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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans his Department has to increase capacity to deliver SPS checks on both exports and imports as the new import regime is implemented between April and July 2021.

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 SPS checks on EU imports of animal products, including physical checks.

We have also taken a number of steps to increase certifier capacity to support exports. The number of Official Vets qualified to certify exports of products of animal origin has increased from 600 in February 2019 to more than 1,700 currently. The required training is still available free of charge and numbers continue to grow. This funded training is in addition to £1.095 million provided directly to local authorities to boost certifier capacity at the end of last year. Furthermore, we continue to maintain a system to provide surge capacity vets to both certification providers and local authorities if localised shortages arise. So far this has not been widely needed. We are considering what further mitigations may be necessary.