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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what changes to the Service Level Agreement have been made between Border Force and the Animal and Plant Health Agency since December 2021.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) and Border Force (BF) teams do not have a Service Level Agreement in place. AHPA and BF have an operational agreement for the Port of Dover.

Dover BF officers continue to make referrals to the APHA officers. There has been one change to the operational agreement. This change means that Dover BF will no longer hold the vehicle/consignment for more than 30 minutes. If APHA is unable to deploy staff to attend within 30 minutes the vehicle/consignment will be released. Details of the vehicle, person responsible for the animals and the consignment will be provided to APHA to follow up retrospectively.

If APHA attend within 30 minutes and identify non-compliance, UK Dover will not support this part of the process. APHA will be required to request assistance to manage any issues as required from the Port of Dover Police or Kent Police, if they are not present.