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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of altering the existing Export Health Certificate requirements so that monthly compliance attestations from EU suppliers can be accepted as part of the sign-off requirements for those certificates for imported meat goods from the EU into Great Britain.

Health certification is a biosecurity measure related to the consignment subject to export. The certification conditions relate to physical parameters for a specific consignment such as vaccination, health tests status, time of slaughter, production details and disease status at time of production.

The certifying Official Veterinarian signs the certificate to confirm the status of the consignment. The act of signing their name on documents should be approached with care and accuracy. An Official Veterinarian would not be able to put their name to a consignment, for example, at the start of the month covering products that might be produced and shipped later that month as they would not have the necessary data to support their signature and professional responsibility.

We are keeping our GB import certification requirements under review to minimise the burden on trade while maintaining our high biosecurity standards.