Animals

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:50 pm on 5 June 2019.

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Photo of Chris Davies Chris Davies Conservative, Brecon and Radnorshire 3:50, 5 June 2019

As chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend led an excellent investigation and inquiry into puppy farming. He raises a particularly strong point. The criminal element in this and every other country will find a vacuum. If we rightly constrain the breeding, there will be a deficit between the number of people wanting puppies and the amount that we can supply, so they will come in from outside. Puppy smuggling will therefore be more of a problem than it is at the moment. As we found during our investigation, many puppies do not reach these shores alive. When they do, they are quite often deformed or damaged and they create a massive problem for the new owner, so we will really need to look at and crack down on puppy smuggling.