from hon. Members from Northern Ireland, from urban constituencies and from rural constituencies. There has also been great consensus across the Chamber that this problem must be dealt with for the benefit of people throughout the country.
We heard some fine speeches. A particularly fine speech was made by the hon. Lady, who dealt with the issues in a very practical and consensual way. We also heard from the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray). We heard from the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) on the impact of the dangerous dogs legislation in rural communities. The hon. Member for Norwich South (Simon Wright) spoke about responsible ownership and the effects that compulsory microchipping would have. The hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) spoke about the ineffectiveness of a reactive approach to the current dangerous dogs strategy.
The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) spoke about the need for early intervention and addressing the behaviour of the owner. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal), in his brief but very cogent remarks, stressed the need for policy makers to address the environment in which dogs are being brought up and stressed responsible dog ownership.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) spoke very cogently about the need to extend the dangerous dogs legislation to private property. She spoke movingly about the impact that the failure to do so has had on her constituents. She also spoke about the need for education on responsible dog ownership. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) has great experience in these matters, having been in the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs and having been involved in launching the consultation. He spoke with great power and authority about the need for an urgent Government response and action on the part of the House to deal with the situation now.
The need for further action is shown by even a cursory analysis of the number of prosecutions and the number of persons found guilty of offences under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 in the past 13 years. In 1998, 764 people were proceeded against under the 1991 Act in England and Wales, yet by 2008, the number had risen to 1,247. In 1998, of those 764 people proceeded against, 406 were found guilty of an offence; that number had risen to 889 by 2008. The problem has become so serious in London that the Metropolitan police set up a status dogs unit in March 2009. They did so because of the serious impact on antisocial behaviour in London.
Department of Health figures show that 565 dog attack victims needed to go to hospital in August 2010. That was up from 538 in June 2010. The problem is one that constituents throughout the country are raising with Members of Parliament, and the Government have to get a grip on it and address it urgently.
I am in the very good position—perhaps even the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) will be satisfied with this—of being the walking embodiment of the West Lothian question this morning, because from 26 February 2011, my constituents have benefited from improvements to the law made by the Scottish
6 July 2011 : Column 484WH
Parliament. Of course, the issue is largely devolved. It is instructive to consider what the Scottish Parliament decided to do, having explored the issue for the past 18 months.
The Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010, passed by the Holyrood Parliament last year and enforced from February 2011, did not end the prohibition on the four prohibited breeds. It did not bring in a scheme of compulsory microchipping. Those may be issues on which there would be a difference with England. However, the Act did ensure that the legislation would apply to private property, so that postal workers and other employees, children and other dogs and animals would be protected. It also brought in a system of dog control notices—sometimes referred to as dog ASBOs—which place real responsibilities on the owner, in terms of their conduct. Conditions imposed by a notice can relate to such things as training and neutering of animals. There is a great deal in the Scottish approach that could be taken up by DEFRA. There may be differences, but certainly the direction of travel followed by the Holyrood Parliament and, indeed, the Northern Ireland Assembly commends itself to this House and DEFRA.
The consultation closed last June. Since then, the Government have been informing us that we will hear soon what the response will be. In a written answer in December, the Minister said that we would hear early in the new year. We are now into July, but hon. Members are none the wiser. I hope that when the Minister winds up this debate, he will be able to outline the broad principles of the changes that will be taken up by DEFRA. We can see from this debate that there is consensus across the House. The Government would have support from those on the Opposition Benches for the introduction of a Bill in 2012, after the next Queen’s Speech, to deal with the fact that the 1991 Act does not apply to private property, to deal with the lack of enforcement options available and to allow for compulsory microchipping to be introduced if DEFRA wanted to do that.
What is remarkable about the issue is the degree of consensus in civic society. Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, the Blue Cross, which I visited late last year, Guide Dogs for the Blind, the Kennel Club, Prospect, the Police Federation, the Royal College of Nursing, Unison, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, Unite and, of course, the Communication Workers Union all support the campaign for a change in the law in England.
When we examine the data—what is happening on the ground year by year—we see that the case for change is strong and urgent. As many hon. Members pointed out, 6,000 postal workers are injured every year in dog attacks. Hospital admission statistics show that 2,500 adults and 1,200 children were either treated in accident and emergency departments or admitted to hospital in the 2006-07 financial year alone. As has also been said, most notably by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse, in the past four years, eight people have been killed and 197 people have been seriously injured in dog-related incidents. This is a serious problem, not just for urban Britain but in rural Britain.
Hon. Members ably set out the case for preventive action. In the public’s response to the consultation launched by DEFRA, 78% of people believed that
6 July 2011 : Column 485WH
consolidation of the law and taking proactive and preventive steps were the most important way of improving the law at the moment. Hon. Members also pointed out the need for discretion in the seizure of dogs. In a written answer, the Minister provided stark statistics on the number of animals seized in the past two years. Perhaps DEFRA could consider giving the police greater discretion regarding the necessity of seizure in any legislation.
The case advanced by the public is clear: 88% of the public believe that change is needed. We need to move to an approach that is based less on the breed of the animal and more on the deed of the owner. We need to promote responsible dog ownership. We need to ensure that local authorities and police authorities, which are under great stress because of some of the Government’s public spending policies, have dedicated resources in place to deal with enforcement. The Opposition are prepared to work co-operatively with the Government, and if we move forward together, we can secure reforms that will be in the interests of animal welfare, employee safety and public safety.
10.50 am
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice): I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley, and to reply to the debate, which was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes). I, too, congratulate her on securing it; like the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), I heard that a number of people wanted to secure a debate on this subject, but fortune favoured my hon. Friend. Clearly, I will not be able to pick up every point that has been made in the debate in the time that remains, but I will try to explore the main issues, as DEFRA is indeed doing.
I start by saying that there is absolutely no difference between the Government’s position and that shared by every Member who has spoken this morning—there is a need for change, and there can be no doubt about that. My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) asked whether there is real evidence that the situation is worsening, and I assure him that there is; indeed, after he spoke, other Members, including the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain), trotted out some statistics. Action must, therefore, be taken. As hon. Members have said, the issue crosses different Departments, which is unfortunate, but they will appreciate that that means that DEFRA has to work closely with other Departments, particularly the Home Office.
