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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate his Department has made of the number of canine fertility clinics offering surgical intra-uterine insemination procedures.

Surgical artificial insemination is a prohibited procedure under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. It legally restricts mutilations to animals (i.e. procedures which interfere with sensitive tissue or bone structure). Consequently, canine fertility business should not be offering surgical artificial insemination. Anyone convicted of carrying out a prohibited procedure may be imprisoned for a term of up to five years, receive an unlimited fine, or both.