Supporting Evidence to Justify the Retention of Breed Specific Legislation

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs did not have the information requested.

Dear Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,

In its response to the EFRA Select Committee on 19 January 2019 DEFRA stated that:

"The Government considers that the prohibition on possession of such dogs [Section 1 banned dogs] should remain in place for reasons of maintaining public safety".

However, Government (by its own admission) claimed that "it would help planning and policy-making to have access to better data and information on dog attacks"

Given that dog attacks have been on the rise despite BSL, could you:

(i) Publish the evidence upon which the Government bases the claims that Prohibition of pit-bull (and other) types dogs should remain in place? ; and

(ii) Explain the rationale employed by the Department for claiming BSL as a policy has been successful in its stated aim of protect public safety?

As you answer the above, may I remind you it is simply impossible to tell how many attacks would have occurred without the law (BSL), and an absence does not constitute proof of anything for you cannot prove a negative.

Yours faithfully,

Ceci

SM-Defra-Helpline, Defra (MCU), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs



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Defra Information Rights Team,

Dear Ceci Vandini,

Thank you for your email of 14 December requesting information.

We aim to answer your request no later than 15th January, which is 20
working days from the date we received it. If we are unable to meet this
deadline we will contact you to explain the reason.

If you have any queries about this letter please contact us.

Yours sincerely

Marie Davies

Information Rights Team

[email address]

SM-Defra-Information Requests (DEFRA), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Following on from our acknowledgement requests made under the Freedom of
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Any correspondence for views or explanations would not amount to a valid
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With that in mind your email has been forwarded to the Defra Ministerial
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Should you wish to contact directly then please email:
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Jo Collinge

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Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) This email and
any attachments is intended for the named recipient only. If you have
received it in error you have no authority to use, disclose, store or copy
any of its contents and you should destroy it and inform the sender.
Whilst this email and associated attachments will have been checked for
known viruses whilst within Defra systems we can accept no responsibility
once it has left our systems. Communications on Defra's computer systems
may be monitored and/or recorded to secure the effective operation of the
system and for other lawful purposes.

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