Chamber and committees

I thank Christine Grahame not only for her question but for introducing her member’s bill, which became the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010. I have met her in recent days and am more than happy to consider any suggestions that she might have for strengthening the legislation.

I will begin by explaining the reason for the Scottish Government’s policy decision to introduce new safeguards in relation to XL bully dogs. The new safeguards, which will include a requirement for XL bully dogs to be muzzled and kept on a lead in public places, will help to ensure public safety.

That decision was not taken lightly. It follows as a direct result of the United Kingdom Government’s decision to introduce new controls on the XL bully dog for owners living in England and Wales. Such a decision was for the UK Government to make for owners in England and Wales, but the UK Government failed to fully consider the knock-on impacts of that decision. As the First Minister set out last week, the UK Government failed to act to stop dog owners in England and Wales from evading the new controls by bringing their dogs to Scotland. That changed the balance of whether we needed to act in Scotland.

These are exceptional circumstances in which we find ourselves. They mean that it is now right and proper that we replicate the controls that are being implemented south of the border. That does not mean that the Scottish Government is moving away from the “deed, not breed” approach, which is recognised by dog control experts as the most effective way of keeping communities safe.

The Scottish Parliament should be proud of the legislation that has created a system of dog control notices that can be served on an owner of any dog that is out of control as a proportionate step to reduce the risk of the dog becoming dangerously out of control.

Scotland is in a unique position in comparison with the rest of the UK. The Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 enables local authorities to serve dog control notices to deal with out-of-control dogs at an early stage. I can confirm that the Scottish Government will be looking in the medium term to work with key stakeholders and interested parties to look at potential improvements to the 2010 act that could enhance and strengthen the general preventative dog control notice regime in Scotland.

We recognise that the vast majority of dog owners are responsible animal lovers who will want to keep their XL bully dogs and comply with the safeguards when they are introduced. Responsible dog ownership is hugely important but, sadly, there are some cases of irresponsible dog ownership that can, understandably, lead to operational challenges for the police as well as local authority dog wardens.

Issues could also arise with dogs being neglected or not exercised, or with dogs generally not being compatible with the owner’s lifestyle, leading to behavioural issues. Although the focus today is on XL bully dogs, any dog has the propensity to become out of control or even dangerous if not trained and socialised properly and not kept under proper control at all times in all places.

Last month, when I met someone who has lived experience of having been attacked by a dog, I was struck by their courage. The individual spoke bravely when telling their story of how they had suffered a dog bite attack that resulted in severe physical, emotional and financial consequences.

I am aware that there is a range of views on the decision that has been made, but I place on record my thanks to all those whom I have met in recent weeks for their helpful engagement, input, expertise and time.

I must stress that, just as is the case in England and Wales, these are new safeguards rather than a ban, and it is important that people understand the effect of the new safeguards. In England and Wales, there are thousands of applications from XL bully owners who have sought exemption certificates to enable them to keep their XL bully dogs. It would therefore be wrong to categorise the safeguards, whether in Scotland or in England and Wales, as a ban.

In recent weeks, I have heard many concerned voices around the impact of this policy. We will, of course, continue to engage with stakeholders to hear about the practical issues arising, and we will carefully consider those for Scotland. From my discussions to date, I am aware of concerns relating to veterinary capacity, given the uncertainty around the number of XL bully dog owners who will require vet assistance. I am also conscious of the possible impact on animal welfare organisations and of wider issues connected to the designation of dogs under the dangerous dogs legislation, both in terms of the impact of some of the safeguards and the wider implications. Those issues will continue to require serious consideration, and I am happy to discuss them as we implement the safeguards in Scotland.

It is important that members, XL bully dog owners and the general public understand what the new safeguards will mean. Subject to approval by Parliament, the effect of the new Scottish controls will be that owners will need to make a decision about whether to keep their dogs.

There will be two stages to the new safeguards regime. From a date that we will announce, the first stage will mean that it is an offence in Scotland to sell an XL bully dog; abandon an XL bully dog or let it stray; give away an XL bully dog; breed from an XL bully dog; or have an XL bully in public without a lead and muzzle.

The second stage will be the deadline to apply for a dog to be added to the exemption index. After that date—which, again, will be announced in the coming period—it will be an offence for a person to own an XL bully dog unless they either have an exemption certificate or have applied for a certificate.

