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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of excluding criminal record checks from the dog licensing process on the safety of (a) animals and (b) local communities.

Under The Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018 (the 2018 Regulations) anyone who is in the business of breeding and selling dogs requires a valid licence from their local authority. The local authority is responsible for enforcing the 2018 Regulations and has powers to grant, refuse or revoke a licence. Regulation 11 and Schedule 8 of the 2018 Regulations set out restrictions as to who may not hold a licence under the 2018 Regulations and this includes people who have animal related criminal offences under certain legislation, across Great Britain. As required by the 2018 Regulations, we will be reviewing them five years after they came into force (2023). The review of the 2018 Regulations would be a suitable time to consider whether or not background criminal record checks should be included in the licensing process. In the meantime, if anyone suspects a licencee should not be operating because they fall within Regulation 11 and Schedule 8 of the 2018 Regulations, they should report the matter to the relevant local authority which has powers to investigate.