My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North said that she owns a couple of exuberant cocker spaniels, and any of us who owns one or more dogs should, like me, treat that close relationship as a privilege. When a dog actually does something that we tell it to do, because it is properly trained, that is a privilege and a reflection of a close personal relationship—sometimes, it is probably easier than trying to train our children. [
Interruption.
] I will not repeat the sedentary comment from my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray). However, such a relationship is a privilege, and all of us who consider ourselves to be responsible dog owners understand that. It is therefore
6 July 2011 : Column 486WH
difficult to understand the mentality of people who do not have that relationship, who even go out of their way to create a totally different relationship and who treat their animals with the cruelty that hon. Members have mentioned. In that respect, we are seeing a deterioration, and, tragically, there has been another attack on a child in the past 24 hours. Fortunately, it was not fatal, but we all send our support and sympathy to the family and hope that the child recovers quickly.
We need to respect the principle that we should get these things right and avoid jumping in simply because something must be done. I agree that something must be done, but if we are not careful, we tend to take precipitate action, which is exactly what happened in 1991, when, as we all accept, the Government of the day rushed to introduce the Dangerous Dogs Act, which was not the salvation that people thought it was. We therefore need to get things right and to ensure that any changes have a real impact on reducing instances of irresponsible dog ownership—the issue of the deed, which so many hon. Members have spoken about.
Let me take a minute or two to go through what we have been doing in the past 12 months. In that context, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse gave his successor—namely me—a hospital pass. It must have been one of his last decisions before the general election to launch the consultation—as has been said, the consultation did not finish until well after the election. Since then, we have been analysing the 4,250-odd responses. Clearly, now is not the time to go through all the results, but it is interesting that some of the answers are not what one would have expected. The first question was about whether to extend the 1991 Act to private property, an issue that the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) mentioned. Some 63% of respondents said no, and 37% said yes, which is a surprise, but it just shows that there is not great agreement on all the issues, and the same interpretation could apply on other issues.
The Home Office consultation was launched by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who made it clear that the Government expect everyone to have a right to feel safe in their home and neighbourhood. She also made it clear that antisocial behaviour should be a priority for local agencies, including the police, councils and landlords. She was referring to antisocial behaviour across the piece, and much of what we discuss in relation to dogs involves people, too, which is why there is a crossover.
I will not go through all our proposals in the consultation document, because I assume that hon. Members have read it, but the new flexible tools proposed by the Home Office would replace the 18 formal powers currently in use, including those applicable to dogs. Under the proposals, control measures on dangerous and nuisance dogs would be effected largely through the new crime prevention injunctions and community protection orders. The Home Office is analysing the results of its consultation and will publish a summary soon.
In addition, DEFRA is looking at the results of the earlier consultation to see how the Home Office’s actions and ours would meld together to address the very real problem that we face. I assure hon. Members that my noble Friend Lord Henley, who leads on this issue, is discussing it with all the civic organisations that the hon. Member for Glasgow North East mentioned.
6 July 2011 : Column 487WH
I want to refer to the quite proper point about Scotland and Northern Ireland. I assure hon. Members that we are very much aware of the decisions that have been taken there, and we are in close contact with those involved. As the hon. Gentleman said, the provisions have been in place for only a few months, so it is early days in terms of judging whether they will work. However, I assure hon. Members that we are not averse to introducing such measures, if they work.
Several Members discussed dog control notices, which many people see as an example of preventive action, in that they can be used in circumstance where a dog is unruly without actually being dangerous. The Home Secretary’s review, which I have just mentioned, includes the full range of measures currently being used to prevent people from allowing their dogs to be a nuisance or a threat to others. The measures include everything from keeping dogs on the lead to dog fouling and tackling those who allow their dogs to threaten and intimidate. We are working closely with those involved.
For those who use dogs as a weapon, there are already some severe penalties. Although it is an old Act, the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 provides that a person guilty of such an offence can face a long prison sentence, including up to life in certain circumstances. There is legislation—it might not be the easiest to use, but I assure my hon. Friends that it exists.
There is also the issue of section 1 of the 1991 Act—the breed-specific legislation—which we discussed. ACPO tells us that without breed-specific legislation and, more specifically, the prohibition on pit bull terriers, there would have been many more attacks. The vast majority of police officers are of the view that pit bull terrier-type dogs are not suitable to be kept as pets, unless they are in strictly controlled conditions. We must also recognise that other breeds—the hon. Members for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) and for Norwich South (Simon Wright) mentioned some—have occasionally attacked people or other animals. That is why section 3 of the 1991 Act applies to all dogs, regardless of breed.
There is also the issue of extending the criminal law to private property. I mentioned the response in the consultation, and I do not want anybody to read anything into that, other than that it is an example of how public consultation does not always produce the answer we expect. As the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge rightly said, there is currently no criminal liability if the dog itself is not trespassing. Extending the law would allow the police to investigate all dog attacks on private property to establish the facts and see whether a prosecution should be brought. Extending the law in that way might, on the face of it, be an easy thing to do, but we must avoid the law of unintended consequences, which is a frequent problem. Do we really want a home owner to be investigated as a possible offender and to be at risk of prosecution because their dog acted in a way that most people would consider only natural, in that it defended the property on which it was brought up?
I do not have time to answer the many other points that were properly raised. Let me conclude by saying that we are ruling nothing out at this stage. All the measures that have been advocated are under close consideration. I wish that I could give a precise timetable, but I can only repeat that it will be soon. We are working closely with the Home Office to get on top of what we all accept is a serious situation.
6 July 2011 : Column 488WH
Flood Defences
11 am
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con): It is a privilege and pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley, as my immediate constituency neighbour and someone who is familiar with the problems of flooding in Yorkshire.
I am delighted to have secured this debate on the implications of the potential delays to planned flood defence systems. In the short time available, I want to focus on a technical point and relate it to my constituency, North Yorkshire and Yorkshire and the Humber, areas with which I am familiar. I hope to put to my hon. Friend the Minister a once in a lifetime opportunity. I am sure that there are occasions when he lies awake in the middle of the night wondering what he can do, in what one hopes will be a long ministerial and parliamentary career, to make a difference. I suggest that he has an opportunity here and now to make a difference to a large number of people not only in Pickering, Thirsk and North Yorkshire, but in the rest of the country.
