Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 24 October 2017 to Question 108716, on trees: imports, for what reasons the UK intercepts a higher proportion of harmful organisms than other EU countries.

Since 2014, we have invested in improving border security by recruiting new inspectors, enhancing training provision and facilitating closer working with Border Force. This additional investment has allowed the UK to increase its risk based inspections on goods which are not controlled at an EU level and therefore where mandatory inspections are not required. Uncontrolled trade inspections see relatively higher interception rates than inspections of controlled trades (15% vs 3%) and this data provides helpful intelligence and evidence to support new regulations and targeted monitoring.