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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help end illegal puppy smuggling.

HM Government published its Action Plan for Animal Welfare in May 2021, which is a wide-reaching plan that sets out our current and future work to build on our already high standards of animal welfare.

Now that we have left the EU, we are making some significant changes to domestic law through the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill, bringing in legislation to meet our manifesto commitment to crack down on puppy smuggling. The Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill was re-introduced to the House of Commons in May and will progress to Report stage as soon as Parliamentary time allows.

The Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill allows us to protect the welfare of pets by introducing restrictions to crack down on the low welfare movements of pets into Great Britain and includes powers to introduce new restrictions on pet travel and the commercial import of pets on welfare grounds, via secondary legislation. In August 2021, HM Government launched a consultation on how these powers should be used. We are currently analysing the responses to the consultation and will publish a response in due course.