The Minister is familiar with the background to the scheme, and I am delighted that the Secretary of State had the opportunity to visit Pickering and see the work on the “Slowing the Flow” project. The Minister will know that the original £6 million scheme for flood defences at Pickering was rejected by the town and the district civic society, but, eventually, in April 2009—with confirmation in 2010—funding for the Pickering pilot project was announced. It is a unique, pioneering scheme, with Government bodies working closely with communities, where there is not an established pot of money. There are particular difficulties with the course and nature of the river upstream of Pickering, which, as you will be aware, Mr Bayley, is where the beautiful North Yorkshire Moors railway is located. The innovative and pioneering scheme involves creating buffer strips along water courses, digging ditches and blocking moorland drains, as well as planting trees.
The scheme was created with the compliance of the landowner and in partnership with the Environment Agency, the Forestry Commission, Durham university, as an academic partner, the North York Moors national park authority, Natural England and Ryedale district council, primarily driven by Pickering town council and the local floods group. There was extreme shock, surprise and disappointment when in June, at the eleventh hour—the technical aspect of the scheme that I want to discuss was due to start this summer—the scheme was put on hold and effectively cancelled, as the cost was deemed to have undergone a staggering increase from an initial £1.3 million to a total of £3.2 million. That was alleged to be due to the requirements of the 1996 guidance to the Reservoirs Act 1975, which is the focus of my questions to the Minister and of my call for action.
The guidance states that the bunds must be able to withstand a one in 10,000 year flood event. However, one local, who is expert in the matter, has said:
“While I appreciate that more detailed modelling and info was constantly coming to light to influence the res engs decision, the fact remains that the critical factors of bund capacity of 85k m3 and the number and proximity of properties at Newbridge remained constant throughout.”
6 July 2011 : Column 489WH
You almost could not make this up, but I did not appreciate before preparing for the debate that a community is 10 properties. Were there only nine properties at Newbridge, the scheme would proceed apace. There would be no cause for delay or concern about the reservoir. Newbridge has been there for far longer than the proposed scheme.
One option—not my favourite—would involve the compulsory purchase of one of the dwellings or properties at Newbridge. That would be the most regressive and least favoured option, but it shows how daft it is that some of the definitions, such as the number of properties that form a community, lead to perverse decisions. As my constituent goes on to say:
“I just cannot understand an anomaly within effective legislation that allows this.”
That is a reference to the fact that the interpretation of the Reservoirs Act 1975, through the guidance, is either woolly or misleading. Although it appears on the one hand that high-risk criteria are precisely laid down, there appears to be a get-out clause to lower the classification to low risk. My constituent concludes:
“I shudder to think what these obligatory Res Engineers are being paid”—
that is his personal comment, I hasten to add—
“but there is something seriously wrong when their interpretation can vastly alter the design criteria from one month to the next when all the physically present criteria remain constant…unless the application of common sense is overtly permissible.”
Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab): Will the hon. Lady give way?
Miss McIntosh: I wish to make progress.
I do not want to use the debate to apportion blame. I want to use it in a constructive way to urge the Minister to remove the barriers to this project and to other projects. There are similar difficulties in Thirsk, and the common thread of the flood defence schemes is that part of the project in both Thirsk and Pickering allows a storage bund to be created. However, that is now being defined as a reservoir under the Reservoirs Act 1975. My conclusion is that the projects are being over-engineered with structures that are too complicated, and falling foul of the iniquitous 1996 guidance note to the 1975 Act. Clearly, there is a gap between aspirations for individual projects, such as the Pickering pilot project and the Thirsk flood defence scheme, and the ability of the Environment Agency and others to deliver on such schemes.
The Pickering bund scheme has highlighted a lack of clarity about high risk and lower risk in the 1975 Act, and, therefore, a major disconnect between legislation and guidance. There is little guidance beyond the matter of actual reservoirs. It does not seem sensible to build bunds to withstand a flood of biblical proportions, when communities downstream of 8,000, 10,000 or 14,000 properties are being held back by a community of 10 properties. Those communities downstream, in that eventuality, would already be both evacuated and in any case devastated. I agree with another of my constituents that that massively over-engineered standard is denying Pickering residents protection from repeated and frequent flooding. Will the Minister confirm that
6 July 2011 : Column 490WH
the return periods are based on data since the late 1980s? In that case, one in 10,000, or 235 cubic metres per second, can barely be described as an educated guess. On what basis were the figures reached? Pickering starts to flood at 12 cubic metres and seriously floods at 15, but in 2007 there was approximately 29 cubic metres. At 235 cubic metres—the one in 10,000 years risk—the town would be devastated and possibly extinct. The Flood and Water Management Act 2010 contains no specific provisions for bund schemes of this type.
I turn next to the personal liability of reservoir engineers in the event of structural failings. It would be totally impractical to ask the two reservoir engineers to risk their personal liability, as it would result in hugely over-cautious, over-engineered and therefore over-priced structures. Liability needs to be shifted from the individual to a public body such as the Environment Agency—or, in my view, the Environment Agency’s political master, the Minister.
Well over £1 million has been wasted in Pickering, and it has produced nothing. We do not want more feasibility studies, consultants or modelling unless specifically needed for a bund. There is a scheme on the table, which everyone believed would work, and there is a great desire and the practical and political will to make it work.
I shall take this opportunity to put a number of questions to the Minister and to tell him of a number of possible solutions that I have identified. The “Slowing the Flow” project in Pickering has been hampered by the fact that although it is a demonstration project, and although part of it is already under way—I have mentioned the creating of buffer strips, the digging of ditches, the planting of trees and the blocking of moorland drains—I am told that no engineer has yet quantified the volume of water that will be retained. That is staggering, given the work that the Conservative party did in opposition, the fact that the Department recently produced its natural environment White Paper and the work undertaken by a number of water companies.
Miss McIntosh: I wish to make progress.
“Slowing the Flow” was always a demonstration project. Implementation requires a major policy change by the Environment Agency, from highly expensive hard defences to affordable simplicity. We should keep things as simple and unstructured as possible, working with nature as closely as we can. However, that appears to be outside the engineers’ and the agency’s comfort zone. Where is the expertise? Is the answer in the White Paper? Is it already known by the water companies? If it does not exist, it should be developed. Is the Department minded to develop it?
