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

To ask Her Majesty's Government how much they spent in the 2016–17 financial year on biosecurity measures relating to fish diseases and pests, broken down by (1) policy functions, (2) inspectorate functions, (3) technical support functions (for example, risk assessments and diagnostics), (4) response functions (including control activities), (5) research, and (6) total budget.

Data on government spending cannot be broken down against these categories for biosecurity measures relating to fish diseases and pests. However, the spend on aquatic animal health in the financial year 2016–17, which includes disease controls and biosecurity measures for fish and other aquatic animals in England and Wales, is as follows:

1. Policy functions – £147,765, this includes salary rates and variable and fixed overheads.

2. Inspectorate functions, diagnostics and response functions - £2,080,917.

3. Technical support functions (e.g. epidemiology, risk assessments, test exercise) - £142,858.

4. Response function – these is included in (2) inspectorate functions.

5. Research - £730,768.

6. Total - £3,102,308.

   Aquatic animal health is a devolved policy. Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate aquatic animal health budgets which are not covered in the figures above.