Farmers everywhere will welcome the Government’s planned crackdown on dog owners whose animals attack livestock, says MP Ian Liddell-Grainger.
He said the proposed strengthening of 70-year old legislation was exactly the right response to a problem which had grown exponentially in the last few years.
Amendments to the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act are currently making their way through Parliament. They will provide for more severe penalties for the owners of offending dogs and beef up police powers to investigate attacks.
Mr Liddell-Grainger, MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset, said there had been a 50 per cent rise in the cost of dog attacks between 2019 and 2022 while research by the National Sheep Association had revealed 70 per cent of sheep farmers reporting attacks of various degrees of severity.
He said the reasons for the surge in numbers were clear.
“Firstly we had the right to roam legislation which encouraged more people to get out into the countryside without any effort to educate them as to how to behave,” he said.
“Then we had the massive rise in dog ownership during the pandemic. Sadly many of those dogs were acquired by people who have no respect for farmers or the countryside and regard rural areas purely as a canine playground.
“When I hear of so many cases where farmers have been abused and threatened merely for asking owners to keep their dogs on leads it convinces me that we have got to jump hard on offenders to teach them a real lesson.
“I shall be giving this Bill my wholehearted support because I believe it will not merely send a very strong message to irresponsible dog owners but lead to them being dealt with mercilessly if they ignore its provisions.”
