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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make the appointment of a permanent animal welfare inspector a mandatory requirement for local authorities.

Local authorities in England are already required to appoint suitably qualified animal welfare inspectors in order to enforce the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018. The 2018 Regulations require local authorities to consider applications for and undertake inspections of businesses seeking licences for certain animal related activities; namely dog breeding, pet selling, cat and dog boarding, riding schools and keeping or training animals for exhibition. Local authorities’ inspections ensure that welfare conditions are applied and they have powers to refuse or revoke a licence. The regulations provide for full cost recovery of local authority activity through licensing fees.