Clause 55 - Power to make dog control orders
Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill
3:15 am
Mr Matthew Green (Shadow Minister, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Local Government & the Regions; Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)
We have tabled amendment No. 110 in this group, which I hope the Minister will reassure me is completely unneeded, because he can envisage no circumstances in which that could ever happen. The reason for the amendment, which was drawn up with the help of the National Farmers Union, which welcomes the new dog control orders, was concern about the extension of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.
The Dogs (Fouling of Land) Act 1996, which is being repealed, specifically excluded agricultural land, moor, heath and common land from the provisions enabling local authorities to designate land to impose poop scoop requirements on persons in charge of dogs on land where the public are entitled or permitted to have access. Since then, with the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, a lawful right of access to just the type of open country that was excluded from the 1996 Act has come into force—subject to walkers keeping their dogs on a short lead at lambing time and in the vicinity of livestock.
Use of the CROW Act will likely make apparent that there are specific areas of farmland where dog control orders will be required to combat dog-related nuisance. We have in mind the immediate vicinity of a car park, which would be heavily transited by people using the countryside, or a particular piece of countryside used as a route to wider areas. Those heavily used sections could create a problem of nuisance from fouling or interference with livestock. Dog control orders might be very welcome in those areas.
However, it would clearly be absurd if the dog control order included the working dogs of the farmer managing the land. Committee members would find ridiculous the image of a farmer using dogs to round up his sheep and running behind them with a poop scoop. The amendment would exclude working dogs on agricultural land from dog control orders for that reason. There may be a need for dog control orders on areas of land that are worked by working dogs, but the working dogs themselves need to be exempt from their requirements.
That may become a problem in my constituency, as it contains a fair amount of land affected by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, and it could become a problem in other hon. Members' constituencies. Will the Minister assure us that by one means or another, whether in the Bill or not, he will resist enforcing that measure?