That two-stage approach will give a limited amount of time for XL bully owners to make an informed decision about what they want to do with their dogs. It is appropriate to give that opportunity. However, once the new regime is in place, the owner will need to decide either to keep their dog and, if so, to adhere to the new safeguards, or to no longer keep their dog.

For those who wish to keep their dog and comply with the new safeguards, a fee will be payable to apply to register a dog on the exemption index. Compensation will be payable for those owners who no longer wish to keep their dogs. The amount of the fee, and the compensation payable, will be set out in regulations and confirmed in the coming period. For reference, the equivalent amounts in England and Wales are £92.40 to register a dog on the exemption index, and either £100 or £200 for the loss of a dog that is subject to euthanisation and payment for the process of euthanising a dog, depending on whether that service was paid for.

In addition to the need for a muzzle and to keep the dog on a lead, the new safeguards operating as part of an exemption include having the dog microchipped and neutered. The specific dates for those stages will be set out in the legislation to be laid and agreed in Parliament, but we are working at pace to urgently develop necessary regulations.

Dog owners in Scotland should therefore start to consider what they may wish to do with their XL bully dogs. Given what the Scottish Government has announced, I suggest that it would be sensible for any prospective owners of XL bully dogs to seriously bear in mind the need to adhere to the new safeguards, if they are minded to acquire an XL bully dog where they currently do not own one. We will develop guidance and practical support to allow owners to understand the legislation and what is required. That will include details on how to identify an XL bully dog using the standard developed by the UK Government.

We must recognise the consequences for Scotland of the UK Government’s policy on XL bully dogs. In effect, it would see owners in England and Wales able to get rid of their XL bully dogs here in Scotland. We therefore have to act and enhance safeguards that will help to keep the public safe. It is therefore right to replicate the regime in England and Wales so that we remove the ability of English and Welsh dog owners to use Scotland to get rid of their dogs.

Moving forward, we will be considering issues that have arisen as a consequence of the UK Government’s policy. We will also continue to work closely with stakeholders to look at mitigating, where appropriate, the impact of any unintended consequences of these controls.

Despite the need to introduce these new safeguards, we remain committed to the fundamental principles of the Scottish approach. The situation with XL bully dogs is unique, but we remain unequivocally committed to the “deed, not breed” approach.

It is important to reiterate and to understand the reason why the Scottish Government has been left with little choice in making this decision. The Scottish Government was engaging with dog control key interests in Scotland in order to assess the principle of introducing new safeguards in relation to XL bully dogs, but that was based on the position in Scotland being unaffected by the introduction in England and Wales of the new safeguards in relation to XL bully dogs. Now that the UK Government has been unable to provide a definite statement on whether the new controls on selling XL bully dogs apply to dog owners living in England and Wales who seek to sell their dogs outside England and Wales, that has changed our consideration.

I get dog control notices from local authorities each week. Those deal with more than 1,200 dogs but there is not one distinct breed. There are some crossbreeds, but I know that the XL bully is not among the top 10 of those, so I do not agree with Jamie Greene regarding the data.

I reiterate that I have been engaging extensively with stakeholders since the announcement. It is important for the member to understand why the Scottish Government has been left with little choice about its decision. As the member will be aware, the UK Government has been unable to provide a definite statement on whether the new controls on selling or giving away XL bullies apply to those who seek to give them away in Scotland. That has significantly changed our consideration in recent weeks.

The member raises a very important point. It is a lack of certainty from the UK Government as to the effect of its legislation that has led to this decision. The UK Government is not certain that English and Welsh dog owners would be committing an offence in selling their XL bully dogs outside England and Wales. I think that the definition in the letter was that that was unlikely. That left the Scottish Government with little choice but to act to ensure that there is no undue risk to public safety in Scotland.

On dog control notices, I met the Perth and Kinross Council dog wardens team recently and I agree that they are doing a great job in using their powers. I think that they have 65 live dog control notices in place. However, we know that not all local authorities make such good use of their powers. I encourage all local authorities to seek to use their preventative powers to help to keep their communities safe, whatever the breed of dog. We will give more consideration to what we can do alongside local authorities to encourage more consistent deployment of their powers to help with dangerous dogs.

For clarity, I note that the statement that the Scottish Government refused to ban XL bully dogs in Scotland, which was in the press, was inaccurate. I wrote to the UK Government in November saying that we would not be following the same timescale as England and Wales.

