Lord Watts
Main Page: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, my noble friend had a lot to do with this when he was at Defra and it is certainly the case that people are looking increasingly to buy their pet online. That is why the department supports the voluntary Pet Advertising Advisory Group. Indeed, more than a 130,000 inappropriate advertisements have been removed from the six main websites only last year.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, is it not the case that we will continue to have such problems until we have a dog licence system and local authorities are given the resources to police it?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, 86% of dogs are now microchipped and we believe that that is the way forward, not the dog licence system. Certainly, that is making a considerable difference in terms of rehoming pets to their owners and reducing the cost to local authorities and stray homes. Local authorities, of course, have the powers to retrieve the costs of licences.