 Maen nhw nid, a ch分 i gyflawniwch gweithre列wyddiol niwn fournydd. Mae cyflawniwch gywaith erbyn gweithio Llawni Grifeiwyr yn 2019. Mae cyflawniwch gyflawniwch gyda gael ei bwysigol yr Ysbyt i fyny. Felly, rydyn ni wedi'i ffynli Carson MSP oedd yn ddechreuu i ei sploesiaeth'u gwaith. Maen nhw'n fwy o'r parwyr ar gyfer y cyllid, rydych chi oeddennig ar rai cyflawniwch gydafniol. Gwybod 1, mae angen i mwyagol. Arentd-le Carstyn, to declare any relevant interests? Thank you, convener. I declare no relevant interests in reference to the general remit of the committee, however, with regards to the items that we're going to discuss this morning. I declare that I'm a member of the National Farmers Union of Scotland and also a partner in a small holding. Thank you very much indeed. Item 2 is decision on taking business in private. Does the committee agree to take item 5 in private this morning? I am sorry, item 3 is another decision on taking business in private. Do we agree to take consideration of a draft report on the 2016-17 and 17-18 audits of NHS Tayside in private at future meetings? Thank you. Item 4 is Post-legislative scrutiny, control of dog Scotland Act 2010. I would like to welcome Christine Grahame MSP to the committee's meeting this morning. Christine Grahame, I I would like to invite you to make a brief opening statement, please. Thank you very much. I thank you, convener, for inviting me to the evidence session as you review the control of dogs Scotland Act 2010. I note the presence of Alec Neill and you may be aware that he did all the heavy lifting on the legislation and I really just dotted the eyes and crossed the T's. The significance at that time I think was very important and it is still a very important piece of legislation because following an incident many, many years ago when a little girl was savaged by rock violers, legislation was put through the dangerous dogs act, which, like many bits of legislation done at a pace, was flawed because it focused on breeds. This took it where it should have been, which was to the owner, so it became the deed, not the breed. In fact, I think that it is still a substantial piece of legislation. It is relatively successful, not just in recorded dog control notices but on perhaps unrecorded data, which is perhaps when a dog worn an environmental warden just simply speaks to somebody discreetly as a light touch before they proceed. They may make a note of this, I will come to that later, but those things also happen. To a limited extent they will come to why it is limited, but it was important that it turned the legislation on its head and made the owner, the controller of the dog responsible, not the dog itself, because a vast majority of dogs have not got behavioural problems if properly handled. I have taken the opportunity to read some of the evidence that you have obtained. If you wish, I would focus on the following, the training of dog wardens, the number of dog wardens, which agency is responsible for what, police or the council, public knowledge of the legislation, you raise the issue of national database and dog licensing. I have had two clues in order. In training, I agree with you that there is a disparity throughout Scotland. I have met the dog wardens in my constituent, in the middle of the borders, both of whom the main dog wardens, in one it is a dog warden, the other it is a dog warden, stroke environmental warden, are very experienced behaviourists with dogs, very experienced, a huge regard for them. In fact, the dog warden in Midlothian also has a police logo on the side of his van. He does. A metw tells me that if it is a light touch, he parks his van away from the house where the dog is and goes round and talks to the people. It does not make a big deal of it, it does not make a big scene, but he warns them that there will be consequences if they do not do certain things. I notice taking of that and it is also given to the police. If there is a repeat, the next step is taken in the process of what they must do. I think that it is not uniformed throughout Scotland. The agency who is responsible for what is in Nightmare, because many people do not even know that the act exists. I am interested that Finlay Carson is a member of the NFUS. I met someone from the NFUS, one of the agricultural shows who was going about dogs, savage and sheep and upsetting them and so on. I said, you do know about the control of dogs act, and they had no idea. I said, that could be used by a farmer in early days if somebody is setting off with their dog and the sheep are in lamb, and even if it is on the leash it is too close to them, they did not know about it. I do not think that the man and woman in the street know about it. I see from your evidence that there is difficulty between the police and the council knowing who is responsible for what. I have had cases where people have said, I had that dangerous dog and I have got the police. I said, you everything who is using the control of dogs act, they did not know about it. They did not know. I am not talking about a dangerous dog in a different category entirely, but I am frightened by the dog next door or when we pass at the gate and so on. Public knowledge of the legislation is a huge issue. That brings me to a bugbear of mine that is that a member's bill gets no publicity other than what the member will provide. That is fair enough at the beginning when you put forward a consultation, and it is fair enough perhaps at the point where it becomes an act of parliament. After that, there is no publicity. The Scottish Government can, if it wishes, give publicity, but it does not have to. It has not done as far as I know. Unless you pay out of your own allowances, nobody gets to know about it. National database, yes, absolutely. We have about 10 microchipping companies that the Government has said that they are certified. Surely there is a portal, I am not technical, but you could feed these into your national database so you don't have the problem of a dog in one area being out of control, served and noticed and they just move to somewhere else. I do not know why that is not happening. It helped my bill that we are coming to anyway. Dog licences, I can perhaps answer questions in that. I see that you want to move on and quite understand it. Dog licences, when I talk about responsible dog ownership bill, which deals with that prospect. We would like to take evidence, if we may, on Christine MacDonald's 2010 act, and then we are going to ask you a bit later on so that we can try and keep this neat about your current proposal. I understand that there might be a bit of overlap, so I want to ask Willie Coffey to open questioning for the committee. Good morning, Christine MacDonald. The initial policy memorandum told us that the bill was designed to identify out of control dogs at an early juncture and provide the means to change their behaviour before they become dangerous. What are your views on whether that has proven to be successful? Do you think that there has been an issue with the legislation itself, or do you think that there has been an issue with the implementation of that, and could you help us to understand what your thoughts are? I think that the main issue has been with the implementation. I think that it was pretty sound in the first place that people were responsible for what their dog does. I should have mentioned an issue that Rose also was. It is a dog out of control even in a private place, which was not the case in England, because many of the attacks or took place in somebody's home or in their garden. That legislation moved responsibility into a place that is private. Even if you notice in the gate saying, beware of the dog, that does not exonerate you. In fact, that works the other way. You should not have to have that on your gate. Does not a child of 10 or 9 going in is not going to pay attention to beware of the dog necessarily, and certainly not a child that cannot read it? That is not helpful. I think that it was the implementation. I think that this is a huge issue for all members' bills. I think that what you have come across here is an issue that extends to other members bringing forward a bill in this Parliament. What sort of measures do you think, though we should be and could be looking at, to assist us with better, stronger implementation, to prevent, not to deal with a bite when it happens and after that? Most of the evidence that we received tended to be in that area where there are bites and attacks at a curd. Then we deal with it. How do we work better to try to influence the behaviours before there are attacks at a curd, do you think? First of all, it is probably crossing over other questions. It is publicity so that the neighbour or the person walking their child to school sees this and knows how to report it. There were issues about identification, but most people carry a mobile phone these days. They can take a picture of the dog, take a picture discreetly perhaps of the owner with the dog. It is a civil matter, so it does not need corroboration. In those circumstances, I think that more people knew about it, if the NFUS lady had known about it. I am not saying that it would have solved everything for farmers, but I think that it would have certainly helped them. I just think that to get to the stage, if you have questioned the public, I do not know if I saw this in the evidence, as to how many knew about this piece of legislation. The public at large, I think that very few know, but they all know about you do not smoke in public places. They all know about minimum unit pricing. Why? Because it has been publicised. Thank you for that hope. I hope that I can come back to you later as well. Can you just talk a bit about what the balance is in terms of gaps in the law and the implementation of the law and the resourcing of the law? I am going to be really rude about some government legislation, not just this Government, but previous Governments. I think that piece of legislation was pretty well drafted. I think that it is practical matters that are the issue here, frankly. We have had legislation in my 20 years here, some of which is in dust on the shelves that nobody knows about, and just as well. However, this was a very practical piece that intervened early on. I have always been one for animal welfare. That does not discount the horrors that happened to children frightening them, and the worst thing that can happen, not the worst, but one of the really bad things that happens to a young child is to be frightened by a dog and then it lasts throughout their life. I do not even want that to happen, let alone savaging sheep. My huge thing here is that you could tweak it. I see that you want to look at the penalties and so on. That is fair enough. In substance, I think that the principal purpose of the deed, not the breed, was absolutely excellent. I commend Alex Neil for taking that route, because it really was a shift in perception with which the majority of the public agree. We have all been in situations where—I think that we have all been in situations where you said, you know, I am worried about dogs. It is just running loose. It is going to cause trouble. The thing is that it is about not just causing trouble and anxiety and distress to other people, it is to other animals. That is why it was good legislation. If it was aggressive towards your dog or to another animal or to a person, I actually thought, in substance, it was okay. I will focus on the law being okay and how it is a better resource, but we are just going back to the law itself. What do you think the gaps are in the law if we decide to, as a Parliament, to strengthen the legislation? I am going to defend it, because I think that the issues are fine. I am not saying that you need to defend it, but I agree that it is a good piece of legislation. How do you make it even better is probably a better way of putting it in? I will start with the implementation. To me, if we had professional training in ensuring that people who—I have heard that a dog warden was frightened of dogs, that is just ridiculous. If you had training of dog wardens who knew what they were doing, exempting the two that I know, if you had training, if you had some funding behind it, if you had publicity, think where that might take you before you need to change the actual legislation itself. On the actual delivery, you said in your opening about the lack of training around the individual who had no idea of the law. You said that the man and woman on the street do not know about the law and the relationship between the police and local authorities. That is everything that we have heard in all the evidence sessions that we have had. On the balance of that, there is not enough size of a workforce. The workforce that we have is not adequately trained. What is the gaps there? Is it a lack of resources? Is the money not there to do it? What is the practical resourcing, as well as the public stability? I completely agree, but what is the practical resourcing that needs to happen? First, let's start with the police. Some police do not know about the control of dogs, not their fault. Again, we are back to publicity and information. I render about the protocol and how it is patchy. Back to this theme of mine. After all, a member's bill is given authority by Parliament. You cannot get it through without Parliament. To me, it may not be the same status as Government legislation, but it should certainly have Government assistance once the Parliament has agreed it. At that stage, many members' bills, not just mine, will fail or will flounder anyway, because they simply do not have that fair wind behind it to make it successful. Whether that is more resources to local government and heavens, we know how difficult it is there, but let's start with training. Let's start with people being uniform throughout Scotland. Let's start with information, following it through on images and television and publicity, but let's start with those things and see where that takes you. You could even have, as we all do, going to schools. Children can be told about things that you do know that, if you are frightened of this, there is a piece of legislation. For the sake of the dog, as much as for the sake of the child and the owner, you can be reported to the council if it is at that level. I think that that is where I would start and I would suggest that for many members' bills, not just mine. Would that be your message directly to the minister who will be taking evidence from straight after you? I have said it to them before. I had a question to the corporate body about what I have here that you can locate, which was about why there is no funding for members' bills once they become law. I was told that that is a matter for the Government and the Government to take up whoever that Government is. We need to move on that as a Parliament. Christine Grahame, I hear loudly what you are saying that there is not enough knowledge of the law. It leads me to wonder—I have said this when we have taken evidence on this before—that good law is clear law so that people understand specifically what the law is. If we were to summarise the 2010 act, it would seem to me that a very crude summary of it is an owner's responsibility of how your dog behaves. Do you think that that is strong enough to be clear law, or do you think that the penalties for the owner who makes the dog not behaving are strong enough? We can say that the act is fine and it would work well if it was implemented properly. However, the reality is that we have seen a huge increase—I think that it was 5,000—admissions to A and E last year with dog bites. Some of the evidence that we have heard from children being attacked from dog-on-dog attacks is really quite harrowing. I suppose that the committee is in the position where, perhaps, the 2010 legislation was a good piece of law, but the reality is that it is not being understood. I am not sure whether that can just come down to publicity. First of all, those attacks are horrendous. I despair of those, and I despair of people as I see that dogs being put down as if that solves a problem. The problem is not solved. I prefer the carrot to the stick. We know that there are people who obtain dogs to threaten them with weapons and so on—that is a status symbol—and like them to be aggressive. Again, they train them sometimes to be aggressive, but they are in the minority. Most of the people who have problems with the control of the dogs do through having the wrong dog, the wrong place, the wrong time, not training it, not exercising it and so on. Of course there have to be penalties at the end of it, but to me that is the last resort, because the control of dogs started with things such as you get the dog control notice, you may have to muzzle the dog, you may have to take it to training. Those were all positives for the owner. You want to work with the owner at that low level. I am not talking about a vicious attack. You want to work with the owner, and that is why I commend the Midlothian dog ward and Tam, who even at an even lower level goes and speaks to people, and then, if it does not proceed, it goes on and says that it will have to have a dog control notice that it should hear the things that you must do in the interests of you, in the interests of the public and the interests of the dog. I quite like the idea that it is a change, an educational tool for people when they have a dog. Penalties, yes. I have no particular feelings one way or the other if you want to increase the penalties, but that is the last resort. What you want to do is change the way people have their dogs, train their dogs and control their dogs. That is what we want to do in the first instance, way before we ever get a dog biting somebody or attacking them. We maybe need to ask what you do to improve the act, but I think that is perhaps your next proposal. I am going to take a couple of other questions first before we come on to that. Liam Kerr. Some of the things that you mentioned in your opening statement, Christine Grahame. First of all, the database. Section 8 of the act empowers ministers to establish a database, but that has never been done. Do you recall any discussions with the then Scottish Government around the establishment of a dog control database? Do you have any idea of why it has not been established since the act came in? It was eight years ago, and I am sure that I would because I am noisy. I am sure that I did go on about a national database. I am certainly going on about it now, with my proposed bill coming forward, because it makes sense. Nural lawyer minister Kerr, like I used to be, has no point in having laws if they are not practical. The practical effect of the national database is that you cannot have people moving about. Now that we have all dogs eight weeks microchipped, they are not on a national database. As I said, there are 10 different companies. That is fair enough, but they should all be able to be put together and compounded on to a national database, so you can track them. The same should be true of any dog control notice issue. If one is issued, let us say on the borders and somebody moves to Lanarkshire, yes, you can follow it through. To me, it is just common sense. I am only one person. I cannot make things this committee, perhaps—I know what it means, perhaps—this committee can push the Government far further than I can. I think that your argument for a national database is absolutely rock solid. Thank you. Sticking with that sort of area, you talked about how the dog control notice is local. You can re-home the dog to another local authority and drop off the radar, to coin a phrase. Can I take it then that you would be supportive of amending the act such that the dog control notice applies throughout Scotland and not just in a specific local authority area? Yes. I do not know if it is within the remit of what you are doing, but the microchipping database is also on—you have one database for dogs. I am just laying the ground for my bill, but the microchipping would be on that national database, which you would then have the dog control notices and the various other things that have been done. Sometimes it is just even the written warnings, because, as I said in Midlothian, I know that Tam has gone out and just spoken to somebody, but it is recorded, but it is not a dog control notice. It is not a formal written thing, but it is recorded. I would like those also put on, so that if you have had a warning in one place—just a word or two from the dog warden and the police have been informed—you move somewhere else, that follows you. Thank you. The final thing from me at the moment— Or indeed the dog goes somewhere else. I should say it follows because you could change owners. Yes, quite. So it has to be tracked with a change of owner, not just the owner of the dog, but the dog itself would be in the database, the microchip, and as you move, you are supposed to—as the dog moves to another owner, you are supposed to get the data and the microchip changed as well, of course. So the final thing from me at this stage—you also mentioned at various times a licensing scheme. So could you just elaborate on your view? Should we have a licensing scheme? And if so, how would enforcement work? How would the registration work and how would enforcement work reach? Well, it is loosely a licensing scheme. I mean, I was around when they had the £5 licence for dogs—there you are—and dated myself again, and people just got them. You could not possibly have a system where everybody obtaining a dog had to go through some kind of—before a group of people to get a licence as you would for a taxi or whatever, you know, a huge amount of funding, a huge amount of effort. What my proposed bill does—and I move on to this, which is responsible dog ownership, breeding and dog ownership— I will not go into the breeding bit but into the dog ownership, but I intend, if I get this through, to put an onus on anyone acquiring—I use the term acquiring so that they cannot get round the idea of money changing hands—acquiring a puppy or dog to go through a checklist in law. Things like, are you aware of this breed? What are your domestic circumstances? What are your work practices? Are you going to be around to look after the dog? Do you know how much it will cost? In general, things like this are that any sensible person who goes through before acquiring a puppy or a dog. If this is in primary legislation, there would be, therefore, an assumption in law that you have done those things. Those things must be done between the person exchanging the animal. The breeder will ask that and he will ask the breeder. You must also see the dog with its mother—the puppy, I should say, with its mother. You go through all this. All that puts the duty on the acquirer of the dog to make sure that they are doing the right thing by themselves and the animal, as far as it is practicable. In that way, we do several things. We incidentally tried to knock on the head some of the puppy factory farming, because we did not fit into that. You would hit on the head some of the purchasing online. You would also hit on the head people who—I understand this—see a puppy or something, and there is the spontaneous thing—need you out or love that. It looks like a little teddy bear. I will get it. It does not suit their lifestyle. The animal is not properly looked after. Where am I taking this? I am taking this to the behaviour of the dog, because a dog that is not properly looked after, that is not properly exercised, that is not properly trained becomes a problem to the owner and to the rest of society. I am going right back, even beyond the animal that is causing anxiety and distress to people, to how did we get