Clause 5 - Mutilation
Animal Welfare Bill
5:15 pm
Barbara Keeley (Worsley, Labour)
Like my colleagues, I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs. Humble.
My hon. Friend the Minister said that he wants to listen closely to the balance of views on the Committee, which gives us an important opportunity. Many hon. Members were quite clear on Second Reading about how they felt about the matter. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood said, there are points of principle and points of detail about how we go about what we shall do. I shall stick to discussing the points of principle so that the Minister has our views. I should say up front that I am for a total ban. I have heard quite a lot of detail from other hon. Members, and I talked about the matter on Second Reading. Many hon. Members expressed a view on Second Reading that is shared by many members here that dogs need tails for communication and for balance, and that any decision to remove a tail must take that into account. I give great weight to that opinion.
Having read and re-read the briefings that we have been sent from various organisations, I am not convinced by the argument that tail docking in certain breeds helps to prevent injury. There does not seem to be any compelling evidence, and given the number of countries that have banned docking, evidence would start to emerge if it was compelling. Certain details were quoted, but they did not convince me.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) that it seems self-evident that tail docking would cause puppies pain. There is no doubt about that. There is anecdotal evidence of what happens to puppies while the procedure is being carried out. Breeders do not like it, many vets do not like it, and many people find it very disturbing.
It is almost strange that we have to enter into that debate. In our discussion on an earlier part of the Bill this morning, we worried about octopuses and lobsters and other creatures of that sort. Given the number of dogs that the Minister has said we own in this country, it is absurd to inflict pain on those creatures in the very first days of their lives. It seems from everything that I have read that certain breeds are being docked in many cases for cosmetic reasons. That is unjustified—a view that is starting to have some purchase.
It seems from the figures that the Minister has just quoted that of the 77,000 puppies that it is assumed were docked in 2004, only 33,000 are estimated to be working dogs, and those figures do seem to be estimates. That means that 44,000—in other words, most of the dogs that are docked—do not become working dogs but have pain inflicted on them and are, in effect, being mutilated, as the tails with which they communicate and achieve balance are removed for the whole of their lives for no good reason.
I have read the arguments about exemptions for prophylactic docking in working dogs, but the Select Committee juggled with that one, and it seems that the practice could be abused. It seems that the current law is being abused: if most vets are not happy and think that the procedure is inhumane, yet thousands of dogs' tails are being docked, who is doing it? It is clear that if we allow an exemption, it will be abused. It will be possible to get docking done by going down a country lane and handing over cash.
The quote from the BVA is compelling. Vets are the professionals who work with pets and working animals, and we should take cognisance of the fact that the majority of them consider tail docking to be inhumane to the extent that they do not even teach it any more. Many other European countries have already banned it. We should also consider the relevant European convention. As I said on Second Reading, the practice is outdated, unethical and unnecessary, causes pain and is against an animal's welfare. That is why I am for a total ban. I would be in favour of the third statutory instrument, the invisible one that we have not yet seen.
It is time to ban cosmetic mutilation, as a number of hon. Members have said. I am not convinced about the tail docking of breeds. I do not think that there is evidence for it, and we should return to letting vets deal only with the tails of the small number of working dogs that develop problems. That would be the right way forward.