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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many people have been arrested, charged and convicted for non-compliance of not ensuring that their dog is microchipped.

There are no recorded prosecutions or convictions for such an offence up to and including 31 December 2016, the latest year for which statistics are available. However, at least two people were fined last year for failing to ensure that their dog was properly microchipped and their details kept up to date. The offence of failing to microchip a dog is a “non-notifiable” offence and so there is no centrally held data on arrests or charges. We would not expect many people to be arrested, charged or prosecuted for such an offence because offenders are given an opportunity to microchip their dogs before facing prosecution.