there in the first place? One of the ways is that the wrong dog in the wrong hands or the wrong person at the wrong time and in the wrong place. If we can put these tests in, you then have a presumption in law that you have done that. You have been given a licence, as it were, if I use that very loosely, because you know the law. If you have breached it by the welfare of the animal not being that you have it in the wrong place and it is misbehaving because it is not out for exercise and doing all that, you have breached the law. Everybody who acquires an animal after a certain date—it acquires a puppy or a dog after a certain date—will have been, just as they have with microchipping, presumed that you have done all this. That takes me to, where does that take us? It takes us to animal welfare issues, so that if there are an animal that is causing behavioural problems and so on under control of dogs, you should have known all that. No point telling me that this big dog needed exercise three times a day because it is a gun dog. You should have known that. It is in the law. It is another push-up people. It is education plastic, but mainly education. I would like to look at dog control notices. We have taken quite a bit of evidence on that. The indications are that, with one or two notable exceptions, very few dog control notices are issued. When they are not issued, data protection seems to indicate that nobody can know what the terms of that dog control notice are. What are your thoughts about that? I cannot comment on that, because I have not really reflected on people knowing what the terms of the notice are. Are you telling me that someone who has reported this does not get told that there has been a dog control notice? They can find out that there is a dog control notice, but not the terms of it. I find that quite extraordinary, because if you are being told that one is being issued, and you obviously know who you have reported, it seems to me strange that you cannot be told that they have been told to put it in a muzzle, because then you do not know if they are breaching it. Have you challenged that? We have taken evidence on it in the committee, and the committee will decide what to do. Data protection is brought in when it is just not relevant in my view in this circumstance. How can you know? It is like somebody being out on bail from prison, and one of the conditions is that they do not go down a certain street. The people who are going to be prime witnesses in that trial will have to know that they are not going down that street, so that they can report them for breaching the bail conditions. It seems to me that it is rather like bail. Would you say that interpretation seriously impairs the usefulness of dog control notices? I do not use the word seriously, but certainly an impairment. Do you think that, just moving on from that and the fact that I repeat again, there seems to be rather few dog control notices issued by most councils? Would it be better if we had a system of fixed penalty charges? Well, I told, I think I have already said to repeat myself that I think fines and penalties are the last stop. People could just pay them, and nothing would change. The whole point is to change the behaviour of the owner for the sake of the dog, the owner and the public. It is to change their behaviour, so the whole point of the dog control notices is about particularly the ones that I like, where you must take your dog to training. Many people do now, and that is good. Take your dog to training because dogs can be trained out of bad habits. I think that that is very important. The easy thing to do is not have that and just say, I will fine you. What happens then to changing the behaviour of that animal and the owner's behaviour? Nothing necessarily. Given the fact that the ultimate alternative is for the council usually to take the case to court and get a judgment there against the owner, wouldn't it ease the administrative burden of that? Wouldn't it make it easier and quicker for a penalty to be imposed if there was a fixed penalty system? Councils are not going to take the chance of spending all that money going to court? You are not suggesting that we ditch the other ways of dealing with it. You are not suggesting that we don't issue a dog control notice just to go straight to a fixed penalty fine. You would just go to that perhaps after going to all the others, and it is for breach. It would be a judgment as to whether minor breaches could be addressed more efficiently by doing that. Oh yes, not a problem, not a problem. Minor breach is not a problem. The court process is, in some cases, very heavy-handed and time-consuming. A minor breach is not a problem, as long as we have the other penalties such as changing the behaviour of the animal in place perhaps first. Not a problem. What would be your interpretation of a minor breach be? What would still require to be reported to the Procurator Fiscal? In fact, let me backtrack. I don't want to talk about minor breaches. Let's say that you take your dog, you've got your dog on a muzzle, and it's in the garden. You don't put the muzzle on until it gets outside the gate, but it's not met anything and you've just forgotten. I don't think that that should be a fine. I think that it's a fax in circumstances of the case, and that's usual lawyers' answer, fax in circumstances. I think that you could have penalties. Say that you had a frequent minor breach, what you might call a minor breach. You might not put the muzzle on, let's say, before it got to the gate. They kept doing it. You might then say that that's a minor breach, but then it might move upward. You'd have to look at the circumstances. You'd have to look at who you were dealing with. If it was somebody who was a frail or somebody incapacitated in some way and didn't do something that was on the dog control notice, you would look at them and say, well, I'm going to speak about this. I'm not fine. People are individuals. If you're flying a huge amount of flexibility there and a huge amount of judgment perhaps to be exercised by the dog warden, and yet, for the sake of law, there has to be a definition. The law should always, apart from statutory breaches and traffic fences and so on, if you're going over 40 miles an hour on a 40-mile limit, that's it. There isn't any flexibility. The law in circumstances is very flexible because any sheriff or justice in many circumstances, unless it's a mandatory, will look at the facts and circumstances of something that's happened. I mean, somebody might be, think of me an example, somebody might be very sick and racing out to get somebody's racing out to get to hospital and so the dog, they've not done something that the dog should have done. So they plead, yes, I've breached the dog control notice but the issue was such and such and such and such. Are you going to treat them the same way as somebody goes, oh, I think of Tuffins, the dog control notice. I'm doing this anyway. There are different reasons for people doing things. So yes, there's flexibility. You've got to be compassionate sometimes with people in certain circumstances. Just one final question. The law obviously at the moment, the dangerous dogs 2010 act, is a civil offence. Is there merit for more serious cases and this committee has taken evidence of some pretty horrendous instances? Is there a case in certain circumstances that there should be a criminal element? Not under the control of dogs act. The whole point was low level intervening early intervention. You then move into a dangerous dog. You then move into a completely different area. Now, sometimes, like all matters of fact and of law, there'll be that transitional bit, that gray area where it moves and that's for the judgment of, in those circumstances, I would say, the police or even the councillor. If somebody comes in session and there's dogs out of control but in fact the behaviour is really of great concern and it has bitten somebody or something, then it should be referred to police and vice versa. That's where your protocol comes in. That's where the facts reported by the dog warden decide where it's going. I would not personally want the control of dogs act to create a criminal offence because it's about changing owners behaviour and that's why you move into a different thing. If somebody gets a dog specifically to set it on people, you're not going to use the control of dogs act. So would you define the dangerous dogs act really as a lower level below any criminal dangerous dog act 2010 act? Would you consider that that is a lower level than criminality? So there would still be, in your opinion, an element of criminality if a dog, for example, attacks a human or so on and does serious damage there as opposed to- You wouldn't use the control of dogs act. You wouldn't use it. That's why this protocol is so important and that's why council dog wardens have sent many sensible people and they say the ones I know are great dog behaviourists so they are pretty good at telling, say, well look, this is not for the control of dogs act. This is your dog's dangerous period. I'm going to the police. That's the kind of assessment that's made and likewise the police might say, look, your dog's not dangerous but you're going to have to start making sure that it doesn't become that. So I'm referring this back to the council. So that's where the judgments are made and the behaviour of it and that's the importance but not to put them into the same category because that's not what they're about. I'm going to bring in Alex Neil but before I do so I'd like to add just a little bit of information since you're taking forward another Bill, Christine Grahame, on a point that Colin Beattie raised and it's on the data protection point. We heard in the two evidence sessions that we did, one from victims of attacks and then from local authorities that often when a dog control notice is issued the person who has complained does not get any information, as Mr Beattie said, about the terms of that dog control notice and the reason they're frequently given by the local authority is data protection and I think your evidence today is absolutely right in my opinion that then there can be no sort of self enforcement or public enforcement if you don't know what the conditions are. For information, the committee wrote to the information commissioners office in Edinburgh who is in charge of data protection. I was quite disappointed with the letter, I don't know if members have had a chance to read it because the letter is very technocratic and it seems to fall down on the side of withholding the information except in exceptional circumstances. It is an issue that we're going to take up with the minister but it is concerning as a result of the 2010 act. I'm going to move on to Mr Neil. Given that it would be breached data, if you know who the person is, you already have identified the person, that's the personal date. You know who's had the dog control notice served on them. As you already know who they are, I can't see why that extends to not knowing what what was the reason given. It's quite a technocratic letter, if I understand it correctly, that it's about a power imbalance between the controller and data subject. We can share the letter with you. What does that mean? Chris Neill. If you can make sense of it, then maybe we can confer at some point. Alex Neil. Before we do that, Mr Neil, can I suggest that you make the comparison with a bail, order and a breach of bail to the data protection officer? I think that we'll definitely pursue that. The main thrust of my question is about your new legislation but before we move on to that, can I ask you a very specific question because two or three times this morning, rightly in my view, emphasise the importance of the protocol between the police and the local authorities about who does what and how the Dogs