The key to this debate is whether the Minister has the power to vary the 10,000 and 25,000 cubic metre thresholds. I understand that the reservoir guidance notes drafted by the Institution of Civil Engineers and agreed by the Department and the Environment Agency can be varied. Schedule 4 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 amends the Reservoirs Act 1975. New section A1(6) of the 1975 Act states:
“In making regulations under subsection (5) the Minister shall aim to ensure that a structure or area is treated as large under the
6 July 2011 : Column 491WH
regulations only if 10,000 or more cubic metres of water might be released as a result of the proximity or communication mentioned in that subsection.”
New section A1(7) of the 1975 Act states:
“The Minister may by order substitute a different volume of water for the volume specified in subsection (3) or (6).”
This is the thrust of my debate. The project could probably go ahead if the Minister were to be bold and use that power of variation. He could also instruct the Environment Agency to replace the dam at Mill lane with an automatic sluice. In the longer-term, he could ask Yorkshire Water to consider storing water underground through enlarged sewer pipes. He could even instruct the Environment Agency to compulsorily purchase one of the 10 properties at Newbridge. I have been reliably informed that the chances of finding extra money or exploring local authority options through the flood defence committee or through development gain are minimal.
This is an individual debate, and I am asking for the Minister’s urgent reply. I urge him to go back to the drawing board to find a similar scheme that can use the £1.3 million already on the table and re-examine the engineers’ judgment that category A status applies to the reservoir and the two bunds upstream. Most urgently, I ask him to waive the reservoir guidance notes by using his ministerial discretion and common sense, for which he is well known.
11.15 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing this debate. On behalf of her constituents, she has raised the subject through every conceivable parliamentary mechanism, and I entirely understand why. I know that the matter is extremely important to her constituents. My hon. Friend was right to say that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has visited Pickering. She saw the project at first hand, and returned to the Department impressed with innovative ideas that involved a variety of mechanisms, particularly those that incorporated the natural environment as a flood alleviation and flood resilience asset. I note the presence of right hon. and hon. Members from other areas that face similar problems. The concept of holding back water is vital to a variety of communities and we want to ensure that our legislation supports common sense and is governed by proportionate rules.
Mr Andrew Smith: Will the Minister give way?
Richard Benyon:
My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton asked a number of questions, and I shall answer some of them before allowing others to intervene. She has submitted some written questions, and she will receive a reply in the next day or so. Today, she asked a question about the number of people who live below a reservoir risk. I understand that it is not 10 properties; the definition of a community in this instance is considered to be not less than about 10 persons who could be affected by a disastrous breach as a result of the under-provision of spillway capacity. That is the crux of the issue. The independent assessment said that the reservoir would require greater spillway capacity. To
6 July 2011 : Column 492WH
me and to other laymen, that does not sound a massive issue, but it increased the cost of the project way beyond what was possible.
Certain questions float around, such as what is a bund, and what is a reservoir? A flood defence bund is an embankment designed to prevent flood-water flowing from a watercourse and flooding adjacent land. The water is held up and then released through a controlled mechanism. We have to be compliant with the Reservoir Act 1975, which my hon. Friend identifies as the villain of the piece.
My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that we are reviewing the guidance. I do not know whether she has seen a copy of it, but I have. It is thick and highly technical. She is right that the independent assessors from the Institution of Civil Engineers who make these judgments are singularly liable. Once the asset is built, it will be the Government who are liable through the Environment Agency. At the moment, however, liability for the level of comfort that has to be achieved rests with individuals, so they want to get it right. There is undoubtedly an incentive for them to be precautionary, but the Government have to ensure that, in our desperate desire to see comfort given to communities such as Pickering, we do not rush measures through that in years to come, with the climate changing as we know it is, may pose catastrophic risks for many people.
Mr Andrew Smith: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Given that this was a pilot project of national significance designed to find out what could be achieved through land management to reduce flooding—an issue of concern in many parts of the country, including my constituency—what implications will the shortcomings that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) rightly identified have for the evaluation of the pilot for other areas?
Richard Benyon: That is a key point, and I will come on to talk about how we are reviewing the situation, principally in Pickering, and the implications that it will have for other areas.
The Environment Agency is responsible for technical judgments on flow rates and volumes. The Institution of Civil Engineers is the expert, and it is vital that we have such organisations. The Environment Agency has assessed with the panel engineer the volume of water that needs to be stored. My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton made a point about powers that I may or may not have to do with variation. Under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, the threshold has been reduced from 25,000 to 10,000 cubic metres. That is the area in which Ministers can apply variation, depending on the circumstances. However, that element of the Act has yet to be formally adopted. When it is, that variation will be in the power of Ministers. Under the current scheme, the Secretary of State and I do not have the power to vary the rates.
Miss McIntosh:
I am delighted to be able to help my hon. Friend on that point; someone in the Institution of Civil Engineers has put it to me that that might be suitable for Ministers, but not under the 2010 Act. Its provisions and the reduction in rates caused shockwaves in golf clubs and farms. Those reductions have huge implications for future reservoir building, but that is not
6 July 2011 : Column 493WH
the purpose of the debate today. Under the 1998 guidance to the Reservoirs Act 1975, the Minister has the power to make an order proposing the scheme in Pickering. We have to balance removing the risk of river flooding with the slight risk caused by the presence of a reservoir upstream to the communities at Newbridge. He has the power; I urge him to use it before the House rises for the recess.
Richard Benyon: I recognise the point that my hon. Friend makes and it is now on the record. My officials and I will look carefully at it. However, that is not the information that I had when preparing for this debate, so I will take that point away and get back to her.
Let us look at the case that my hon. Friend raises, because it is important to understand the history. I apologise to other hon. Members who might wish to intervene, but I have only a few moments left. My hon. Friend called this debate and I want to be able to answer her points. Last September, an independent reservoir engineer was appointed to assess the proposals in the context of the Reservoirs Act 1975. The Act is designed to ensure that public safety is maintained. The engineer acted in accordance with guidance produced by the Institution of Civil Engineers. At that stage, the engineer identified the reservoir as a category A reservoir. That classification means that a breach of what could be an 85,000 cubic metre reservoir could seriously endanger a community—we have already discussed what constitutes a community. As a result, it is only right that the highest standards of public safety apply. At best, a failure would increase the level of flood-water, thus defeating the purpose of the scheme. At worst, a catastrophic failure would result in human tragedy. The engineer agreed necessary design standards that should apply in this case to maintain public safety.
