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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate his Department has made of the number of (a) horses and (b) ponies smuggled from the United Kingdom in each of last five years.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) defines a smuggled animal as one that is illegally exported. This means the animal is one that is not travelling on appropriate paperwork, has not been declared and/or is concealed.

By its very nature, robust data on the numbers of horses and ponies illegally smuggled out of the UK in the last five years is not readily available.

APHA only holds data for the period September 2023 to date for APHA Dover. In that period the APHA Dover team inspected 328 horses/ponies being exported (this includes transits from Ireland). 102 of those were found to be non-compliant. The non-compliance figure relates to Welfare in Transport and the Trade in Animals and Related Products Regulations. 10 horses/ponies did not have the required export health certification.