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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure that garden centres are able to sell their plants that will otherwise go to waste during the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government is keeping the situation on garden centres under review but concluded last week that it was too early to ease any restrictions on retail environments. Online sales have been able to continue subject to the same import requirements as other imports, and the plant health inspectorate conducts regular checks on this pathway.

We will continue to work closely with the representatives from the horticulture supply chain to understand what short-term and long-term support the sector needs and how we might be able to support them.