Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress has been made on establishing a Central Equine Database since the closing of his Department's consultation, Consultation on changes to the identification of equines, published in Aril 2017.

Usability testing has been successfully completed. Defra’s supplier is working closely with Passport Issuing Organisations (PIOs) to prepare and import their historical passport records into the Central Equine Database, with two thirds of PIOs having now provided data. Enforcement bodies including Local Authorities and the Food Standards Agency are able to search records and the database will be fully operational for PIOs by Spring.