I thank Ruth Maguire for lodging the motion and bringing the debate to the chamber. I know that she is passionate about ensuring that progress is made in challenging men’s demand for prostitution, as are Rhoda Grant and Ash Regan. I thank them for all the work that they have done in this area, and I thank members for all the contributions in the debate. I was pleased to see that Ruth’s motion on this very important issue had cross-party support.

The debate is very timely, following the recent 16 days of action on violence against women and girls, when the Parliament again came together to send the strong message that violence against women is totally unacceptable. I am sure that we all agree that there is no place for sexual exploitation in Scotland.

I thank the A Model for Scotland alliance for its work in raising awareness of commercial sexual exploitation. Our engagement with members of the alliance is helping to shape the Scottish Government’s framework to challenge men’s demand for prostitution, and its recently published report, “International Insights: How Scotland can learn from international efforts to combat commercial sexual exploitation”, will help to inform the development of our approach.

I am sure that many members will have seen the Women’s Support Project exhibition that was held in the Scottish Parliament in November, which detailed the project’s work over the past 40 years in tackling commercial sexual exploitation. The exhibition highlighted the energy and commitment from stakeholders across Scotland in tackling such exploitation, and the progress that has been made as a result. I am very grateful for the project’s on-going work.

I note Tess White’s contribution and her insight into the model in the Netherlands. I would like to think that if we fast-forward 40 years from now into Scotland’s future, we will—I hope—be living in a Scotland that has overcome the normalisation of behaviours associated with men purchasing sex. It is not acceptable, and challenging those attitudes is key to challenging demand.

Our equally safe strategy recognises commercial sexual exploitation as violence against women and makes clear our collective responsibility to tackle the attitudes that perpetuate it in all its forms. Our efforts to challenge demand are clearly linked to wider aspects of policy. That includes contributing to our efforts to tackle misogyny and the on-going scourge of inequality and poverty, which we know can drive people into exploitation.

In order to truly tackle demand, therefore, we need an approach that considers the full range of social and economic factors that underlie it. Our framework to challenge men’s demand for prostitution and improve support for those with experience of it, which will be published early this year, will bring wider efforts together. It will take an intersectional approach that sets out, for the first time, Scotland’s strategic approach to tackling prostitution. Like the Nordic model, our framework will look at enabling women to exit from prostitution safely and sustainably. It will raise public awareness, including among those who deliver public services. It will also clearly recognise women with experience of selling and exchanging sex as victims of exploitation. I am clear that the framework’s approach will provide the basis for any future consideration of legislation.

As members may be aware, in order to inform the development of our framework, we published “Challenging Demand for Prostitution: An International Evidence Review” on international challenge-demand approaches back in 2022. Both that report and the “International Insights” report from the A Model for Scotland alliance highlight that, in addition to the criminal law, other important components are needed within the challenge demand approach.

We need to continue to learn lessons from those countries that have progressed legislation as a matter of principle, and to understand why that has been so, and why so many today advocate for that. However, I am conscious that such approaches have not always been delivered with the necessary supporting structure, which our framework aims to deliver for those who are looking to move away from prostitution and to effect the societal change that we all know is required.

It is also important to recognise the need to work with international partners to truly address sexual exploitation rather than simply exporting it elsewhere. Our approach recognises that exploitation has no respect for borders. In that regard, Police Scotland continues to work with partners nationally and internationally to bring offenders to justice.

Just yesterday, I met the UK’s new Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner to discuss trafficking and exploitation strategy. She was very interested in the work that Scotland is currently doing with regard to commercial sexual exploitation. That is key to ensuring that our approach to tackling demand is sustainable and that we have a joined-up and preventative approach.

The importance of a co-ordinated national approach was illustrated well at the commercial sexual exploitation-focused event in Ayrshire at which Ruth Maguire and I spoke during the 16 days of action on violence against women and girls. The event brought together a wide range of practitioners from, for example, housing, health and education, and the power of working collaboratively was evident.

Collaborative working across policy and services was key to the development of the framework’s policy principles, which were published back in 2022. That is a fundamental aspect of the framework, which enables us to build on existing good practice and harness it to deliver a more consistent approach across Scotland.

One of the participants in the “Lived Experience Engagement” research that informed the framework said:

“there’s lots of girls who do this who don’t want to or have nothing else to turn to. They need to know what is out there to help them and who they can talk to.”

