Meat Products: Exports

(asked on 30th September 2020) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that there will be sufficient numbers of qualified vets to inspect and sign off consignments of meat to be dispatched from the UK so that they can be issued an export health certificate after the end of the transition period.


Answered by
Victoria Prentis Portrait
Victoria Prentis
Attorney General
This question was answered on 5th October 2020

The Government has increased the number of Official Veterinarians (OVs) holding the relevant qualification to certify exports of products of animal origin, including meat products, in Great Britain from approximately 600 in February 2019 to more than 1200 today. On 1 October 2020, we launched a new £200,000 funded training scheme to enhance OV capacity further. In parallel, we launched a £100,000 scheme to train Certification Support Officers (CSOs). CSOs can handle several preliminary and administrative tasks to prepare consignments for certification. This reduces the burden on OVs and Local Authority Certifying Officers. More than 100 CSOs have been authorised in GB to date.

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