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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure the effective operation of the Central Equine Database.

The Central Equine Database (CED) has been set up to record the information on equine identification required by EU legislation. Defra’s supplier conducted extensive user testing during development of the CED to ensure that historical information held by equine Passport Issuing Organisations was checked for accuracy and cleansed before it was imported into the CED. The Central Equine Database is now operational and accessible to regulatory bodies including Defra, the Food Standards Agency and Local Authority Trading Standards.