Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to their policy paper Critical Imports and Supply Chains Strategy, published on 17 January, what steps they are taking to establish the new online portal for businesses to report disruption affecting their imports; and what assessment they have made of the impact this will have on communication and coordination in relation to supply chain issues.

The Critical Imports and Supply Chains Strategy includes several actions to make it easier for businesses to share information on difficulties or disruptions they face importing critical goods. These include creating a new import barrier reporting mechanism and a new business/government Critical Imports Council. The Government is now working to establish both of these and we are confident they will both increase our understanding of the challenges businesses face and enhance business and government collaboration to tackle the issues and strengthen our critical supply chains.