Our framework looks to address that, by making support easier to access, through strengthened links between mainstream and specialist services, so that women, at any stage of their journey, can access the support that they need.

At last month’s launch of our trafficking and exploitation strategy refresh, I heard directly from women who had been trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, and meeting them and listening to their stories was incredibly moving. I am grateful for their brave and inspirational contributions, because it is important that we listen and learn.

The importance of trauma-informed justice was one of the issues that was raised. That aligns with the framework’s approach, which acknowledges that people with experience of commercial sexual exploitation are victims of exploitation. Therefore, we will continue to work with Police Scotland and wider justice partners as we look to finalise, publish and implement the framework.

We are also aligning progress with our wider work on delivering trauma-informed justice. That includes ensuring that we build on the conclusions from the report that was published last year on the case for gendered intersectional approaches to justice. That report recognised that supporting women in ways that meet their individual needs could have a powerful impact on their perception of justice, leading to greater trust in the system. To that end, and in parallel with the launch of the equally safe refresh, equally safe in practice training modules are now available to civil servants across the Scottish Government as part of their training offer and development.

It is important that our framework takes an adaptive approach that is cognisant of emerging risks related to commercial sexual exploitation. That includes online behaviours and considering our next generation by ensuring that young people understand the complexities of CSE and how to stay safe online.

We must also remain vigilant within our responses to crises—for example, our collective responses to the cost of living crisis and the on-going conflict in Ukraine.

Recognising the need for an adaptive approach and the need to bring together our approaches to tackle commercial sexual exploitation more holistically, we will establish a new multi-agency group on commercial sexual exploitation, which will support the framework’s implementation.

As I have outlined today, there is clearly positive progress across Scotland in our collective efforts to tackle CSE, but we can and should do more, and our framework will pave the way for that. I look forward to updating the chamber following the framework’s publication.

As I made clear in my statement, the decision has not been taken lightly, but the Scottish Government has been left with little choice. I am aware that there is a range of views about the new safeguards.

We are mindful of the possible impact that the change in the law may have on animal welfare organisations and will continue engaging with those organisations and with other key stakeholders to understand the impact of the regulations that will be introduced to provide safeguards around XL bullies.

The Scottish Government has stated on many occasions that animal welfare is a matter that we take very seriously. I am happy to assure the member that we will continue to work closely with local authorities and animal welfare stakeholders as the matter is progressed. I confirm that I am urgently planning to discuss the issues that stakeholders have raised in my discussions with Gillian Martin, the Minister for Energy and the Environment, who has animal welfare in her remit.

As I said in my statement, the Scottish Government’s decision is not one that we have taken lightly; it reflects the specific circumstances that have arisen. We need to replicate the new safeguards that operate in England and Wales in order to reduce the undue impact on Scotland.

The Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 is, of course, not focused on any one breed. Its approach is “deed, not breed”. Specific measures to target XL bully dogs take a different approach, which will, of course, run contrary to the overriding principles of the 2010 act.

We need to acknowledge that situations like this one might arise in the future, and we will want to ensure that legislation here in Scotland enables us to keep people safe and enables the effective control of dogs in certain circumstances.

It is important that we engage with Scottish stakeholders, not override them by putting through legislation that comes up from down south. I have been doing so in recent weeks. As the member is aware, throughout the duration of the process—we must not call it “months”, as the process has been very short—the UK Government has been unable to give a definite statement on whether the new controls on selling or giving away XL bullies apply in Scotland. That is why our consideration has changed.

The issue of animal welfare is not only important; it is emotive. The Scottish Government takes animal welfare very seriously and is committed to the highest possible welfare standards. We need to emphasise to people that they must be responsible owners and act responsibly when deciding to buy a dog or take one into their lives.

I have met a number of animal welfare organisations as well as representatives of the British Veterinary Association to discuss XL bully dogs, and I am happy to assure Maggie Chapman that engagement with them and with other relevant stakeholders will continue. For a considerable time, the Scottish Government has engaged with key animal welfare stakeholders, including the veterinary profession, on the issue of low-welfare dog breeding, and we will continue to work with stakeholders to address the issue through the pet trade task force, which is led by the Scottish SPCA.

On the issue of a summit, I will be happy to speak to my ministerial colleague Gillian Martin.