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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of increasing the post-rabies vaccination wait time from the three to 12 weeks before which a puppy can enter the UK, to further reduce puppy smuggling.

The Government takes the issue of puppy smuggling and other illegal importations of pets very seriously. It is an abhorrent trade which causes suffering to animals and puts the health of pets and people in the United Kingdom at risk.

On 12 May 2021 the Government published its Action Plan for Animal Welfare (APAW). This is a wide-reaching and ambitious plan to set out our current and future work on animal welfare and conservation.

The Government has a manifesto commitment to crack down on puppy smuggling and one of our key reforms in the plan is to end the abhorrent, cruel practice of puppy smuggling and low-welfare pet imports.

We are planning to bring in powers which enable us to that will allow us to prohibit the importation and non-commercial movement of dogs into Great Britain that have been subject to low welfare practices. This could include increasing the minimum age that dogs can be non-commercially moved or commercially imported into Great Britain.