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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential merits for the future long-term sustainability of the British sheep industry of amending the sanitary conditions relating to the importation of live sheep and ram semen from Australia and New Zealand to enable imports from animals bearing the scrapie genotype group 2, specifically scrapie genotypes ARR/ARQ, ARR/ARH or ARR/AHQ.

There have been no changes in our import conditions for scrapie, Annex IX chapter H of regulation (EC) No. 999.2001 details the requirements for import of ovine and caprine semen, oocytes and embryos, which was adopted into UK law. These germinal products of non-ARR/ARR prion protein genotypes may be imported provided they meet the other scrapie requirements set out in the legislation and corresponding import health certificate.

Ovine and caprine germinal products: health certificates - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The UK maintains its own sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) imports regime to protect public, animal and plant life and health and the environment. We have repatriated the functions of audit and inspections to ensure that trading partners, including those we secure trade deals with, continue to meet our import conditions. This provides a standing, robust system that works alongside border controls to maintain our high standards going forward.