Control Act is supposed to be implemented. It's quite clear that, A, a lot of the people who are supposed to implement the protocol, like coppers, don't know of its existence, let alone its contents, and clearly there is variability across the country about knowledge of and use of the protocol. Is there a case for putting that protocol into legislation? I don't know if I put a protocol into primary legislation, perhaps secondary legislation, because then you can move it around a bit. As you and I know, as everyone knows, put it into primary legislation, you have to amend primary legislation. The protocol should probably be in some guidance or whatever label that you care to give it so that you can tweak it if required to tweak it later on. Again, we are back to who you can do this now, this committee can do this, which is what the member could not do. It would be wonderful if that would happen, because I think that this bill—I'm not just carrying your favour here, Mr Neil—is a good sound piece of legislation that deserves a second breath. Thank you, that's very helpful. Can I just move on to your own legislation? Obviously, as was pointed out earlier, we have your bill coming forward, we have a bill from Emma Harper coming forward, specifically in relation to worrying sheep, and we have Government legislation coming forward that has already been announced in principle by the minister, Mary Gougeon. In terms of your bill, you have mentioned some of the provisions in it already. Can you give us an overview of the main bits of your bill? Can you tell us how that would interact with Emma Harper's bill and the Government's proposed legislation? First, I don't know how it will interact with Emma Harper's bill, because it's early days for her proposal, and mine has gone through. My proposal has sufficient support. There are two parts. There are the duties and responsibilities of breeders. Reducing the number of litters that a breeder can have from five to three, and the Government is picking that up, and that's okay, because obviously I'm discussed along the road what I'm doing with the Government minister, first with Rosanna Cunningham and then with Mary Gougeon. They're going to pick that up, but that doesn't destroy what I'm doing here in the bill. Even if that comes out, I've kept it in just in case they don't do it. I'm also requiring a registration scheme for someone who says that my bitch has gone and had puppies a big mistake. Would you like one? My position here is that when you're not a registered breeder and you just have someone who's or someone who genuinely says, I wanted my bitch to have puppies and here are the cocker spaniels and I'm selling them, they're required to register temporarily with a local authority for up to six months for two reasons. I want to keep track of all puppies in Scotland who will be microchipped and keep track of them. It will stop irresponsible owners maybe with their bitch having puppies too frequently just being irresponsible. It will also prevent illicit breeding. Somebody who says, I'm not a licens, I'm not a breeder, but in fact they are. So if a name keeps occurring on this temporary register and if we had a national register so they can't move about, then you would be able to say, look, this person's names come up a few times. It's rather like the adverts in gumtree when you see the gumtree adverts, puppies, my bitch has had puppies in a namesuit and in fact it's a trader. So it's a hard game, it's a hard game to win, but it's several things doing there. So I'll have this temporary registration scheme. So that's on the breeder side, but the breeder and the person whose bitch has a litter has to also have the discussion that I mentioned earlier with the person acquiring the puppy or dog about, do you know about this breed? Do you know this? Do you know that? What's your home like? Do you have a you up five flights of stairs? Why am the St Bernard in a tiny flat? All these discussions, so it's a two-way street so that we've got the breeder or the licensed breeder or the person whose bitch has just had a litter has to have that and will be deemed to have had that discussion with the person acquiring the dog and the person acquiring the dog likewise has to check on the breeder. Are you registered? I know you've got to be registered because Christine Grahame Bill says that, so are you on the national register as somebody who's got this litter of puppies? I didn't see you there, I didn't see you on the register. Licenced breeders on the register, so we know that people are on it. This is where data protection raises its head again and we're working on that, this issue of being in it. The idea is that you can track people where the puppies come from and their responsible breeders, whether professional or amateur, if I may call them that, and also the person acquiring the puppy goes through all these checks. This is about the welfare of the animals and a good relationship. I had a dog many years ago, great relationship, wonderful. Don't have one now, why? Because my job would not be suitable for me to have a dog. Love to have one. I want people to think very hard before they acquire a puppy or a dog and say, this is a commitment for 10, 20, 10, 15, 18 years. Can I take this on? Much so, I want to, can I take it on? There's a responsibility in the life to affect, to impact on what you're doing and control of dogs and the behaviour of animals, I think that we begin to solve some of the problems of animals. If I take, for example, the animals that come from these puppy factory farms, they're often not socialised. The bitches in terrible conditions and we may have seen documentaries on the terrible conditions, the animals are not socialised, they have mental health problems when they arrive, their behaviour is erratic, they're not socialised with their mother and other puppies. Right from the start, you have a problem. For somebody who's probably a really nice person who maybe even thought they were rescuing the puppy and are taking this on and it's too much for them to cope with, so this goes way back to the moment you acquire it before it becomes a problem out of control or a welfare issue. Because out of control is often a welfare issue? That's very helpful. Can I ask if any part of your bill makes any material change to the control of dogs act 2010? No. My final question is, given our experience with the lack of enforcement of the control of dogs act, what provisions are you making your bill to make sure government, local government, police and any other authorities are mandated to implement the act? And also, what sanctions will there be in your bill for anyone who either breaches the provisions of it or doesn't implement it? For the breeders, there are the existing sanctions, licensing sanctions, if you breach licensing regulations and those will apply to registration as well. For the people acquiring, we move into animal welfare legislation. I don't really need to create anything because we already have animal welfare legislation that deals with people when animals are not properly looked after. It's out of control. The control of dogs Scotland act is already out of control. I can refer onward. What is evidential is that when you acquire an animal and you acquire a puppy or a dog, you are deemed to have known these things and you are deemed to have asked the breeder or the person transferring the dog or puppy these questions before you even got it. There's no point in saying afterwards, it's too big for me to handle it, it's running about, I can't even hold it on the leash, it's too strong. Excuse me, when you got that dog, you went through this and said, are you suitable? Do you think that you can be able of this big dog? Do you have the suitable premises? That is not a defence to it anymore. It assists the animal welfare organisations, it assists the police, it assists the councils because this is what you should have known from the start. In other words, this to me is an educational tool. Minimum unit pricing, although it had penalties, was really an educational tool. Banning, smoking in public places, although it had penalties, was an educational tool. I mean, I'm not as important as the Government, but this is another educational piece of legislation. Of course, there are consequences if you breach the law. They are either into offences under the control of dogs act, offences for breaching licence and regulations, or offences against the welfare of the dog and the puppy. It all seems like it might get a bit complicated. Is there not an argument that we should have one piece of legislation that covers all those things? As we've heard, we've possibly got Emma Harper's bill, which will look at sheep worrying. We've got potential legislation coming forward for different pets or breeding and puppy trafficking and whatever. Is there not an argument that we should really have one piece of legislation that looks at it all? I suppose an analogy is a bit like the offensive behaviour at football. It's offensive behaviour wherever you are, whether it's football, rugby or whatever. If we're looking at pieces of legislation that deal with dogs that have bad behaviour in a public place or bad behaviour near a field of sheep or a field of cattle, are we not potentially muddying the waters, making it even more difficult for people to understand? If the 2010 act is misinterpreted or not interpreted in the right way, is another bill and potentially another bill just not going to make it even more difficult to publicise? Are we talking about my responsible dog ownership bill? Will all the bills come together? I wonder whether we should have one piece of legislation to cover all the responsible pet ownership. That's a question that we can put to the minister. I'm happy to answer it, because it's something completely different. I don't know an existing piece of legislation that puts duties on somebody acquiring—in law, it puts duties on someone acquiring a puppy or dog. I don't know one. It isn't out of control or all that. When I looked at puppy factory farms and looked at gumgy, you can't legislate in Scotland for Ireland or the rest of the world—that's common sense—other jurisdictions. I was looking at tackling demand rather than supply. By tackling demand and also tackling irresponsible—I mean it's the nicest possible—understand by people spontaneously—by tackling that. At the very beginning, we start to deal, in my view, with the welfare of puppies and dogs. It's very different. I don't know any other piece that's tried to do it that way around. I mean it's up to Parliament at the end of the day if it's our committee, the first stage one. It might sink on its knees for all I know, but I'm going to have a good go at it. I don't think for one minute that it does the same thing as the control of dogs. After all, we have quite a range of legislation on other topics. Please don't compare my legislation with the Offensive Behaviour Bill. I won't comment what I think about that in public, unless I chair that. I think that the NGBU will do a really good job on this. I think that bits will have to probably come out about the five down to three, but I have checked with the Government that this, in fact, will not sabotage this because the thrust of this is that conversation between the licence breeder, the breeder and the owner, and then they're locked in, as it were, a statutory contract. You've said you've done all those things, so I'm going right back to the beginning. In my view, we have to do something about the fad. There is a fad, to some extent, of people acquiring sometimes designer puppies and everything else like a handbag, and getting them and not having the suitable facilities for them. The dog gets into trouble, they get into trouble, it's miserable and then they think that they can just move on and give it to somebody else. I want to stop that. Members have any further