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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans his Department has to (a) ensure that the running of pet registration databases is fully accountable to pet owners and (b) create a Government-run pet registration database.

Under the Microchipping of Dogs Regulations 2015, it is compulsory for owners to microchip their dogs and their details must be recorded on a compliant database. The Regulations set out conditions which microchip databases must meet to be compliant. There are 16 compliant microchip databases, which are listed on gov.uk.

We are currently carrying out a post-implementation review of the Regulations, which will be published later this year. It will consider how the current database system is working in practice and will identify whether improvements are required.