I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require dog keepers to register a dog’s DNA on a database; to make provision about such databases and about the information held on them; and for connected purposes.
There are not many days when we in this House can bring joy to so many families and individuals, fight crime, improve biosecurity, help the UK’s leadership in animal genomics and repay the loyalty of the nation’s faithful four-legged friends. This is one such day, and I believe we can do so united on both sides of the House.
One in three households across the UK is home to a furry four-legged canine friend. This Bill seeks to create a national register of doggy DNA as a more secure, more humane and better long-term alternative to microchipping. I am grateful for the feedback from the many parties I consulted in developing this Bill, including dog shelters, police forces, vets, academics, members of the public and genomic industry professionals. I am also grateful for the support of the RSPCA, the largest and oldest animal welfare organisation in the world.
Under the Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015, all dogs must already be microchipped. If there is a canine libertarian movement, that pass has already been sold. Although microchips have been a big step forward and have produced many successes in reuniting dogs with their loving owners, they are not infallible. Some dogs have health conditions making them unable to be microchipped. Microchips can be inserted incorrectly, causing suffering, or sometimes migrate to other parts of the body. Increasingly, they can be found and cut out by unscrupulous thieves.
Registration itself is fragmented, with many databases offered by competing suppliers, each of which hold data in a variety of formats. Unlike microchipping, a simple DNA swab inside a dog’s mouth is non-invasive. It is a modern solution whose time has come.
There is a particular problem right now of dog theft, which reportedly increased by 250% in 2020, but a database, once set up, will have a number of additional benefits and solutions for policy questions related to dog welfare and ownership. In March, my colleague Katy Bourne, police and crime commissioner for Sussex, ran a survey that received almost 125,000 responses, revealing fear of dog theft was a “serious problem”.
Earlier this year Gloucestershire constabulary gave us a proof of concept, having set up its own opt-in DNA register. I am grateful to Gloucestershire’s adviser, Kim Mowday, who examined everything from nose prints to paw prints before concluding that DNA was the most robust and reliable identifier. I know from farmers in my constituency, that a register would protect not just dogs but other animals, too. SheepWatch UK estimates that, in 2016 alone, over 15,000 farm animals were killed by out-of-control dogs.