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

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to raise awareness of the practice of cropping dogs' ears.

The practice of non-exempted mutilations such as cropping dogs' ears is abhorrent and has rightly been banned in the UK for 15 years.

This Government is committed to eradicating the illegal cropping of dogs ears, not just addressing the practice's promotion on social media. Under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, it is already an offence in England and Wales to carry out a non-exempted mutilation e.g. where it is not carried out for medical purposes, including the cropping of a dog's ears. Now that The Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021 has come into force, anyone convicted of such an offence, faces being sent to prison for up to 5 years, or receiving an unlimited fine, or both.

The Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill was reintroduced to the House of Commons in May. The Bill includes powers to introduce new restrictions on pet travel and on the commercial import of pets on welfare grounds, via secondary legislation. This power will allow us to prioritise the welfare of dogs by prohibiting the importation and non-commercial movement of dogs into Great Britain that have been subject to low welfare practices, such as ear cropping or tail docking, in line with our domestic legislation on these practices.

In August 2021, HM Government launched an 8-week consultation on our proposed restrictions to the commercial and non-commercial movement of pets into Great Britain. We are currently analysing the responses to the consultation and will publish a summary in due course. This will allow us to take onboard the views of the public and interested groups in order to shape our future policy.

The department maintains a national communications campaign (Petfished) to raise awareness of issues associated with low-welfare and illegal supply of pets. This includes providing clear signposting on where responsible breeders and rehoming centres can be found and encouraging prospective buyers to research the seller thoroughly before they visit and decide to purchase. The campaign provides a list of red flags for buyers to look out for when searching for a pet online. More information can be found here: https://getyourpetsafely.campaign.gov.uk/.

We have also endorsed The Pet Advertising Advisory Group (PAAG) which was created to combat growing concerns about the irresponsible advertising of pets for sale, rehoming and exchange and backed a set of Minimum Standards that PAAG developed which several of the UK's largest classified websites have agreed to meet.