Export Health Certificates

(asked on 19th February 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of additional Official Veterinarians required to (a) meet the demand for Export Health Certificates in Great Britain once the current authorised trader grace period for movements from Great Britain to Northern Ireland comes to an end on 1 April 2021 and (b) perform physical checks when full sanitary controls are applied on imports into Great Britain from the EU from July 2021.


Answered by
Victoria Prentis Portrait
Victoria Prentis
Attorney General
This question was answered on 18th March 2021

As part of the pragmatic and proportionate implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol, the Government is taking several temporary operational steps to avoid disruptive cliff edges as engagement with the EU continues through the Joint Committee. These recognise that appropriate time must be provided for businesses to implement new requirements and support the effective flow of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

For supermarkets and their suppliers, as part of the operational plan the UK committed to at the UK-EU Joint Committee on 24 February, the current scheme for temporary agrifood movements to Northern Ireland (STAMNI) will continue until 1 October in which they do not need to complete health certificate paperwork for agri-food produce. Certification requirements will then be introduced in phases alongside the roll-out of the digital assistance scheme.

Once STAMNI arrangements end, we estimate demand for Export Health Certificates (EHCs) for movements to Northern Ireland may increase by between 70,000 and 150,000 per year. Up to 70 FTE Official Veterinarians (OVs) may be required to certify these EHCs. The actual number of EHCs and OV requirement will depend on multiple factors, many of which we cannot quantify with certainty. The number of OVs qualified to certify exports of products of animal origin has increased from 600 in February 2019 to more than 1,700 currently.

Defra has provided £14 million funding to local authorities in England to support Port Health Authorities with the recruitment and training of over 500 new staff, including Official Veterinarians, for the purpose of undertaking new checks on EU imports of animal products, including physical checks.

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