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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Benyon on 23 March (HL Deb col 954), what discussions they had with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs minister in the Northern Ireland Executive about his embargo on the recruitment of veterinarians to deliver controls on (1) sanitary, and (2) phytosanitary, goods arriving at Northern Ireland ports; and what assessment they have made of this decision.

The operation of checks is a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive (as sanitary and phytosanitary checks are a devolved competence). Defra Ministers have written and spoken to Minister Poots about staffing and infrastructure for conducting checks at Northern Ireland points of entry. Defra officials talk regularly to their DAERA counterparts about implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol including operations at points of entry.

We remain fully committed to fixing the problems with the Protocol and to protect the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement in all its dimensions. We will continue our intensive talks with the EU in order to resolve these.