Agricultural Products: UK Trade with EU

(asked on 15th October 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many UK exporters have faced sanitary and phytosanitary checks exporting to countries in the EU since 1 January 2021.


Answered by
Victoria Prentis Portrait
Victoria Prentis
Attorney General
This question was answered on 8th November 2021

The EU introduced sanitary and phytosanitary controls on all exports from Great Britain (GB) to the EU on 1 January 2021. Since then, all animal and animal product exports must have an appropriate export health certificate (EHC) and plants and plant products require a phytosanitary certificate (PC).

Each commodity type in a consignment will require a minimum of one EHC but in some cases, mixed load consignments or packages may require multiple EHCs. Physical checks conducted by the EU are not notified to the UK and therefore we are unable to confirm how many exporters have faced checks at EU border control posts. Minimum percentages for specific checks are set out in the Official Controls Regulation for both the EU and the UK to comply with.

Since 1 January, 1,533 GB plant exporters have applied for 28,904 PCs (this figure include plants moving to Northern Ireland).

Likewise, there have been 159,000 EHCs issued for animal and animal products commodities exported to EU member states from approximately 1,300 businesses.

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