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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of catteries which have closed in the last 12 months for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement.

Anyone in the business of boarding other peoples’ cats needs a valid licence under The Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018 which introduced strict statutory minimum welfare standards. Local authorities are responsible for enforcing the 2018 Regulations and have powers to issue or revoke licences, and powers of entry and inspection. Although the 2018 Regulations require local authorities to submit details of the numbers of licences issued for their area we would not know how this compared to the previous twelve months (before the 2018 Regulations were in force). Each local authority would hold details of the number of licences issued to catteries under the 2018 Regulations and how that number differed from the number of licences issued in the previous twelve months.