Dangerous Dogs Legislation: Update For Wales

Hardly a week goes by without further movement of the CWU's Bite Back campaign toward its aim of ensuring Dangerous Dog legislation throught the UK. With Scotland, as previously reported by Unionsafety, having passed updated laws in line with the demands of the CWU and associated supporting groups.

This week sees the issue of an updated from Dave Joyce with regard to the situation in Wales, via his letter to all CWU Branches, LTB1002/11:

Following the Welsh National Assembly’s new primary legislative powers coming into effect from 5 May, with devolved responsibility for 20 areas including health, education, the environment and housing, discussions took place with both Defra Westminster, the National Assembly for Wales and Lawyers for both governments to investigate whether the new powers gained by the Welsh Assembly enabled Wales to legislate independently on the subject of Dangerous Dogs without having to continue to apply to the UK Government for a Legislative Competence Order.

Having subsequently received confirmation from Defra that Wales can now legislate independently a detailed submission was made to the Welsh Government on Dangerous Dogs legislation and a meeting has now been arranged with John Griffiths AM, Welsh Government Minister for Environment and Sustainable Development on Wednesday 8 February in Cardiff in order to discuss in detail the proposal for the introduction of a new Dangerous Dogs Act or Control of Dogs Act for Wales.

In the meantime further documentation prepared by the Health, Safety and Environment Department has been provided to the Minister for his consideration and that of his team and legal advisors.

I hope that Wales as well as Westminster will follow the lead of both the Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Government by addressing the gaps in the current Dangerous Dogs Legislation in order to stop the criminal behaviour behind 6000 dog attacks on Postal Workers and 400 dog attacks on BT Engineers a year continuing.

You can read the full LTB1002/11 here

Source: CWU

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