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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the monitoring of orders requiring dogs to be muzzled in public.

Defra is working with the police, local authorities and animal welfare groups to encourage responsible dog ownership, to ensure dog control issues are addressed before they escalate and to make sure the full force of the law is applied. As part of this work, we have reconvened the Responsible Dog Ownership taskforce to explore measures to promote responsible dog ownership across all breeds of dog. This includes consideration of enforcement. We look forward to receiving the findings and recommendations from the taskforce in due course.