Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on the number of incidents of shooting of (a) cats and (b) other animals with air weapons reported to the police in England in each of the last three years for which figures are available.

The Home Office holds statistics on notifiable offences recorded by the police. The police record offences of criminal damage, in a number of categories and supply this information to the Home Office. Shooting of cats and other animals are most likely to be recorded within ‘other criminal damage’ and cannot be separately identified within this category.

The Home Office Publishes open crime data at police force area level, which can be used to show how many ‘other criminal damage’ offences have been recorded in England in the last three years. These can be accessed here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables