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

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to support small businesses in adapting to additional costs for post-Brexit border checks.

To support SMEs, Defra has identified and issued guidance on a number of facilitations and mitigations to reduce the burden of sanitary and phytosanitary import requirements using groupage.

The Common User Charge is designed to spread the costs to be recovered across the maximum number of imports. This approach distributes the cost across business of all sizes and sectors and provides a high level of predictability on costs for all importers.

The impact of the Common User Charge on businesses, and especially on small businesses, will be kept under monthly and quarterly reviews, with rates reviewed and updated annually.