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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what arrangements he has in place for the provision of plant passports for the movement of plants when the transition period ends on 31 December 2020.

Movements of plants which currently require a plant passport from the EU will need to be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate after the end of the transition period. Further details on this change can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/importing-and-exporting-plants-and-plant-products-from-1-january-2021.

For internal GB movements, GB will continue to use a domestic plant passport system from 1 January 2021, which will be similar to the current EU plant passport system. The plant passport system is necessary to maintain traceability for internal movements of plants and ensure that operators who issue plant passports meet a minimum standard of plant health.

We have aimed to keep the domestic plant passport system similar to the current system to ease the burden on operators.

For example, imports from the EU will require a plant passport from the First Place of Destination; this is the same process as for imports from third countries now. Furthermore, existing authorisations to issue EU plant passports will roll over from 1 January 2021, and therefore there is no need for operators to fill out further forms for plant passporting if they are already authorised.

The vast majority of guidance regarding plant passports will remain the same, and movements of plants within GB which require a plant passport now will continue to require one after the transition period; therefore for most operators the post-transition domestic plant passport system should not present additional burden to the existing system.

Changes that will occur, for example the content and format of the new UK plant passport, have been communicated to industry to ensure they are ready for those changes.