Completed petition Support for the Control of Dogs (Wales) Bill

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We call on the National Assembly for Wales to urge the Welsh Government to proceed with the Control of Dogs (Wales) Bill.

 

We, the undersigned, residents of Wales, call on the Welsh Government to proceed with its Control of Dogs (Wales) Bill in tackling the issue of dangerous and menacing dogs and not rely on the piecemeal proposals of the UK Government set out in its draft Anti-social Behaviour Bill and initially explained in the its White Paper “Putting Victims First, More Effective Responses to Anti-social Behaviour”.

 

We agree with the Welsh Government’s statement “The clear advantage of a Dog Control Notice (DCN) over all existing legislation is that a court may never become involved thereby reducing the burden on public finance” and we believe that the UK Governments proposals involving 4 different enforcement tools, namely –

 

• injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance;
• crime Behaviour Orders;
• dispersal Powers;
• community Protection Notices;

 

two of which – Injunctions and Crime Behaviour Orders – must be initiated by applications to the court, are unduly complicated, cumbersome, bureaucratic and will lead to delay.

 

We believe the single all-encompassing Dog Control Notice proposed for Wales is by far the superior approach and we urge the Welsh Government to frame a law based on this concept as originally planned. We draw the Welsh Government’s attention to (i) the highly critical conclusions of the House of Commons Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs report “Dog Control and Welfare’’ which called the UK Government’s proposals as “simplistic” and “woefully inadequate” & recommended DEFRA and the Home Office to introduce Dog Control Notices and (ii) to the fact that the campaign coalition of Unions, Animal Charities, Police, Vets are also unhappy with the proposals.