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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made with Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of the time taken to implement health and safety checks on EU imports on (a) inventory levels for, (b) costs incurred by and (c) business continuity planning by the retail sector in Slough constituency in each of the last three years.

There is no assessment specific to the retail sector in Slough. Overall, the new Border Target Operating model will not reduce choice for domestic consumers and will lead to an approximate increase in consumer food price inflation of less than 0.2 percentage points over a 3-year period. The proposed regime aims to balance the impact on traders with the need to maintain UK biosecurity, which is essential to ensuring a supply of safe food to consumers. We are working closely with traders and the border industry to implement the new regime and minimise impact.