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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of number of annual Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) documents, including export health certificates, phytosanitary certificates and catch certificates, that will be required for (a) exports from Great Britain to the EU and (b) imports from Great Britain to the EU once full border controls have been implemented.

Full import controls on GB exports to the EU have been in operation by the EU since 1 January 2021. The number of export health certificates being issued will not change as a result of our own implementation of border checks on EU imports into GB.

Estimates of the total number of export health certificates required following the end of the transition period indicated that up to 300k additional certificates would be needed for GB-EU trade, and up to 480k per annum when GB-NI and GB-Rest of World Trade were included. The EU determines how many physical checks it needs to conduct with minimum levels set out in the Official Controls Regulation. Regulated imports and exports are subject to 100% documentary checks.

We estimate, based on our own analysis of customs data, that 4 million to 5.9 million consignments of sanitary and phytosanitary commodities will be imported annually from the EU. These are divided between 1.3 million to 2.5 million consignments of products of animal origin, and 2.7 million to 3.4 million consignments of plants and plant products. Each individual consignment will require certification. A minimum 1% of all low-risk imports will be physically checked with higher percentages for commodities that present a greater biosecurity risk.