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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of implementing a permanent personal imports policy for travellers entering the UK from the EU in the context of African swine fever.

Preventing an outbreak of African swine fever in the UK is one of Defra’s key biosecurity priorities. The department keeps policy on personal imports under constant review and works closely with the devolved Governments on contingency planning and preventing an incursion from possibly infected goods.

We have already strengthened controls on personal imports of pork and pork products from the EU through the measures we introduced in September last year. We are working to develop a long-term policy on personal imports of products of animal origin and animal by-products, taking account of international examples.