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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many enforcement checks were carried out by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (a) during the loading of live animals and (b) at ports from which live animals were exported in 2017.

Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) are not an enforcement body but do carry out regulatory checks, in this case supervised loadings and checks at port.

In 2017, APHA conducted:-

(a) 71 checks during the loading of live animals export consignments.

(b) 85 mid-journey compliance checks were undertaken at the ports from which live animals were exported.

When approving proposed journeys for the export of livestock, APHA conduct a risk assessment which scores proposed journeys with a final destination of the EU, or where transiting the EU, against criteria affecting the likelihood of non-compliances.