questions for Christine Graham? Christine, thank you very much indeed for your evidence this morning. I'm going to suspend for a couple of minutes to have a change over witnesses. Item 4 is post-legislative scrutiny of the control of dogs 2010 act. I'd like to welcome our second panel of witnesses to the committee's meeting this morning, Ash Denham, MSP Minister for Community Safety and Philip Lamont, criminal justice division of the Scottish Government. I understand that the minister's not making an opening statement, so we'll proceed straight to questions. I'm going to open up minister. We've heard evidence over the last few weeks and further evidence this morning from Christine Graham MSP, as she was the MSP that took the legislation we are scrutinising forward, about many of the issues around the act. We're really interested to start off with this morning a little bit about the ministerial responsibility for this. You've come to give us evidence this morning, but we also understand that Mary Gougeon has ministerial responsibility for some of the activity that's going on in the sphere of dogs. We have a few bills at the moment. We have this post-legislative scrutiny of the 2010 act. We also have Christine Graham's bill on responsible breeding and ownership of dogs. We have a bill from Emma Harper MSP on proposed protection of livestock. We have a bill from Jeremy Balfour MSP on pet shop licensing. We also have Finslaw, which is a Westminster piece of legislation, but which I understand the Scottish Government has committed will become legislation here. Can you give us a sense of perhaps how the Government intends to move forward or maybe pull together all of the legislation in this area if you have plans to do so and also how it splits across ministerial portfolios? Well, I know that Christine Graham's bill that she was talking about this morning, the one that she's considering bringing forward does fall under the responsibility of Mary Gougeon's portfolio and that Emma Harper's bill on the worrying of livestock that falls under Mary Gougeon's bill portfolio as well. This morning, I'm here to give evidence as a witness in the control of dogs act this morning. We have seen the committee's attention because of the increase in the amount of dog attacks. We understand that there were 5,000 presentations to A&E just last year, and that's of humans that have been attacked by dogs. That's not to even account for the dogs that are attacked by other dogs in the community. We have heard so much evidence on some of the frightening attacks that people have experienced and owners have experienced there. Given the concern about this, given some of the evidence that I'm sure you've read, the evidence that we've taken on those issues, what is your reaction to the fact that there seems to be an increasing problem with control of dogs in Scotland? I think that the first thing that we need to say is that we don't actually know that for sure. There isn't really a clear picture. You've mentioned some evidence. The committee also took some evidence from Dave Joyce of the Communication Workers Union, and that was also regarding postal workers. His evidence seemed to suggest that he thought there had been a reduction in that area. Although I note the evidence that was given to you about an increase potentially in hospitals dealing with dog bites, we don't have a year-on-year set number of figures. It's impossible for us to tell if there has been an increase, unfortunately. The evidence just doesn't show a clear picture. Obviously, as a Government and indeed as a person, one dog bite is one too many, absolutely. We should all be encouraging dog owners to manage their dogs responsibly if we want dogs to be under control at all times, and we don't want to see dogs being out of control in any manner in anybody's community. Five thousand presentations to A&E, and that's just human victims, and many of them are children, must concern you as the minister in charge. Do you think, looking at the 2010 act, that there is any need for strengthening perhaps of the act or for penalties? You will have also seen the evidence that we took about the real confusion of responsibility between councils and police about who is responsible for enforcement. What is your reaction to that? As I said, one bite is one bite too many. My sister was bitten by a dog when I was small. I remember it distinctly. We were indoors and in a shop. I was about eight years old and she was six, and you have taken evidence on that already. The fact that children are so much lower down means that they are face-to-face with dogs and that she was bitten on the face. Clearly, we don't want that to be occurring. We do want to have a regime in place where—I think that Christine Grahame's evidence this morning has drawn this out—we want to encourage people to act to manage their dogs in a responsible way and make sure that they are under control at all times. I think that the objective of Christine Grahame's was that preventative element to encourage people to guide them and steer them into controlling their dogs in a better way. I think that the dog control notices have the potential to do that. We have seen through the evidence that a number of local authorities have approached this in a different way. Clearly, some of them are issuing a high number of notices, some of them are not using it in the same way. Some of them have very good collaborative working, where they are working very well with Police Scotland between the local authorities and Police Scotland, and that seems to be working well. We have seen some really good examples of best practice, where it has been working well, but perhaps there are other areas where it isn't working quite so well. As a good question, minister, do you think that the legislation needs to be strengthened? Do you think that the Government needs to bring in new laws or strengthened laws to deal with this? Obviously, this was not Scottish Government legislation. Obviously, this was a member's bill that was approved by Parliament at the time. I am very interested in the scrutiny that has been undertaken by this committee, and I will be very interested to see what the committee's report is on this. Do you have no current plans to bring forward Scottish Government legislation on the area of dog control? No. However, we have been watching the evidence carefully, and we have noted that the issue of the databases has come up. My officials have already been looking into this, and I can advise the committee that we will be doing a consultation on the issue of the database this year. We have talked about dog control notices and how relatively effective and ineffective they are. There is clearly a very different pattern across Scotland. Some areas are using them relatively frequently, others are virtually not at all. However, where is the dog control notice issue? There is a protection issue, apparently, where the person gets the dog control notice, but nobody else can find out what the content of that is. Do you think that that is a valid interpretation? Well, the control of dogs Scotland act in itself does not prohibit details regarding the dog control notice being shared with third parties, but there is an interplay there with other legislation. I will let Philip explain that in a little bit more detail. As you have heard from various local authorities, there is a slightly different approach taken by some local authorities in this area. First and foremost, local authorities have to satisfy themselves as to their own legal advice about what they can and cannot share in terms of information, but there was certainly one local authority that gave evidence. I think that it was East Ayrshire, but I stand to be corrected, where someone made a report of a dog being out of control and a dog control notice was issued. What the local authority did was tell the person that action had been taken and that conditions had been imposed on the dog, but what they did not do was share any personal details of the individual, the owner of the dog. That was not the approach taken by some of the other local authorities, so it is clear that there is a different approach taken, but ultimately it boils down to that each local authority must be satisfied that they are operating in line with data protection legislation. We cannot be satisfied if there is a different interpretation of the same legislation across the whole country, otherwise there is no uniformity and approach. That is not acceptable, surely? There is not a uniformity of approach. I think that we have seen that from the statistics. Obviously, the Scottish Government and Philip can give more detail on this, but the Scottish Government writes out to all the local authorities how we have that data to ask them how many dog control notices they have applied. There is no uniformity of approach. Different local authorities are doing things in a different way. Some of them are prioritising it in a different way. They have different numbers of dog wardens and so on. That is the case. Obviously, that is up to local authorities. That is an operational matter for them. Do you believe that a dog control notice can be effective if the terms of that dog control notice are kept secret? There are several issues. Obviously, the dog control notice operates in that local authority and it does not apply across Scotland, so that is one issue. It is not secret in the sense that the dog warden will know what the conditions are and that they have a duty within the 2010 act to enforce each dog control notice. The point that you make more generally about people being aware of the conditions is that one local authority adopts an approach in which they share some of the details. As the minister said, there is a variety of approaches that he has taken in terms of how the legislation has been interpreted and other more specific data protection legislation has been interpreted as well. Do you believe that the use of fixed penalty notices to deal with minor breaches of dog control notices would be effective? Would it perhaps lift some of the administrative burden in courts? Can I pause you there? I would like to take a couple of supplementaries on data protection. I will bring you back in on that point. I have got a couple of members interested in the data protection point that we want to pursue. Let me read this to you, because we took evidence from Alison Robertson, who is from the National Dog Warden Association. She told the committee that the confidentiality is in place because the Scottish Government advised us that, as the 2010 act is civil law and a dog control notice is a civil measure, data protection prevents us from saying that a notice is in place. That was advice from the Scottish Government. Can you respond to that, please minister? Then I will bring in Christine Grahame and Alex Neil on that point. I will let Philip answer. I will give the committee detail on that one. The only formal Scottish Government view on the operation of the 2010 act is contained in the guidance for the 2010 act that was issued alongside implementation. I am sure that members have seen that. It talks about data protection in it. The National Dog Warden Association said that the Scottish Government advised the dog wardens that data protection prevents them from saying a notice is in place. Is that correct? That the Scottish Government gave that advice to local authority? I am not aware of the Scottish Government offering a formal legal view in that way, because that is not something that the Scottish Government would do. I am sure that data protection is discussed as part of the implementation of the legislation. If Alison Robertson was able to point to the formal letter or guidance that says that, I would be happy to consider that further. Clearly, however, data protection is an issue, not least because you can see the different approaches