In March, new modelling led the engineer to conclude that a higher design standard was necessary. In May, a second opinion was sought, again from an independent reservoir engineer. The second opinion confirmed that the Institution of Civil Engineers guidance on the 1975 Act had been correctly applied and that a higher standard was needed. That led to a redesign that incorporated the higher design standard of the spillway, to which we referred earlier. Inevitably, that pushed up costs. Despite the significant local investment already on the table, the shortfall in funding amounted to around £2 million. Frustratingly, at that level of cost, the scheme is not cost-beneficial under the Treasury Green Book rules. It is not my view that the guidance is wrong. That said, the case does underline the sense in reviewing the guidance. That is a firm assurance that I can give to my hon. Friend today. A review on highly technical guidance—I have already referred to the complexity of the document—is not a quick fix, and will require broad engagement. In the mean time, I welcome efforts to reassess these proposals.
The reservoir is clearly an important part of the plans for the area. That said, I know that many of the innovative approaches that my hon. Friend has described are continuing in parallel. It may well be that we can fairly quickly achieve a different scheme that complies with the Reservoirs Act 1975 and has a sensible cost frame and a sensible cost-benefit analysis result. All the work going into reviewing the guidance will not affect
6 July 2011 : Column 494WH
the implementation of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. If it does, Ministers will have the power to apply other criteria to assess whether, on the balance of risk, it is right that these schemes should go ahead even with the lower threshold.
The reservoir is clearly an important part of the plans for the area, so I genuinely applaud the real openness and innovation. There has been engagement with the local authorities, local landowners and many other partners, and leadership from my hon. Friend.
The Environment Agency and local partners are working hard to reassess the designs and to drive down costs. Other options that were originally put forward are also being discussed. Once consideration is complete—I expect that to be at the end of July—the agency is eager to continue working with local partners to explore what can be done while maintaining public safety.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con): I am sure that the Minister will listen carefully in this case, as he did when he enabled me to have a flood scheme in Teignmouth, for which I am extremely grateful.
Richard Benyon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for coming to this debate; not all hon. Members come to debates to give a thumbs up. The difficulty with flood defences is that we only know that they work when issues are not raised because problems have been resolved. I know that the issue is a burden for the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton, the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) and the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery). There are serious problems affecting communities around the country. We are changing the way in which we approach flood funding.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab) rose—
Richard Benyon: If the hon. Gentleman’s intervention will take no more than two seconds, I will give way.
Ian Lavery: My point relates to the potential delays. We now have funding from Northumberland county council, as well as the Environment Agency. Will the Minister see whether we can progress the Morpeth flood alleviation scheme as a matter of urgency?
Richard Benyon:
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the scheme is being progressed as a matter of urgency, following meetings on the subject, and thanks to the forceful way in which he puts his case—as does my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton. There are no national secrets here. There is no impediment other than the need to find a sensible way forward that can be afforded. As my hon. Friend rightly points out, her local authority—and that of the hon. Member for Wansbeck—has put forward some more money to ensure that the scheme can operate. I will go through any proposal that my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton brings forward. We will consider all the points that she has made and ensure that the absolute powers of the Minister are understood. If we can make a difference at this stage, prior to the change in the guidance, we will make it, but my understanding is that
6 July 2011 : Column 495WH
that will require the implementation of an element of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, which we are keen to see taken forward.
My hon. Friend says she wants a result before Parliament rises for the recess; she wants to be able to give her constituents the assurances that they need. I can promise her that I will give every assurance that I am able to give. I will work with officials and local people in her constituency to ensure that we achieve the result that they all want, which is a lifting of the burden of the threat of flooding from their lives.
11.29 am
6 July 2011 : Column 496WH
Employment (North-West)
2.30 pm
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab): As always, Mr Bayley, it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship; I have done so on a number of occasions. I give thanks—spiritual or otherwise—for having been given the opportunity to introduce this debate, which is particularly timely given that we have just had a series of apprenticeship results and some major Government announcements on employment.
As I hope any MP would do, I want to start by singing the praises of my region and saying what it can do about employment. The north-west and its young people benefit from having a diverse, dynamic region with strong areas of sectoral employment. It is strong in manufacturing and in the service and creative industries, many of which are based in my constituency in Blackpool.
These issues are not just of historic importance. We have a proud history of achievement and innovation in industrial apprenticeships, but we also have new developments coming on stream. I particularly want to pay tribute to all the work that is being done to bring the BBC to Media City in Salford, Greater Manchester, thus building on the legacy of Granada Television. Of course, all such developments offer opportunities for young people to get not only skills but jobs in the region. The retention of young people in the region will build and strengthen our potential in the years to come.
Excellent work is being done to attract young people into fulfilling careers by a number of businesses, both large and small. In particular, I want to bring to the attention of Members today the work that is being done at BAE Systems. In my constituency, hundreds of people are directly employed at BAE and a large number of people are employed indirectly by BAE. Of course, the BAE apprenticeship scheme is frequently hailed as one of the best in the sector, because it gives young people real career opportunities that are comparable to those enjoyed by graduates.
In 2009, in my capacity as chair of the all-party group on skills, we conducted a major inquiry into progression through apprenticeships. One of the most vivid pieces of evidence was given by a young apprentice—a young man—who had actually worked for BAE at Warton. He had just completed his course and acquired a very good degree. He spoke before all the current discussion about fees in higher education and made the point that, as a result of being employed by BAE, he had come out of the system with a good degree, which would enhance his career prospects within BAE and without incurring the debt that some of his school contemporaries had incurred.
Of course, in the Blackpool area, we also have the nuclear skills complex, or academy. Again, it would be fair to say that, after a number of years of quiescence, the ability of that academy to take on young people has expanded. That is important to people in Blackpool, because a number of our people have been employed at the Springfields nuclear site.
I pay tribute to the National Apprenticeship Service in the north-west for working tirelessly to encourage businesses to take on apprentices and to encourage young people in the north-west generally to consider the options offered by apprenticeships. In 2009-10, more
6 July 2011 : Column 497WH
than 20,000 young people in the north-west started apprenticeships, and more than 500 of them were in Blackpool.
