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

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the draft Microchipping of Cats and Dogs (England) Regulations 2023, what consideration they have given to the possibility of that legislation causing further welfare problems through the stress to cats caused by (1) trapping, (2) confinement, and (3) euthanasia.

Under the draft Microchipping of Cats and Dogs (England) Regulations 2023, only owned cats are required to be microchipped. The Regulations will not apply to free living cats that live with little or no human interaction or dependency, such as farm, feral or community cats.