Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many cases of ear cropping of dogs were (a) reported, (b) investigated and (c) charged in 2023.

The Home Office collects information on the number of offences of ‘Carrying out, permitting, causing to be carried out or failing to prevent prohibited procedure on a protected animal’ and their investigative outcomes, recorded by the police in England and Wales, on a quarterly basis. The latest information is available up to the end of September 2023.

This shows that there were 16 offences of ‘Carrying out, permitting, causing to be carried out or failing to prevent prohibited procedure on a protected animal’ offences recorded in the first nine months of 2023. Of these cases eight resulted in the investigation being complete with charge or summonsed. Four cases are still under investigation.

Table 1, Carrying out, permitting, permitting, causing to be caried out, or failing to prevent prohibited procedure on a protected animal, England and Wales, January 2023 to September 2023

*Excluding West Midlands, Humberside and Devon and Cornwall Police Force