As MPs, we see the importance of apprenticeships most vividly when we go to particularly successful companies in our constituencies. Last week, I had the privilege of visiting a company called Ameon, which is a major construction-based business on the edge of my constituency in Blackpool. I quote from The Blackpool Gazette:
“The firm, which boasts a turnover of more than £20m, has created six new electrical apprenticeships…awarded to teenagers from Blackpool and Manchester”.
While I was at Ameon and talking to its very dynamic managing director, Robin Lawson, I was introduced to two young men who had been employed by Ameon and who had just completed their part-time degrees at the university of Central Lancashire. Again, those young men had gone through that system without incurring debt.
Of course, the north-west also benefits from a vibrant collection of universities, further education colleges, schools and sixth forms, including many in my own area. I pay tribute to the North West Universities Association for its sterling work in establishing the link between schools and universities.
As many north-west MPs know, there are also many excellent schemes that can offer young people opportunities to train and learn on the ground. For example, there are opportunities with some of the local volunteering teams. I found myself working on such an initiative with the Blackpool Circus school—a school that is very appropriate for Blackpool. Those teams help many young people into volunteering and training opportunities. The Get Started unit in Blackpool, which was funded by the local enterprise grant initiative established by the previous Government, has helped many young people in Blackpool into jobs and careers. Many of them work for small businesses or have become sole traders.
Like many local newspapers, my own local newspaper—The Blackpool Gazette—launched a campaign earlier this year to find 100 apprenticeships in 100 days. I was very pleased to attend the launch of that campaign and the newspaper achieved its target.
Those are all good things, but it would not be reasonable if I did not say that there are big problems in the north-west, particularly for young people in the region who are looking for career opportunities. Many local authorities in the north-west were hit with a double whammy in the cuts programme: first, the cuts last year in area-based grants and, secondly, the general comprehensive spending review cuts, which hit the north-west particularly hard. Area-based grants were historically used—certainly in my own local authority—to support youth work schemes and the voluntary sector. As a result of the cuts to those grants, the position is now nigh-on catastrophic.
On top of the cuts to area-based grants, there has been an 80% cut in the teaching grant in higher education and a 25% cut in capital funding for further education over four years. Again, those cuts could put severe pressures on schemes and training opportunities for young people.
6 July 2011 : Column 498WH
The most striking and difficult change has been that in the all-age careers service. The Minister will know that I have paid tribute to him on previous occasions for the work that he has done on that service, so I hope that he will not take amiss what I am about to say; I say it not to him but to the Department for Education as a whole. As a result of removing the potential—not the actuality, but the potential—for face-to-face advice and closing off the vocational route for many people, I believe that there will be severe difficulties.
In Blackpool, as in many other places, the Connexions team has already been halved as a result of the budget reduction caused by the cuts programmes that I have talked about. I will just give some statistics on the effects of those cuts: £2 million was taken out of the budget by the outgoing Conservative administration in Blackpool earlier this year, which was a 50% cut; there was a 46% cut in full-time youth workers; a 48% cut in part-time youth workers; a 59% cut in Connexions posts in schools and colleges; and a 61% cut in posts for people working with young people not in education, employment or training. Of course, none of those cuts is exactly good news for young people and their careers.
In its 2009 report, the all-party group on skills highlighted the importance of quality information, advice and guidance to help young people towards vocational routes. That importance was also recognised in the Department for Children, Schools and Families “Quality, Choice and Aspiration” report, with which my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) was closely associated when he was in government. The Department for Education said in the past that it would, in principle, provide £200 million for careers provision via Connexions funding, but that funding seems to have vanished from the new service.
In June 2011, the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) responded to a written parliamentary question that I had submitted. He stated:
“The Department for Education is providing funding through the Early Intervention Grant to support access to impartial careers guidance for young people in the academic year 2011-12.”—[Official Report, 7 June 2011; Vol. 529, c.56-57.]
However, the Department’s website says that the early intervention grant is there to fund Sure Start centres, free child care for disadvantaged two-year-olds, short breaks for disabled children and targeted support for families with multiple problems. One is bound to ask just what will be left for careers provision after the money has been divided between all those worthy causes. I hasten to suggest that it is not the loaves and fishes fund, and I do not think that Ministers have yet demonstrated the ability to walk on water, so in both those respects the Department needs to look carefully and rapidly at the negative implications of the current situation.
The axing of the education maintenance allowance will also be a serious blow to young people right across the north-west. I met with young people from my constituency who came down to Westminster to protest against the abolition of the EMA, and they echoed the sentiment that I am sure many of my colleagues throughout the north-west have heard: the allowance was vital in that it gave them the opportunity to stay on in education. A survey that I conducted in local colleges showed that half the respondents felt that losing their EMA would
6 July 2011 : Column 499WH
affect their future plans, and I know from meetings with people at Blackpool and the Fylde college and with students in the sixth-form college that the potential the EMA offered was really valued. It remains to be seen whether the replacement that the Government have put in place will be adequate for purpose.
The Government decided not to continue the future jobs fund, despite having indicated before the general election that they might do so, and despite enthusiasm for the scheme. I saw in my constituency how well the scheme worked, with innovative placements such as a group of young people being given apprenticeship roles at Blackpool football club. I am not passing judgment too soon I hope, but it remains to be seen how such proposals will work out via the Work programme. The Government have not yet, it seems, got a handle on how to tackle the growing problems of youth unemployment, particularly in the north-west.
I want to turn to apprenticeships, because despite the positive progress being made—again, I pay tribute to the work being done by all concerned—there remains in the north-west a lack of apprenticeships for young people. The head of the National Apprenticeship Service himself admitted at a recent conference that there remained a chronic lack of apprenticeship places for school and college leavers. However, it is, of course, a question of pull as well as push. There can be apprenticeships—indeed, the Government have increased the number of places—but the question is: how will they be filled?