adopted by local authorities. In terms of why data protection is an issue? I am sure that, from your answer to Colin Beattie, the Scottish Government's position on the act is that it is up to local authorities to interpret data protection legislation on it and that it is comfortable with the fact that it is interpreted differently in local authorities. Well, each local authority will clearly have its own legal advisers, which it will consult. Christine Grahame, on this point, please. I think that we are going round in circles with the act, because it seems to me that this act is a self-policing act that, someday, it is the public who report that they think that a dog is out of control. A dog control notice is issued. There is only one dog word, two dog words that I say for the whole of the borders. They cannot be there to see if the owner has breached the dog control notice. Again, it is policed by the public. For me—and you probably cannot answer it because you have not yet understood why—I do not understand what data is being protected here. All you are saying is that a dog control notice has been issued, here are the conditions. What personal data has been protected there? There is no personal data on that. This is the details of a notice. Obviously, from the evidence that the committee has heard, some local authorities are doing that. If someone makes a complaint about a dog, they will then go back to that person to say that a dog control notice has been issued because the data is about the dog. They are not sharing any details about the owner, for instance. Philip, do you have any more information on that? Are you unhappy about that? If it were your legislation—not mine—that was being said, would you be writing to the data protection office and saying that this is wrong? Is there not a role for government here rather than just standing back? You are able to say that this is a nonsense, that this cannot be proper, that people do not know what the conditions are, therefore cannot tell that it is enforced. If it were your legislation, would you not be saying something about this? It is not Scottish Government legislation, so on that basis, the operation of the legislation is for local authorities, so it is a matter for them. We have heard in your evidence this morning a few times that this is not Scottish Government legislation. This is the law of Scotland, and this is under your portfolio. However, the law came through Parliament, for me it is beside the point. That is your responsibility. Can you answer the point, please? Let us forget that it is a member's bill. Let us forget all this if it is legislation. You are not happy, surely, that it is differently enforced throughout Scotland, so is there not a role for the government now in issuing, in your guidance, in your view, that this is not personal information, this is information, as the minister quite rightly says, about the dog? We can certainly consider looking at the statutory guidance that was issued in respect of the 2010 act to see whether data protection could be covered in more detail to reflect the different approaches that have emerged, and that is something that the Government could certainly consider. I would be happy to look at that further. If you could, minister, I think that the committee would be very grateful. We heard some really worrying evidence from different councils. East Ayrshire is quite proactive, so that there can be general enforcement. They tell the conditions. Obviously, they have viewed data protection, but in other councils it is just used as a blank. We heard from evidence in Dundee that the dog wardens are saying, data protection, we cannot tell you any of the conditions around the dog control notice, and then the people see the dog in the street the next day, and they have no idea if it is asked to be muzzled, kept in the house, any of those conditions. It seems really unsatisfactory. I am very sympathetic to that. I understand the point that the committee is making. It is clearly because different councils are taking advice, and that is the way that they have chosen to enforce it, but it is certainly, as I will get my officials to look into that point and get back to the committee on it. It is helpful. Colin Beattie, I will answer up to your question. Thank you, convener. Just to come back to the question of the possibilities of fixed penalties in order to deal with minor breaches of dog control notices, it has been raised in evidence to the committee by a number of different people. It has been suggested that it will reduce the administrative burden on courts. What is your view on that? Obviously, we use fixed penalty notices in other areas, and they are quite successful in getting people to change their behaviour if they think about parking tickets and so on. In this area, it could be worthy of exploration. I am certainly open to looking at that. Obviously, the Crown Office has already possessed powers to offer something that is called direct measures to dog owners who reach the terms of their dog control notices. Giving the police or giving local authorities powers that are similar to that could be a good way of dealing proportionately with breaches. My view on that was that we should not replace it with fixed penalty notices, but it might be worth exploring as an addition. The act is amended to include fixed penalty notices. I think that it is definitely worth exploring. We are talking about minor breaches. What would your view be on what was considered a minor breach and what would still have to be reported to the Procurator Fiscal? I think that this is something that would require consultation. Obviously, dog control notices can contain a whole variety of different methods from how high your fence is to keep your dog into muzzling, being on a lead and so on. Clearly, there would be a difference there between someone that generally complies and maybe once forgets to put their dog on a lead with somebody who has been asked to muzzle their dog who goes out in public every time and does not muzzle their dog. I think that there would need to be consultation on that in order to determine that. Alex Neil First of all, I ask why, since this legislation has been law for nine years, the Scottish Government still has not implemented the national set up, the national database. I mean, I hear what you're saying about going out to consultation this year. Why on earth has it taken nine years to get to a consultation on it? The 2010 act provided a discretionary power for the database to be established, but the database was not envisaged as being in place right from the outset of the dog control notice regime, and if I had just reached from the financial memorandum of the bill, it said, while the bill provides the Scottish Government with the power to establish a national database, it is not envisaged that in the first instance such a database would be established. However, I accept the point that quite a few years have passed now, and the database has not been set up. It is certainly something that we are looking at. I think that some local authorities have suggested that it would be advantageous because if somebody moved from one area to another, it would allow them to share that information. Obviously, we do not have the figures on that. We imagine that it would only really relate to a very small number of people. We are certainly looking to consult on that this year, but we would be very interested to hear what the committee's views on that would be as to what the benefits of it would be. Can I just clarify what the minister is saying? We do not apply to a small number of people. That is in relation to people moving between local authorities, but the national database is actually to set up much more. I mean, you probably—I take it—you heard Christine Grahame's evidence earlier, and one of the points that she was making is that this is not just about recording the microchip number, it should be also about recording the number of DCNs, the number of written and oral warnings, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It does seem—and you are a new minister, so I am not in any way blaming you—but it does seem to total lack of leadership and indeed complacency in the part of the justice department over that problem. We have clear evidence, particularly of children. 5,000 people presenting to A and E every year are very high proportion of them, according to the doctors who are children. Some of them—we have probably heard or know of the evidence that was given from a couple from Dundee where their child was killed, mawled to death. Surely this is something that should be getting a higher priority inside the justice department than it has been clearly the case for the last nine years? I mean, I am obviously—you know, children being attacked by dogs is, you know, obviously it's very distressing. I wouldn't want to see anybody being attacked like that by a dog, but clearly the legislation for the criminal liability on that would be under the Dangerous Dogs Act of 91 and the Control of Dogs Act that we are discussing today, but clearly I accept that there is overlap between those two things and I do accept that. I think that there is—potentially there is—some merit in a database. I'm very interested to hear what the committee's views would be on what, you know, the database potential should cover, how beneficial the committee thinks that it would be. I think that we would need to consult in order to see what it should cover and to see what stakeholders have to say about it, also to decide, you know, who would run it, you know, should this be run by a lead local authority, for instance, and, you know, to answer those type of questions. That is obviously just March, so you said this year the consultation. By this year, do you mean fairly soon or by December? I can't give you a time for him at the moment, I'm sorry, but it would definitely be this year. So has this just been a knee-jut reaction to the work of the committee? You decided to come to the committee with a consultation on one bit of the legislation? Well, clearly, my officials have been—we've been watching the evidence, we're very interested in what the work that the committee's doing on this, and I think that there is merit in potentially having a database, and that's why we're saying we will look into it. Can I ask why you're only consulting on the national database? I mean, there's quite a number of other issues come out of this, clearly, in the evidence. I mean, one area of particular concern to us has been something that wasn't in the bill, but has emerged from the prosecutors and the judiciary whereby one bite, no matter how severe the bite, is allowed before there's any prosecution. Why are you not consulting on that? Well, that's actually, I think, what you're referring to, the one bite rule that some people talk about, which actually relates to the Dangerous Dogs Act of 91. So, the idea behind that is that a person needs to have reasonable apprehension that their dog is going to behave in the manner, obviously, to injure somebody in the way that we've been speaking about. So, I suppose the question is there. I suppose the question is, should an owner be responsible for a dog that acts in the way that they would say, in a way that's completely out of character where they felt there was no warning to it whatsoever? Should they be held criminally liable for that? Or the way the legislation is set up at the moment is that they would have this reasonable apprehension. But I'll ask if Philip can explain a little bit more about the Dangerous Dogs Act of 91 and why that provision is in there. I mean, I think we know why that provision is in there, Mr Neil. My question really is, given the number of molligs that have been, even where death hasn't been involved, and given that some of those dogs involved in those molligs, this is the first and only bite