Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015

Lord De Mauley Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord De Mauley]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015.

Relevant documents: 17th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, 13th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord De Mauley) (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations deliver one of the main measures contained in the package of policies set out in my Written Ministerial Statement of 6 February 2013 to tackle issues relating to dog welfare and irresponsible dog ownership. We have amended the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 so that its criminal provisions on dangerously out-of-control dogs are extended to private property. We have also increased the penalties available for the worst dog attacks and provided authorities with new preventative powers in the form of community protection notices. In addition, these regulations will make it compulsory for all dogs in England to be microchipped.

Over the past three years, an average of just over 100,000 stray dogs a year were passed to English local authorities and welfare organisations. Of those dogs not able to be reunited with their owners, some 38,000 dogs were re-homed and a further 8,000 were put down. The annual cost incurred by local authorities and welfare organisations in dealing with stray dogs is more than £30 million. That is not to mention the distress caused to dogs and owners.

Since we first announced our intention to introduce this requirement in February 2012, the number of dogs microchipped is estimated to have risen from 58% to 70%; but we consider that we are close to the ceiling of the number of dogs that would be microchipped if we were to maintain the voluntary approach. Microchipping a dog is a welfare measure. Increased traceability allows lost dogs to be reunited with their keepers more quickly and therefore avoids dogs having to spend unnecessary time in kennels with possible resultant welfare problems or the need to be re-homed. I expect compulsory microchipping to have the additional benefits of reducing kennelling costs to local authorities and welfare organisations and allowing abandoned and nuisance dogs to be traced back to their keepers, who may then, if appropriate, be held to account.

The regulations require that, from April 2016—unless a vet has certified that a dog should not be microchipped for reasons of its health—all keepers of dogs in England must have their dogs microchipped. The regulations define “microchipped” as both having a compliant microchip implanted in the dog and, crucially, having the keeper’s up-to-date details on a reunification database. The details of the dog and its breeder, where known, also need to be recorded. This should help to encourage more responsible breeding as breeders will be more traceable.

Only trained people, including vets, veterinary nurses and others who have passed an approved dog microchipping course, will be able to implant microchips. Microchips and database operators must meet certain standards, including the ability to supply information to authorised persons to enable dogs to be reunited with their owners on a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week basis.

In keeping with the Government’s wish to have light-touch enforcement of the regulations, the microchipping requirement is enforceable primarily by the issue of a notice. Any keeper of a dog found without a microchip can be handed a notice by a local authority authorised person or a police constable requiring them to get their dog microchipped within 21 days. There is then a fine on conviction, currently up to £500, for non-compliance with such a notice. Finally, all dogs must be microchipped before they can be transferred to a new keeper, unless a vet has certified otherwise.

Microchipping is a relatively simple process which a number of animal welfare groups and local authorities have been offering free for many years. Blue Cross and Battersea Dogs & Cats Home offer free microchipping at their respective centres, and the Dogs Trust has offered to meet the cost of microchips and has set aside £6 million to help ensure all unchipped dogs are microchipped ahead of April 2016. Animal welfare groups are already campaigning to raise awareness of this new obligation as well as of the benefits of microchipping. We also plan to undertake significant communications activity ahead of April 2016 to ensure breeders and keepers are aware of this new duty.

These regulations will help tackle the problem of stray dogs and help to reunite keepers with lost pets more quickly. They will also lessen the burden on animal charities and local authorities and protect the welfare of dogs by encouraging responsible ownership. I commend these regulations to the Committee. I beg to move.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on bringing these regulations forward. The Minister was right when he said that the voluntary scheme is probably reaching its upper limit and that to catch the last pool of dogs that are not chipped, compulsion is needed. At the same time as congratulating the Government, I congratulate the many animal charities he mentioned—Dogs Trust, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home and the Kennel Club—on how proactive they have been in working on this issue. I congratulate Dogs Trust on coming forward with its offer of free chipping because that makes a tremendous difference. The Minister mentioned that the saving to the public purse would be over £30 million every year, which is a significant sum.

I have three questions. First, Regulation 6 relates to the conditions to be met by a database operator. The Minister mentioned that Defra will advertise the reunification databases but, if you are dog owner, how do you know which databases are approved? The regulations state that the database must be approved and lays out all the things that have to be done for it to be approved, but how will the dog owner know which databases advertising on, say, the internet have that approval from Defra and which are just rogue databases which will not meet the conditions?

My second question relates to another detail of the conditions that have to be met by a database operator. I can see why the Minister mentioned that telephone and online requests will need to be answered at all times. Having no knowledge of who is going to be operating these databases, I am slightly concerned about whether a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week service is practical. I am sure that the Minister’s department may have done some research into this.

My last question relates to Regulation 8, which concerns a change of keeper. It is rather worryingly ambiguous that,

“where a dog is transferred to a new keeper, the new keeper must, unless the previous keeper has already done so, record their full name, address”,

and so on. The point is that the person who is giving up a dog that they do not want might say, “Well, it’s okay Fred. I’ve done all that. There’s no need to worry about it”. How would the new keeper know that the previous keeper had recorded all that information? When you transfer a car, there is a very definite document. Therefore, I wonder whether this regulation depends simply on trust or whether there will be something to back it up.

