Current status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 11 June 2026
To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to review cat breeding licensing under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (Scotland) Regulations 2021, including whether the licensing regime could be improved by measures such as lowering the threshold for licensing to two litters per year, increasing public awareness to encourage applications, and introducing an anonymous reporting system to allow the public to report unlicensed breeders.
The Scottish Government has no plans to review the licensing framework regulating cat breeding; nor do we have any current plans to reduce the threshold for licensing from 3 litters in any 12-month period to 2. Responsibility for enforcing the legislation regulating cat breeding sits with local authorities and it is the responsibility of local authorities to ensure that cat breeders are licensed. Any member of the public can report cat breeders suspected of operating without a licence to the appropriate local authority and this can already be done on an anonymised basis, so we do not believe that a separate reporting system is necessary.