A City and Guilds survey at the beginning of this year showed that 31% of businesses in the north-west felt that in the current economic climate it was too risky to take on apprentices. That was the highest percentage among the English regions. At a time when the Government have ended the future jobs fund and the previous Government’s guarantees on opportunities for 16 to 24-year-olds, there is a real danger of young people being nudged away from training and from investment in their careers.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of State for Education has been distracted—that is the kindest word to use—over the micro-management of schools and has allowed a crowded and confused marketplace to surface for young people, with academies, free schools, studio schools, university technical colleges and free colleges all jostling in the mix. Is that not a distraction from what should be our clear goal of providing good quality vocational education to those who wish to take it up? How does that haphazard environment fit in with Alison Wolf’s recommendations to the Secretary of State on improving vocational employment? The Government need to strengthen and make clearer their plan to promote apprenticeship take-up, with a much stronger emphasis on work-based learning.
On the use of the voluntary sector, I can cite examples from my own constituency. Volunteer groups are involved with Stanley park. Army cadets play a major part in the organisation of the armed forces and veterans weeks. Fantastic work with disadvantaged young people is being done by the Prince’s Trust and the Lancashire fire and rescue service—again linked with Blackpool football club. All those initiatives provide tasters that offer young people pointers and other outlets for their careers; but ultimately, we have to get right the structures for that process and for that progression to apprenticeships or
6 July 2011 : Column 500WH
to whatever career option. University technical colleges might well have a role to play in that, but it is important that we have clarity.
The Association of Colleges just yesterday produced a booklet entitled “Sticks & Carrots: Will Every 16 and 17-Year-Old Stay in Education or Training?” It rightly draws attention to the four things that are key to the policy being best implemented:
“Consistent and sufficient funding…to help Colleges and other education institutions support those who stay in full-time education… Good and appropriate careers advice—
“requires the support of Ofsted and teachers in order to create rigorous standards for Information, Advice and Guidance… The right learning opportunities - We should not assume that all young people wish to stay in ‘academic’ education”.
The final key thing mentioned is financial support and transport, which picks up the point I made a few moments ago.
It is also important to take note of what the report says about the take-up and supply of apprenticeships. It states that the majority of new places have been for adults between the ages of 18 and 24, and that fewer than 5% of 16 and 17-year-olds are apprentices.
We need stronger pathways for work-based learning for young people in the north-west. Much more can be done, and is being done, to promote such work-based training, and I want to refer briefly to the work of the Manufacturing Institute, which is an independent charity founded by north-west manufacturers and universities. The institute’s “Make It” campaign has been working with some 20,000 young people across the north-west, and its partners include Jaguar Land Rover, Siemens, Tetra Pak and James Walker. It aims to give young people in schools and colleges a taster experience, and in the past year, eight enterprise challenge days were sponsored by manufacturing partners and a further three days held in partnership with Education Business Solutions in Manchester high schools.
There are good things going on, but the message needs to go out from the Government to young people in the north-west that vocational education and qualifications are truly valued by them. I am afraid that the hoo-ha around the Secretary of State’s English baccalaureate and the critical comments by Government Members about vocational education have not entirely helped in that respect. The Government need to listen and to get the various agencies to engage with schools more, to give them practical assistance to promote face-to-face encounters and instruction and also some funding, otherwise this will end up like the freedom to dine at the Ritz. The Government need to look thoughtfully at what Wolf says about matching work-based learning to far more partnerships with the voluntary sector and schools.
We need to ensure that teachers understand more clearly what vocational educational routes are out there. Sadly, much of the research and many of the surveys that have been done show that there is still a long way to go in persuading many teachers that a vocational educational route is right for their students. That is especially true in places such as the north-west. We have three types of area challenge. City regions such as Manchester and Liverpool have strong and persistent NEETs levels and skills shortages alongside ambitious regeneration plans. In peripheral seaside and coastal
6 July 2011 : Column 501WH
towns such as Blackpool, transients—young people coming into and leaving the town—are key in terms of skills levels. We also have second-level towns and in-between areas, which will not necessarily benefit from the critical mass of jobs and opportunities in the travel-to-work areas. All those areas must have progression and links.
Tony Blair talked about “education, education, education”, but I believe that our watchwords—the Minister has already heard this, so he will have to forgive me—should be “progression, progression, progression”. Our young people in the north-west must be equipped for a working life in which they will change jobs or careers probably four or five times. The situation was not like that for my father, who signed up as an engineering apprentice just before the second world war at the age of 14 with the famous engineering company Crossley and was told by my grandfather that he would have a job for life. Young people will have to be adept at picking up bespoke skills on the job and acquiring the enabling and personal skills that will ease subsequent transfers and take them toward opportunities that include self-employment as well as working for traditional large employers.
To address all that, we need not just proper resources but a proper strategy for progression. So far, the Government have done too little to make those links and enable our young people and their talents to stay in or come back to the north-west. Joined-up pathways to career opportunities will be key to a combination that will enable the north-west’s young people and economy to enjoy the fulfilment, dynamism and achievement to which its history points it.
2.52 pm
Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con): I am delighted that this debate has been secured, because youth unemployment and the lack of youth opportunities are one of the main reasons why I came into politics. Given that I grew up in Liverpool in the 1970s and 1980s, it is understandable that I wanted to change that. It feels a bit like déjà vu at the moment; it reminds me of what happened in the ’70s and ’80s. Sometimes there are defining moments in a life. One such moment for me was 3 July 1981, when I was in Princes park at the top of Devonshire road as the Toxteth riots began. It was 30 years ago this week when the blue sky changed to orange and smoke billowed up into the air.
The riots might have happened in July 1981, but the situation had been festering for some time, perhaps throughout the ’70s. There was much social unrest, as well as complex economic issues and problems with city leaders. People did not feel that they were being heard or given opportunities, although there was a lot of talent in the area. That was a formative experience in my youth, and I desperately wanted to address the issue.
At the time, the Scarman report recognised that the riots represented the result of social problems such as poverty and deprivation, and the Government responded by sending Michael Heseltine to Liverpool to be Minister for Merseyside. He set up the Merseyside taskforce and launched a set of initiatives to begin the regeneration of Liverpool. That is what I am thinking about. We are talking about education and opportunities, but city
6 July 2011 : Column 502WH
regeneration is also needed, so that the kids who have learned can take up opportunities. The statistics show that youth unemployment is one of the biggest issues that the coalition Government have been left to tackle. In September 2009, Wirral West had some of the worst unemployment rates in the north-west for 16 to 24-year-olds, ranking seventh—
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab): The hon. Lady mentions regeneration in Merseyside; a lot of people were employed in the housing market renewal programme in Merseyside. Does she regret the loss of that programme?
