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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the UK exiting the EU, what steps they plan to take to tighten the rules governing the bio-security of imported trees and other plants.

We are committed to protecting our borders from pests and diseases and we are promoting biosecurity internationally, at UK borders, and inland.

We are considering the implications for plant health biosecurity and possible options as part of our planning for, and negotiations on, the UK’s exit from the EU.

Continuing to deliver a risk-based, proportionate plant health regime, that effectively protects the UK from plant pests and diseases, whilst maximising the free movement of goods, remains one of the Government’s highest priorities.