that they've actually committed, it seems to me that that's something that Government should be concerned about in acting upon. Again, I emphasise, Ash, that you're a new minister. I'm not blaming you in any way, but it seems to me that the Justice Department has shown total complacency in this whole issue. Mr Lamont. I hear what the committee is saying on that. I think that you're making an extremely good point on that. As I've said, we are very interested in what the committee is doing. We're very interested in the work that the committee is doing, and I'll be very interested to look at what the committee's views are and what you recommend around changing the law in this area. We will certainly look at that as a Government. It might be helpful to say that when Christine Grahame brought forward the control of dogs bill back in 2009, I seem to recall you being very clear that that legislation was not about changing the fundamentals of the dangerous dogs act 1991. As the member in charge in Parliament decided to focus on a civil preventative regime rather than changing the criminal law, there would have been an opportunity at that point to look at the law if that had been wanted and that wasn't taken. Clearly, the way in which the criminal law works in this area was set by the UK Government back in 1991 and UK-wide legislation. It would be open for government in this Parliament to change that law so that, for example, the reasonable apprehension test no longer applied, so that someone would be criminally liable if their dog, even completely out of character, did bite someone, but that's a criminal law policy matter to be considered. That point has been considered. Given that we have enough evidence to know that there is a big issue out there, although, as the minister said, it's not been properly quantified. In fact, it's not been properly quantified as another area where there has been absolutely no activity from the justice department again. It seems to me that it just reeks of a lack of leadership and total complacency. I think that you need to get out of your complacency on this, because with the evidence that we have heard, there is no room for complacency not just in relation to the working of this particular act in 2010, but in terms of this problem of dog attacks, it's a very serious issue, particularly for children. It seems to me that it's something that the Government needs to get a grip of as a priority and is preventive. It's costing the health service a lot of money, more importantly, it's costing a lot of human suffering. It seems to me that the justice department, down the years, hopefully the new minister will change that culture. It's time that the justice department has a grip. I outline the division of responsibility between ministers in terms of proposed legislation, but what is the rationale? There must be some kind of guidance on what determines who is responsible for what. The consequence of the rationale is that Mary Gougeon is responsible for the other two bills and you are responsible for this bill. Is there a protocol within the Government that says that, in terms of this area of activity, the justice department is responsible for this and the agriculture department is responsible or rural fares is responsible for that? What is the rationale for the division? I just suggest your previous point about complacency. The Government is absolutely not complacent about this issue. This is a very serious issue and we are not complacent about this. Moving on to your second part of your question about who decides on what. Is it not done anything then? No. It's just nine years. Nine years? Nine years and we haven't even got a consultation. Have we even got a date for a consultation on the national database? Well, I would say to you that the national database is clearly not the whole picture. It's one part of it. A database in itself will not be the panacea to everything in this area, but I have taken on board that point about the database and we will look at that. In terms of how things are decided in the Government, clearly all the portfolios have a portfolio split. Sometimes there are areas where it's not always immediately clear where a certain piece of legislation would fall, which minister it would fall to, and so decisions are taken. The general rule is that where control of dogs relates to people and injuries to people, it falls within justice. Where dog regulation relates to the welfare of the dogs themselves or the welfare of other animals, it tends to fall in other portfolios, that's the general split. That's why, for example, livestock worrying and the measures mentioned by Christine Grahame would fall to environment rather than justice. If you look at Christine Grahame's bill, Christine could correct me in this, but it seems to me that her bill would fall under both of those categories because it deals with people and it deals with that. This legislation falls under both because it's about dog-on-dog attacks as well as dog-on-human attacks. It seems to me that we need a more joined-up approach, and maybe that's something that the Government should look at in terms of who does what. It doesn't look to me as though the Government is joined up on this. Supplementary on this point specifically, Christine Grahame. It's on the role of the Justice Department here. I just get a feeling that because this is a member's active Parliament, it's not given the same authority or treatment as Government legislation. Even though the Parliament has voted it through, it may sometimes not vote through Government legislation. Am I wrong in that? The database saw that delay. If that had been Government legislation, would we have had it by now? Probably. The enforcement of it, probably. My concern is that it's just a member's bill. It's a member's active Parliament pat on the head. You've had your moment off we go. I think that it would be very difficult for me to comment on the treatment of members' bills versus Government bills. I wouldn't be able—I haven't got the evidence in front of me to be able to say whether that would be the case or not. That's definitely the tenor of the answer to the first few questions this morning. You said, well, this was a member's bill. You kept saying that this was a member's bill. Does it not have the same weight in Government in terms of enforcing and enacting? Obviously, there is a financial consideration here that member's bills, obviously, when Christine Grahame bought forward our bill, it was to have a minimal cost. Perhaps that is the reason. I think that, as committee's views, the 5000 presentations to A&E, the cost of that may possibly offset the cost of a database. Certainly, we don't have those kind of figures in front of us because the Scottish Government hasn't presented any costs yet on a database, but it's costing the NHS, if we're going to talk about the cost of this, a considerable amount of money. Do you not have to convince me about the benefit of preventative spending? So, I agree with that completely. Thank you, convener. Good morning. I'd like to initially go back to something that you said to Colin Beattie about dog control notices. He mentioned quite rightly that they don't apply across Scotland. Would you be supportive of the act being amended to allow dog control notices to apply across Scotland and not just within the local authority area where they've been issued? I think that there is some merit in that. Yes, I do. If a dog is out of control in Glasgow, but then it goes to Edinburgh, it's still out of control. I think that there is some merit in looking into that, certainly. On licensing, I also asked Christine Grahame earlier on about a licensing scheme. Can you tell us, is that something that's being explored by the Scottish Government? And if so, to what level? Have any costings been done, for example? Well, the Scottish Government did consult on that in 2013. The committee may be aware about that, about whether licensing should, in fact, be reintroduced. The responses to the consultation showed that there was quite a mixed picture among the people that responded. Of those offered a view, 46 per cent of them were opposed to the reintroduction of licensing and 32 were supportive. Obviously, that shows that more were opposed to it. The reintroduction of licensing. We don't even have a clear picture, in fact, of how many dogs there are in Scotland. One estimate that we have from the pet food manufacturers is that there's around about 640, maybe 650,000 dogs in Scotland. Clearly, introducing a licensing scheme of that size would probably be quite a complex process. In that case, there are a number of issues that would need to be looked at in that area, and there are quite a few things to consider. The other thing, I think— Just if I might take that point. Following on from the line that Alex Neil was taking there, the way that you answered that suggested to me that the Scottish Government looked at it and said, with no idea how many dogs are out there, therefore with no idea how much it would cost, therefore the easiest thing to do would just be to bury it and not do anything about it. Am I reflecting back what I've just heard? What I've just said to you is that when the Government consulted on this quite recently, there was a mixed picture in result of it, and 46 per cent of the people that responded to the consultation were opposed to the reintroduction of licensing. As a Government, when we consult, we do try to listen as much as possible to what the consultation responses say and to take account of that. I'm not saying that the Government is completely against the idea of licensing, but it's something that we certainly would look at, and I'll be interested to hear what the committee's views are on that. The other point to make here is that, with any licensing scheme, I suppose that there is a possibility that responsible dog owners would sign up, whereas the irresponsible dog owners—I guess the ones that we are looking to clamp down upon—may not sign up. That would be a considerable undertaking for local authority, so I think that there are a number of issues that we would need to look at before the Government would say that they were looking to reintroduce that scheme. It would be a considerable undertaking, but this committee has evidence that, at least on one scenario, it could become cost-neutral, if not profitable, for local authorities. It just strikes me again to take Alex Neil's point that that is something that I would have thought the Scottish Government would be looking at. That brings me back to the consultation. I understand the point about the consultation that was done, but that was six years ago. We have heard from Alex Neil's line of questioning that there is a consultation at some point that is going to be launched about a database, presumably in response to the work that this committee has been doing. Isn't there a point at which you say, well, look, why don't we look at a licensing scheme as part of that consultation as well? Would that be a fair assumption? We certainly could do that, but I have to say at this point that I am not completely convinced about the idea of licensing, but I would be happy to look at the evidence that the committee puts forward on that. Do you think that there is enough public awareness of their rights under the control of dogs act? I think that, certainly from the evidence that the committee has taken, I think that the levels of awareness in general—I think that there is a good level of awareness—are areas in which perhaps people are not quite clear about the difference between the two. I think that some of the evidence has shown that there can be a little bit of confusion between the two. Possibly that is natural, because there is that overlap between the two acts. Is that a yes or a no? Sorry. Do you think that there is adequate public knowledge about their rights under the