I congratulate the Government and I warmly congratulate the dog charities and all the other charities involved on all their efforts in this area. I think that this will hugely benefit not only dog owners but lost dogs too.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope I have not punctured the euphoria that these regulations may induce from their passage today. I merely hope that I pointed out several areas where clarity is needed to get the operation of these regulations correct. In this regard, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Trees, for casting his professional eye for detail over these regulations. If I am right, if there is an identity badge and a microchip attached to a dog, there should be less concern to local authorities that they will be inundated with lost dogs at a considerable cost because ordinary members of the public coming across a stray do not possess scanners. We must be far from complacent. In agreeing this order today, can the Minister satisfy me that local authorities are confident that they have the resources necessary? The prize of saving some £32 million annually in dealing with some 102,000 stray dogs per year is certainly worth while, especially when considering the welfare benefits to dogs and the anxieties of their owners.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords for their comments and questions. Let me do my best to address them. My noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer raised a number of questions. She started off asking which databases are approved. We will be publishing a list of the databases that inform us that they are compliant by 6 April this year, which is the date by which the microchipping database operators must comply with the requirements set down in the regulations. In answer to her second question, they will not be approved unless they can perform 24 hours a day, seven days a week. She asked a question about change of keeper. I suspect I might return to that but basically the buck stops with the new keeper. The new keepers are the people in whose interest it is to make sure that the dog is microchipped, because they are the ones who will suffer if the dog does not come back to them. I will return to that in a moment.

The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, raised a number of points. He referred to the issue of dog breeding and he should be aware—I know he is—that this is not the primary purpose of these regulations, which is to allow more easy reunification of a dog and its owner when the dog has strayed. I will return to the breeders issue in a moment. The noble Lord raised issues related to the Deregulation Bill. We are looking at those issues and the record-keeping requirements on dog breeding. My colleagues dealing with the Bill are well aware of the issues, and they are considering whether any action or clarification is necessary.

[Lord Grantchester]

My anxiety is raised because the Minister at the time mentioned a consultation and yet the various sector bodies in the industry seem to be unaware of that consultation.

[Lord De Mauley]

I understand that. I will return to him in writing on that particular point.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I am sorry to add to the cacophony of voices on this. It is not my topic but I am in charge of the Deregulation Bill on this side. I just point out to the noble Lord, and I am sure he is aware of this, that we will be on Report within a few days, so it is important for us to know whether we should be pursuing this issue. We would therefore be happy if the letter could come expeditiously.

[Lord De Mauley]

I take that point on board: expedition is the name of the game. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, asked whether full discussion on guidance would be taking place with a number of interest groups that he referred to. I can assure him that there is very active two-way communication with those groups. He asked about the adequacy of local authority resources. It is very clear from our discussions with both dog welfare organisations and local authorities that this is about saving them money. It is not going to involve them in more expense but will reduce the amount of time it will take to identify who the owner is, so I am pretty confident about that particular point.

The noble Lord, Lord Trees, raised a number of important questions. First, I thank him for his support for the regulations and acknowledge his point that these measures, on their own, are not a silver bullet. Indeed, we never expected them to be that, but they will, over time, enable us to tackle some of the other issues that he and I are concerned about. He and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, asked whether there would be a single point of contact for the six databases. Regulation 6 requires that database operators must be able to redirect online inquiries to other databases if someone comes through to a database that does not hold the details linked to the microchip. All databases will have a system whereby, if an inquirer enters the microchip number on the wrong database, a pop-up—that may be the wrong technical expression, but I think he and I understand what I mean by that, although perhaps “window” might be a more appropriate word—will be automatically generated on the screen which, when clicked on, will redirect the person to the correct database.

The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, raised the important point of whether the first keeper will always be the breeder. There is also the issue of whether that is dealt with in guidance. Yes, the breeder, as defined by the regulations, is always considered the first keeper of a puppy. This is covered in the Explanatory Memorandum to the SI and will be included in the guidance.

The noble Lord, Lord Trees, asked for clarity about who is responsible for change of ownership. I have touched on that already. Regulation 8 is clear that it is the responsibility of the new keeper to update the database where there is a change of keeper. He also suggested that there is some question over the use of the word “transponder”. This is essentially a technical issue but there is not a problem. The chip must conform with the FDX-B protocol set out in ISO standards, which is referred to in the regulations. The important point is that the chip must respond to a scanner at a given frequency.

The noble Lord also asked about the term “authorised person”. To clarify, the reference to authorised person is in respect of someone enforcing the regulations. Vets are not defined as authorised persons in the regulations; there is no provision limiting the provision of information to others to aid reunification of dogs and their keepers or to deal with other matters such as faulty microchips. These relationships will not be affected by the regulations and we would expect relevant consents from keepers to be in place already in relation to disclosing personal data. We would expect vets, re-homing centres and microchip manufacturers that already have a working relationship with database operators to have some secure identifier, if they do not have one already, from the database operators to ensure that they are bona fide inquirers for data protection purposes.

The noble Lord asked about a recommended site for implantation. This will be covered by the implantation training, so we do not consider it necessary or appropriate to legislate on this point. The training also advises implanters to check that the dog does not have a chip in a different implantation site and to check for any microchip migration.

The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, asked whether there were any conditions that database operators must meet and whether they applied to the UK only. Regulation 6 sets out the conditions to be met by the database operator. Databases do not have to be located in any particular country but the conditions apply to any database that holds itself out as being compliant with these regulations. He also asked what happens if a dog strays while it is overseas. I am afraid that that will depend on whether an analogous set of rules applies in that country.

I have done my best, although I suspect that when I go through Hansard, I may find questions that have been left unanswered. If I may, I will write on those. I think noble Lords all share with me the strong view that irresponsible dog ownership is a complex problem to which there is no single, simple solution. We have introduced a series of measures, of which these regulations are the latest. We believe they will help promote animal welfare and encourage responsible dog ownership. The draft regulations will help lost dogs to be reunited with their keepers more quickly, so reducing any suffering of the dogs and distress to their keepers. The increased traceability of dogs to keepers will ensure that keepers can be held to account better if their dogs are allowed to roam and cause a nuisance. They will also save local authorities and re-homing centres money, which can be better spent elsewhere to promote dog welfare and encourage responsible ownership.

Motion agreed.