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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many inspections Border Control Posts have conducted since 2022; and at what cost to the public purse.

Checks at Border Control Posts (BCPs) are intelligence-led and based on biosecurity risk. To protect the integrity of this approach, we cannot share data on volumes of inspections.

Regarding the cost to the public purse, the only UK Government run BCP is at Sevington, where the Common User Charge applies (CUC). The CUC is intended to recover the operating costs of government-run Sevington BCP facility serving the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel. There will be no profit from the charge as it is intended to be a full cost recovery charging scheme only, in line with HMG’s Managing Public Money principles.

For information on calculation and operating costs please review the report at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sevington-border-control-post-estimated-operating-costs.