Written question asked by John Bercow (Conservative) on Thursday, 8 January 2004, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 19 January 2004. It was answered by Hilary Benn (Labour) on Monday, 19 January 2004 on behalf of the Department for International Development.

Dept for International Development

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how many sniffer dogs in the United Kingdom were ineligible to accompany search and rescue teams to Iran on account of quarantine regulations.

Answer: Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many sniffer dogs in the United Kingdom were ineligible to accompany search and rescue teams to Iran on account of quarantine regulations. [147349] Hilary Benn: There are 12 collapsed structure search and rescue dogs that are registered with the National Search and Rescue dog group. None were ineligible to accompany the rescue teams to Iran. However, seven had only recently completed quarantine following the earthquake response to Algeria last May and their owners felt it was not appropriate to subject them to another spell of quarantine so soon after that mission.

Secondary information