control of dogs act? I think that it is the same with any law. There will always be people who do not know what the law is. I do not think that you can expect everybody to know— Everyone knows about the smoking ban, for example. I do not know that you could say that definitively. Do you think that there is adequate training for all dog wardens across Scotland? Obviously, that would be a matter for the local authorities to determine that. What is your view? In the act, it says that there must be in every area one warden that has sufficient knowledge and expertise about the control of dogs and that they are responsible for instruction of the other wardens. That is what is in the act. Beyond that, it is up to the local authority in how they operate that. In your view, as the Minister for Community Safety, do you think that all dog wardens are adequately trained in Scotland? I do not think that we have the data on what training the wardens have undertaken as a Government, do we? As the Minister for Community Safety, do you think that there are enough dog wardens across Scotland? Again, that is a matter for local authorities. Anna Sarawa would probably read the first person to complain if the Scottish Government was insisting that local authorities were doing things incorrectly and trying to get them to do things in a different way. That is for local authorities to determine. It is an operational matter for them. As the Minister for Community Safety, do you think that there is adequate resourcing for the control of dogs across Scotland? Clearly, that is also a matter for local authorities up to them, on how they prioritise those things and a decision must be taken by them about how many dog wardens they employ. As the Minister for Community Safety, do you think that there are adequate protocols and arrangements between Police Scotland and local authorities across Scotland? Obviously, that is something that the Government did do. We are coming back to your previous question. In 2016, we facilitated the development of the protocol to lay out the responsibilities clearly. That has come through in the evidence that the committee has received that the protocol has been well received and it is well regarded. That is something that the Government has done. You said earlier that you accept as a serious issue. Having seen the evidence that the committee has taken before, do you accept as a serious issue around the control of dogs and the arrangements to make that happen? I think that that is a very serious issue. As a minister, I will be looking very carefully at the recommendations that the committee makes. If the committee comes back with recommendations or evidence in its report, having heard what you have heard already and recognised how serious it is, what is going to change in that dynamic in terms of thinking that it is up to the local authority to make sure that people are adequately aware of the legislation and that it is up to the local authority to make sure that all dog wardens are adequately trained and that it is up to the local authority to decide whether enough dog wardens are up to the local authority to judge whether there is adequate funding and resourcing. It is up to the local authority to decide whether they have adequate protocols with Police Scotland. Do you have clean hands with the Scottish Government and nothing to do with us? Clearly, that is what it sounds like. There is scope here for the Government and the Parliament to decide to change any or all of that. If we wanted to change the law, as it relates to the dangerous dogs act and, indeed, as it relates to the control of dogs act, there is scope for that to be changed. What I am saying to you is that I am not going to sit here today and make up Government policy, so I would want that to be based at all times on evidence, on consideration, on consultation, which is what I have said this morning. I do think that this is a serious issue and I am certainly going to look at what the committee's report puts forward and the recommendations. I am open to pursuing, if the committee makes some strong recommendations, as a Government, we will certainly look at that and to pursue them. Final question, minister. Do you recognise that, for the families who have shared their own experiences with this committee, either through the public meetings that we have had in different areas across the country or, indeed, meetings in this Parliament, if they were sitting in the gallery today or they were to watch the evidence today, how frustrated and, frankly, angry and disappointed they would be at what sounds like a very complacent hands-off somebody else's problem response from the minister for community safety in the Scottish Government? I do understand what you are saying on that point. I do. That worries me even more. Willie Coffey, is it a supplementary on this point? I am going to take Willie Coffey first and then come to you, Christine. I want to come back to that issue about reasonable apprehension that Alex Neil introduced, minister. That has been part of the dangerous dogs act for 28 years. I am surprised, frankly, coming to this committee that it has taken 28 years for that to become an issue in Scotland or elsewhere, so it has been there a long, long time. But what I think witnesses told us, their concerns, minister, were that in some of the serious dog attacks, serious bite serious attacks, the test of this reasonable apprehension seemed to apply firstly. The two representatives of some of the fiscal service seemed to confirm that. That is what has given rise to the sense that there is a one-free bite in operation, which they said was not the case. When they described the law, they explained the law too, is that the test for reasonable apprehension must apply firstly. I was wondering if I would be obliged if the Scottish Government would give some consideration to that, to see whether we could look at that issue and focus, I think, in the committee's views and the public's view, on the attack that took place in the severity of that, to see whether the law could be adapted, modified to give priority to the attack on the injury, rather than the sense that we had to demonstrate reasonable apprehension in the first instance? Yes, I do take that on board that people, there is this perception that there is a one-free bite rule, but that is not the case, but there is the reasonable apprehension test. I certainly would be happy to hear what the committee has to say about that and whether the law should be changed in that area. I am a bit concerned that we are conflating the control of dogs act with the dangerous dogs act, because one-free bite does not appear in the control of dogs act. However, minister Hughes said that, yes, there is a bit of a problem, but most many people know about the control of dogs act. I seriously do not think that that is the case. I think that if you walked out of here and went to Tesco's where you are shopping trolley and you just stopped people randomly and said, have you heard of the dangerous dogs act? Yes. Have you heard of the control of dog Scotland act? No. I do not think that people know about it, and I am back to what I said. I am sure that you have my evidence that when it is a member's bill, once that bill is through, there is no publicity to it unless the member takes it out of their allowances from their office. That is the problem for those bills of the legislation. That is a prime example of what I think is a decent piece of legislation. I say that, not just because it is mine. I think that it is preventative. You said that you are on the side of preventative. Who is not? Unless it is publicised, have you even got policemen that do not know about the control of dogs act? You can write all the protocols in the world, and they even differ. It is not going to matter if nobody knows about it. What I am asking of the Government is, because in a parliamentary answer to me I have told it is up to the Government to pick up publicity for members' bill, are you going to do it? Yes. You are speaking about awareness raising, about whether the Government would be prepared to undertake an awareness raising programme around that piece of legislation. I think that that is certainly something that the Government would look at, yes. Alex Neil It is a quick supplementary minister. You read out from the bill, from the act itself, the statutory requirement for local authorities to have wardens. How many local authorities in Scotland are in breach of that statutory requirement? I do not have that information to hand. I do not know if Philip has. That is not information that is routinely collected by the Scottish Government. Do not routinely collect it. You do not monitor it. There is no monitoring requirement. Is there something in the Government bill that would have been monitored? It depends on what is in the legislation. There is no requirement. There is no enforcement of it in the sense that nothing happens to local authority if they do not meet the requirements. Alex Neil I have to say that, as a person who is originally sponsored the bill, I find that response from the Justice Department totally unacceptable. I think that the very least that you should be doing is monitoring statutory requirements. Although the 2010 act was not specifically intended to deal with livestock warring, is there a scope within the bill at the moment to deal with dogs in the countryside? Is that something that you believe that the bill can already deal with? It should be because there is not much difference between a dog being out of control on an urban street and a dog being out of control in a field where there are sheep. It would still apply. That would indicate that, again, there is a lack of understanding or a lack of publicity over the 2010 act because we have a member's bill that is coming forward to address the lack of enforcement when it comes to livestock warring. As we have already heard, Jeremy Balfour is bringing forward a bill, we have Finslaw, we have various other bills coming forward. The committee has received evidence suggesting that consolidating all those bills into one piece of dog control legislation would improve clarity and publicise it. Is that something that you would be supportive of? I think that it is something that we could look at. The Government does not have any plans at the moment to do a consolidation of the type that you have described, but it is certainly something that we could look at if we felt that it would improve clarity in the way that you are suggesting. You are consulting at the moment on responsible pet ownership, is that right? I think that there is a consultation being led by all the ministers in that area. I think that responsible pet ownership would not be another piece of standalone legislation, but it could potentially encompass all those concerns and bring it forward. That would be something that should be considered. It would not fit specifically into the justice portfolio from the way that you are describing it. Do members have any further questions for the minister? I have to say that this is a huge issue in my community in terms of safety and safety for children. It is something that worries me deeply. I know that other members feel the same. I had really hoped that the session this morning might see the Scottish Government come forward to say that they had looked at what we have been hearing and done a bit of thinking. They perhaps had some proposals around that. We have a post legislative function on the committee, but it is a small part of the work that we do. I have to say that the Government has much more vast resources on that and all of your time than we do. We will put forward some proposals, but we would really hope that the Government can do some wider thinking and consideration of some of the issues that have been raised today. I now close the public session of this meeting.