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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the cost for Plant Health Agency inspections.

It is important that plant health services are properly financed in order to provide assurance for the high standard of UK exports of plants and produce and to protect our nation’s biosecurity. In line with HM Treasury rules, Defra recovers the cost of plant health services delivered by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) from the businesses who use them. Defra regularly reviews its fees to ensure they are reflective of the cost of delivery and that they do not over-recover.

Cost data is collected on an ongoing basis and fee changes are based on the actual costs recorded over at least 12 months. Defra completed the most recent annual review of fees in December 2020. The review showed that the cost base had remained stable across plant health services. In 2019/20 the cost base for delivery of plant health services was £5.796m, an increase of only 0.5% on the 2018/19 cost base of £5.768m. Given this stability, Defra decided not to amend the existing fees until October 2022, to give businesses certainty over costs for 18 months.