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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the number and countries of origin were of dogs imported into the UK for (a) non-commercial reasons under the Pet Travel Scheme and (b) commercial reasons in 2017.

The total number of dogs entering Great Britain under the Pet Travel Scheme in 2017 was 287,016. The list of countries that these dogs come from are listed in Annex 1.

The purpose of the Pet Travel Scheme is to manage the risk of rabies entering the UK and to ensure appropriate vaccination, at an appropriate age, therefore the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) do not systematically record numbers for all imports from individual countries.

The data for commercial dog imports found in Annex 2 was extracted from the Trade Control and Expert System (TRACES). In some cases imports are recorded on TRACES as ‘Canis familiaris / Felis catus’, so APHA is unable to distinguish between cat or dog imports. These are included in the table in the column ‘Mixed’.

Leaving the European Union provides an opportunity to improve and modernise the legislation in this area and consider how APHA can collect more detail in the future.