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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of improving (a) traceability and (b) transparency in dog breeding through strengthened (i) regulation and (ii) microchipping requirements.

Defra completed a Post-Implementation Review of the Licensing of Activities Involving Animals Regulations 2018, which regulate dog breeding. The Government is considering the findings and will be outlining more detail on next steps in due course.

Compulsory dog microchipping was introduced in England in 2016. All dogs over 8 weeks must be microchipped and relevant information including breeder details recorded with a Defra-compliant database operator, which helps support traceability.