Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
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 bring forward proposals to ban (a) starting stalls and (b) other forms of dangerous equipment in horse racing.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government is keen that the welfare needs of racehorses are well met, both during their racing lives and afterwards and any racehorse fatality is one too many. We are in regular discussions with the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), who are responsible for safety at racetracks, about how we can look at ways in which we can make horseracing safer and further reduce fatalities at tracks.
The Government considers that whilst the BHA have made improvements to the welfare of racehorses, there is still more work to be done. That is why I will be meeting with the BHA soon, and pressing them for an action plan on improving the safety at starting stalls, and safety relating to other equipment. There are strict rules around the use of whip with stiff penalties for those riders who breach them. The Animal Welfare Act 2006 makes it an offence for anyone to cause unnecessary suffering to an animal and this includes racehorses on racetracks.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Government's press release entitled Government launches world leading plan to tackle air pollution, published in 14 January 2019, what the evidential basis is for the statement that agriculture is responsible for 88% of ammonia emissions.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The data used in compiling this statistic are 2016 figures from the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI) which is available via the uk-air.defra.gov.uk website. The NAEI reports emissions of air pollutants from all sources including the agriculture sector.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to bring forward proposals to reintroduce a requirement for a rabies blood test and wait period in order to regulate pet travel and commercial pet movements after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Defra takes the threat to public and animal health posed by animals entering the United Kingdom (UK) very seriously and requires rabies vaccination for pet animals (cats, dogs and ferrets) entering the country, as well as other high risk species entering zoos or pets destined for the pet trade.
Pet travel between EU member states and from some other lower risk third countries requires a rabies vaccination followed by a 21 day waiting period. A quantitative risk assessment was carried out in 2011, which assessed the risk of a pet animal with rabies entering the UK under the EU Pet Travel Scheme (PTS) as very low. Defra continues to monitor the disease situation but has no plans to introduce a requirement for a rabies antibody titration test.
For third countries with higher rabies risk, stricter rules do apply involving a rabies antibody titration test and waiting period. When the UK leaves the EU it will be a third country for the purposes of the EU Pet Travel Scheme (PTS). On 24 September 2018 a Technical Notice ‘Taking your pet abroad if there’s no Brexit deal’ was published. For pet animals entering the UK from the EU we propose that we maintain the current pet travel entry health requirements after exit though additional controls could be considered at a later date. This would mean that the UK government is not introducing any new requirement immediately following EU exit. The notice advised that should the UK become an unlisted third country under PTS pet owners intending to travel with their pet from the UK to EU countries would need to prove animals are effectively vaccinated against rabies before they could travel with their pet to EU countries. This would require a blood titre test to demonstrate sufficient levels of rabies antibody. Once a blood titre test shows sufficient levels of antibody, there would need to be a three-month waiting period between the date the blood sample is taken and the date of travel.
Defra is working with a range of stakeholders to review the risks to animal health and welfare that illegal imports of dogs pose, and are considering a range of possible long-term measures to tackle these risks.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the status of the Post Implementation Review of the Non-Commercial Movement of Pet Animals Order 2011 is.
Answered by George Eustice
The Post Implementation Review (PIR) will evaluate the effectiveness of the Non-Commercial Movement of Pet Animals Order 2011. A public consultation to inform the review was conducted and responses published in June 2017. Defra is very grateful to all those who took the time to respond to this consultation. We intend to publish the review in the autumn.
Defra will also use the many comments made by respondents that directly related to the requirements of Regulation (EU) No 576/2013 (the EU Pet Travel Scheme) to inform any future policy development regarding pet travel that may be undertaken as a consequence of the UK’s June 2016 decision to leave the European Union.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the report Puppy smuggling, a tragedy ignored, published by Dogs Trust in July 2017, whether his Department has made representations to the countries cited in that report.
Answered by George Eustice
This Department takes puppy smuggling extremely seriously.
The Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO) has raised cases of abuse of the Pet Travel Scheme, based on evidence from UK enforcement bodies, with those authorities in the relevant Member States. This includes writing to the CVO’s Polish counterpart in October 2016 and Hungarian counterpart in November 2016 to notify them of the identification of several non-complaint puppies originating from their countries, which had been seized on entry to the UK. The CVO at the time of publication also had a number of exchanges with his Lithuanian counterpart.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many kittens and cats entered the UK under the EU Pet Travel Scheme in 2016 and 2017.
Answered by George Eustice
The numbers of cats imported to Great Britain under the Pet Travel Scheme in 2016 and 2017 are as follows:
2016 – 24,145
2017 – 26,480
The data regarding the Pet Travel Scheme is taken from the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s system for recording pets’ throughput based on information provided by checkers employed by approved carriers of pet animals.
This information does not record the age of the animal. As such the data above will include both cats and kittens which were old enough to be fully compliant with the requirements of the scheme at the time of entry to Great Britain.