Esther McVey: It is slightly off the subject to talk about a specific housing renewal project, but I will say that infrastructure is key, and we have put £450 million into the Mersey gateway. We have set up enterprise zones in the area, and we are putting money into the Royal Liverpool hospital, which will develop the Merseybio campus to extend the knowledge economy. We are also considering ways to develop Wirral Waters and Liverpool Waters. There are various ways to create regeneration and improve an area.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab): Will the hon. Lady give way?
Esther McVey: She will indeed.
Bill Esterson: The hon. Lady has never been so popular.
Bill Esterson: I jest. I wanted to ask, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) did, about the future jobs fund. It reduced youth unemployment, which was falling as Labour left power. The hon. Lady discussed the scale of the problem, but does she recognise that the future jobs fund was a success, and does she regret the fact that one of this Government’s early decisions was to scrap it?
Esther McVey: The future jobs fund had some successes, but 50% of people never ended up in a job. It focused on providing temporary and short-term jobs, which led to false expectations and a lot of upset when jobs did not come to pass. It was also one of the most expensive schemes ever. I do not think that it was a success. It might have been for a small set of people, but it was expensive. Given the timing of its introduction, some might consider it a pre-election stunt. We have to consider schemes that are sustainable. The Work programme, which we are working on now, can get more people into employment.
The statistics in our area show that unemployment for 16 to 24-year-olds across the country stands at more than 1 million. The figure for the north-west is 160,000, making it the region with the highest unemployment. Unemployment for 16 to 24-year-olds has decreased by 35,000 since the last election. It is a tiny dent, but necessary.
The hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) asked about development in Merseyside. I mentioned some of the schemes and the things that we must develop. Merseyside, in its heyday as a maritime port,
6 July 2011 : Column 503WH
had a population of 1 million, which dropped to 400,000. We must develop our natural unique selling points. On Merseyside, one of those must be the port. That is why I am delighted that the Minister with responsibility for ports, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), has been negotiating with city council leader Joe Anderson. We need a stop-and-start cruise terminal there. We must also work with private enterprise—we are working with Peel Holdings, Cammell Laird and the Stobart Group—to open up the port, with a vision of Merseyside as the port of the north. If we want to achieve our goals on carbon emissions or other issues, surely developing the port is a way forward and an opportunity for the people there.
As well as increasing employment within the area, we need training schemes for the youth of the day. That is why I am delighted that we are investing in and supporting apprenticeships and increasing the number of places, although I agree with the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) that the issue is not just about apprenticeships; it must be about attracting buy-in from businesses, which must understand that they will benefit. We are considering work experience schemes, voluntary work and the Work programme. All those things are key.
There are things that we can do ourselves. I am doing something this Friday in Wirral West. I visit schools every week; I have seen 5,000 schoolchildren since this time last year. One of them said to me, “Esther, it is a hugely changing landscape. Things are getting more complicated. What will happen at universities? Who will fund us? Who will sponsor us?” I am putting on a youth summit in Wirral this Friday. I will bring together a collection of universities and everybody who could sponsor the event, such as the Manufacturing Institute, which has been mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, the Institute of Physics, the police and the Army. I will also bring businesses together to see how they can fund young people, and to discuss the paths they could take to become perhaps a legal executive, solicitor or accountant. I will also bring together apprenticeship schemes from the BBC, the Chemical Industries Association, INEOS, Merseytravel and Andrew Collinge. The National Youth Theatre will also be there, as will a head of recruitment, who will speak to young kids who are at school about what employers need.
Having spent the past 10 years looking into and researching the traits and characteristics of people who succeed in business, I know that what we are talking about is not just grades, but character traits and personality types. It is key that pupils at school understand that, so recruitment people will be present to talk about that. In an ever more complicated age in which CVs might all seem the same, those character traits are key.
We are members of different parties, but we all want more people, particularly the youth, in jobs. If people think that there are no opportunities for them and that they have no future, that will have deep, long-term effects on what they will achieve and what they will want to do. I was slightly different from my friends. In 1984, when we were wondering what we were going to do and most jobs were not available, I thought, “Well, if most jobs aren’t available, I can do whatever I want to do, so why not have a go, and go into TV?” Some of my friends did not have that outlook and were somewhat disappointed for many years to come.
6 July 2011 : Column 504WH
As I have said, the issue is about education and the opportunities that we as a Government can provide in the field of learning, and through apprenticeships and the Work programme. Equally, however, it is about regenerating areas so that they have jobs. I have said all that I wanted to say. We need to do something. The scars that have been left on Merseyside for a long time need to be healed, and one key thing would be the development of the port to provide Merseyside with maritime jobs for a long time to come.
3.2 pm
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey). As she has reminded us, it is the 30th anniversary of the events in Toxteth. In many ways, Liverpool and the rest of Merseyside, in common with the rest of the north-west, have come a very long way in those three decades. However, communities in Liverpool, including in my constituency, are concerned and fearful that the large-scale cuts in public spending will result in a return to those days. I should also like to put on record my appreciation of the hon. Lady’s work in promoting career opportunities. She came to St John Bosco school in my constituency and spoke to the girls there about career opportunities, which was a positive experience for the young people concerned.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) on securing this important debate, which addresses vital issues for constituencies throughout the region and, indeed, other parts of the country. He set out some of the key economic strengths of the north-west region. He spoke about the BBC’s move to Salford and about the impact of the work of both the National Apprenticeship Service in the north-west and the North West Universities Association. He rightly reminded us of the disproportionate and unfair impact that the Government’s decisions on cuts last year have had on constituencies such as his and mine. The combination of the reduction in the area-based grant and the disproportionate impact of the wider cuts has been felt in the voluntary and communities sector and in education, including, as my hon. Friend rightly said, further education.
My hon. Friend spoke about the impact of the cuts to the education maintenance allowance. Like other Members, I have in recent months visited sixth forms and colleges, including Liverpool community college, in my constituency, and young people are concerned that, without EMA, they might not be able to stay in education. I still encourage them—I am sure that all Members do this—to consider education, because of the broader benefits that it brings, but there is concern. My hon. Friend is right to say that the Opposition will closely monitor how the Government’s new and much cheaper scheme to replace EMA operates in practice.