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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of import checks on food products arriving from the EU on (a) independent and (b) small and medium-sized (i) sandwich shops, (ii) delicatessens and (iii) grocery wholesale businesses.

The Border Target Operating Model provides a proportionate and streamlined import control regime that supports businesses of all sizes while maintaining high levels of biosecurity and public health protection. During the 6-week stakeholder engagement period, the majority of responding businesses identified as small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We have listened to the feedback and we have pushed back the implementation dates for SPS controls giving industry longer to prepare. We have also revised the SPS trusted trader scheme and set out further facilitations for importers using groupage models, all of which will benefit SMEs.