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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of import controls in place to support the UK's domestic food production; and what the status of those controls are.

In April 2022, the UK Government decided not to introduce the final set of planned controls on EU imports. We have instead worked with industry to develop a new model for imports into Great Britain. The new Border Target Operating Model (TOM), to be published later this year, will set out how GB’s new Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) regime for imports will operate in full. The TOM will balance the need to protect our biosecurity with the need to support businesses with import processes that are as simple as possible. Ahead of TOM publication, we have already implemented some controls on the highest risk goods such as plants for planting and live animals. In addition, all regulated SPS goods must be electronically pre-notified before arrival into GB. We still operate the same import health controls on non-EU goods entering GB that applied whilst we were in the EU, except for certain commodities which present a negligible risk. Defra continually monitor threat levels from biosecurity risks, and respond accordingly. Full details of current import controls and the commodities to which they apply are published on Gov.uk.