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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the economic impact on (a) food producers and (b) food prices of introducing controls on agri-foods and plant imports from the EU with effect from 1 July 2022.

Defra food price modelling analysis demonstrates that the five key drivers of consumer food prices are: domestic farmgate prices; agriculture and food import prices; exchange rates; labour costs in food manufacturing; and non-labour costs in food manufacturing. Agri-food supply chains are currently subject to multiple cost pressures from a variety of factors - including high energy prices, oil prices and freight costs. Recent increases in food price inflation reported by the Office for National Statistics are seen to indicate that retailers are passing some of those increased costs onto consumers.

The additional import controls due to be introduced on 1 July 2022 have the potential to add further cost pressures onto the supply chains of those products affected. The impact of those further pressures on the prices consumers pay will vary on a product-to-product basis depending on the level of existing pressure on the relevant individual supply chain, the importance of imports in that supply chain and the decisions of retailers in terms of whether to pass those additional costs on. We complement this work with input from our trade analysts on border frictions and non-tariff barriers to trade, as well as trade specific economic modelling. Defra will continue to monitor food prices and food price drivers, along with the impact that they have on consumers.