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The information used to publish the Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard only contains data from April 2017. Accordingly, we are unable to extract the number of case-accused convicted for the financial years prior to 2017-18.

From April 2017 to March 2023, 279 people received disqualification or deprivation orders. The numbers per financial year were as follows.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water, I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water has used an economic assessment that balances the cost of supplying the water with the cost of finding and fixing leaks to determine Scottish Water's target leakage level of 408ML/d. In future iterations Scottish Water will apply estimates of future water supply side investment which will be guided by climate change impacts and other factors, e.g. moving populations.

I can confirm I have met with a range of stakeholders over the winter period to discuss XL Bully dogs and the restrictions in England and Wales.

I met with:

The Scottish SPCA and the Dogs Trust on 21 November 2023

The National Dog Warden Association on 21 November 2023

Dog Control Coalition on 22 November 2023

The Kennel Club on 30 November 2023

Blue Cross on 6 December 2023

Edinburgh Cat and Dog Home on 15 December 2023

Communication Workers Union on 9 January 2023

Police Scotland on 11 January 2023

These meetings revealed concern about the UK Government decision to introduce new safeguards for XL Bully dogs in England and Wales and caution about doing so in Scotland.

However the Scottish Government has now been left with little choice given the failure of the UK Government to ensure XL Bully dog owners living in England and Wales cannot evade the new safeguards through selling or otherwise disposing of their dogs in Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-24498 on‎ 23 January 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

I wrote to the then UK Government Minister for Biosecurity, Marine and Rural Affairs, The Rt Hon Lord Benyon, on 14 November 2023 seeking clarity from the UK Government on whether XL Bully dog owners would be committing the offence of sale of an XL Bully dog if a dog owner living in England and Wales sought to do that outside of England and Wales.

The UK Government were unable to give a definitive answer indicating it would be ‘unlikely’ an offence would be committed in such a situation.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-24481 on 24 January 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .l

The Scottish Government keeps all dog legislation under review, and I can confirm to the member that I will be planning to engage with key stakeholders going forward to help understand the impact of the regulations that will introduce new safeguards on XL Bully dogs, if approved by Parliament.

In light of the UK Government failing to ensure English and Welsh XL Bully dog owners cannot evade the new safeguards through selling or otherwise disposing of their dogs in Scotland, the Scottish Government has been left with little choice to decide to replicate the new safeguards in Scotland. Through replicating the new regime, this will ensure owners in England and Wales have no ability to evade the new controls in England and Wales by selling their dogs to people in Scotland.

More generally, we are considering how best the preventative dog control regime in the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 could be improved. The need for the new safeguards for XL Bully dogs specifically arises separately from the general Scottish Government continuing policy focus on ‘deed, not breed’.

The British Veterinary Association are members of the Dog Control Coalition and I met with members of Dog Control Coalition on 22 November 2023. This was prior to the Scottish Government announcement on 11 January 2024.

During the meeting, concerns were expressed about the introduction of the new safeguards in England and Wales including the impact this may have on the veterinary profession.

The number of XL Bully dogs in the UK and Scotland is unknown and estimates vary significantly.

During the House of Commons scrutiny of the new safeguards in England and Wales, many expert witnesses highlighted the challenges of estimating numbers as XL Bully dogs are not a recognised breed of dog. Those witnesses were concerned about how many of these dogs may be registered as crossbreeds on veterinary practice management systems and pointed towards seeing various estimates of the number of XL Bully dogs, ranging from 50,000 to 150,000 in England and Wales.

If there were 50,000 XL Bully dogs in England and Wales, this may suggest an estimated population of 5,000 XL Bully dogs in Scotland. This figure carries a considerable degree of uncertainty.