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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what border checks are carried out to ensure that cats and kittens are not smuggled illegally into the UK from EU countries.

The Government is committed to preserving the UK’s high standards of biosecurity and animal welfare. The EU Pet Travel Scheme requires all pets travelling to Great Britain on approved routes to be declared. 100% of these are then subject to documentary and identity checks. All commercial EU consignments of dogs or cats receive documentary checks on entry and the Animal and Plant Health Agency conducts further risk based checks away from the border. We have increased resourcing at major UK ports to detect smuggled animals and continue to work collaboratively with Border Force, sharing intelligence in order to disrupt illegal imports.

On 13 May this year a statutory instrument[1] was laid in Parliament which will introduce a ban on commercial third party sales of puppies and kittens in England. This decision followed a public consultation which received over 6,500 responses, 96% of which supported the proposal. The ban itself is planned to come into force on 6 April 2020 and, once in place, anyone seeking to buy or adopt a kitten will have to deal directly with the breeder or with one of the UK’s many animal rehoming centres. Restricting the sale of kittens to licensed breeders has the potential to help deter people motivated to illegally import kittens for the purpose of financial gain.

[1] The Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2019