Ms Becky Bristow:

Certainly. I thank the Chair for those questions. We are heavily involved in rehoming. We have been rehoming an average of 2,000 dogs a year from Ireland via Dogs Trust for the last decade. In the last year, we rehomed 1,200 in Ireland. Prior to the pandemic, we did have to rehome some via our rehoming centres in the UK. We are not the only charity to do so. It is better to have them travel a little distance and be rehomed than to have them face the alternative.

What could we do with more resources? The reality is that any more resources should be used to tackle things upstream. Rather than getting to the point at which dogs are surrendered and end up in pounds for rehoming, I would encourage the provision of more resources to tackle matters upstream, including low-welfare breeding and the lack of traceability. These are the dogs that end up needing rehoming. I encourage the provision of resources to deal with these matters. I hope that answers the Chair's question on rehoming.

In the figure of 90 dog breeding establishments, DBEs, I quoted, I excluded greyhound breeders. These 90 DBEs are specifically those that breed what we categorise as pet dogs. Each local authority has its own list. Less than half of these are online so I would have to travel to the local authority and request the list to see who was registered and for how many breeding females.

One central online list is something that would be absolutely paramount to get. It is a licence issued by the State so I do not see any reason it should not be publicly available to be searched. They were the questions I noted. Members may let me know if I missed anything.