Responsible dog ownership summit: report

Annex A

Opening statement from Minister for Victims and Community Safety, Siobhian Brown MSP

Good afternoon everyone. I wanted to kick things off with a thank you for attending today. I am pleased to welcome you all to the Responsible Dog Ownership summit.

I see many familiar faces and I value the opportunity to have met with many of you who are here today to support and inform previous policy discussions on responsible dog ownership.

It is also nice to see some new faces, and I look forward to opportunities to engage further.

I want to begin today’s summit by reflecting and acknowledging that the vast majority of Scotland’s dog owners are responsible They take good care of their animals and enjoy the widespread benefits and value of dog ownership.

As we all know, owning and caring for a dog can bring many advantages and benefits including:

• companionship,
• exercise and encouraging a more fit and active lifestyle, and
• reductions in stress levels.

However, I need advise no-one here today that owning a dog brings with it certain important responsibilities, including the need to ensure dogs are kept under effective control at all times.

It is unfortunate that a small minority of dog owners fail to do this, which can put public safety at risk and therefore cause significant harm to our communities.

The consequences of a dog being dangerously ‘out of control’ can be horrendous. From time to time, sadly we all see, and many of you have to deal with directly, the horrible reality of dog attacks and in some cases severe injury, trauma and loss of life. For a victim of a dog attack, and their families, the impact can be significant and life changing.

If we reflect on current policy around dog control in Scotland we can be proud of the dog control notice regime that was introduced through Chistine Grahame’s Control of Dogs legislation.

Scotland has a dog control notice regime that does not exist in England and Wales.

There are currently more than 1,200 active dog control notices in place in Scotland.

I am delighted that Christine is here today as a force for good in dog control policy and I hope she will agree that of the need for continuous improvement is always there including opportunity to look at ways of enhancing and strengthening the 2010 Act even further.

I wanted to mention XL Bully dogs. Today’s summit is not intended to rerun what I know are heartfelt and genuine views on the merits of the XL Bully dog safeguards. However, we are under no illusions that stakeholders continue to have concerns about the continuation and indeed expansion of breed specific legislation through the approach taken on XL Bully dogs .

Since becoming a Minister I have met with a range of stakeholders to discuss dog control policy including: the Scottish SPCA, the Dogs Trust, individual clinical dog behaviourists, a victim of a dog attack, the National Dog Warden Association, and the Communication Workers Union and MSPs.

Discussions with the Dog Control Coalition were extremely helpful to inform our policy thinking and the design of the new safeguards on XL Bully dogs. The insights and perspectives from the Coalition were taken into account so that the Controls could operate as effectively and sensitively as possible, within the confines of the legislative framework.

For example, owners were given longer to apply for an exemption period than in England and Wales and we have provided greater flexibility on the requirement for neutering to reflect concerns we received about the timescales introduced in England and Wales.

And we are looking closely at the issue of cross border recognition of exemption certificates. As you will be aware, at present, an exemption issued in one nation of the UK is not recognised elsewhere in the UK.

We want to see if we can agree a common approach to allow XL Bully dog owners with an exemption to move between nations freely. I have written again to the UK Government on this matter with a view to working with them and Northern Irish Administration in this regard.

In terms of future opportunities to help improve our general approach on dog control policy, data is one area of opportunity to inform and underpin future policy.

We commissioned and delivered the National Dog Control Notice database through the Improvement Service to help enforcement agencies better monitor out of control dogs. This went live in February 2022.

We also receive data from Public Health Scotland on dog bites which is provided by individual health boards, but this does not provide a breakdown of the type or breed of dog involved in the incident.

I recognise there are data gaps and clearly opportunities to try and work together to help better understand what data options can be considered to help deliver a strong evidence base.

Ultimately, we are here today, to discuss responsible dog ownership. That is undoubtedly the key to control of dogs and keeping communities safe.

We will always consider carefully any evidence-based suggestions to help improve safety for people. Today’s summit is the change to kickstart discussions on where we need to go next in order to achieve greater levels of responsible ownership in our communities.

We also have an opportunity to think about the development of a new ‘shared vision’ on dog control and dog welfare that could be developed to support future reforms.

I will now hand over to my Ministerial colleagues Jim Fairlie and then I very much look forward to hearing from an excellent cast of presenters and the opportunity for wider discussion.