The EFRA Committee has called on Defra Secretary Steve Barclay to be more transparent in his communication over the introduction of new border controls at the end of this month.
The Committee’s Chair, Sir Robert Goodwill, has written to the Defra Secretary, following reports last week suggesting that the new import checks and inspections regime, the Border Target Operating Model, would not commence in full on the planned implementation date of 30 April.
Defra rebutted the reports, stating in a blog that ‘checks are commencing from April 30 and, as we have always said, the medium and high-risk goods posing the greatest biosecurity risk are being prioritised as we build up to full check rates and high levels of compliance’.
Sir Robert’s letter, however, urges Mr Barclay to ensure ‘more timely and transparent communication with stakeholders regarding [the Department’s] approach to SPS import checks’.
It states: “Although your Department’s response to the media reports affirms that checks will commence from 30 April, the Defra presentation reportedly states that you plan to initially set the rate of checks to zero per cent for all commodity groups. We are concerned that this is a sixth delay to the implementation of SPS import checks in all but name.”
The EFRA Committee’s letter asks Defra ‘what a ‘graduated’ or ‘light touch’ approach to the April 30 measures look like in practice’ and ‘what percentage of new SPS checks on imports will take place from April 30 in each risk category’.
The letter also asks when the measures will be scaled up to their intended capacity, and what ‘barriers remain to implementing any or all checks on 30 April’ and ‘what impact will any delays to the expected checks have on goods being imported from non-EU countries’.
The letter says that ports and business have experienced confusion and frustration, and states it is essential that the ‘Department urgently takes steps to communicate the changed arrangements to businesses and the public to build confidence in our incoming border controls and reduce disruption.’
The Committee asks the Department to reply to its letter by Tuesday, April 30.
Sir Robert said: “Given the high importance of a robust import inspections regime, and the serious concerns expressed by stakeholders to date, I have written the Defra Secretary of State to ask for a clear and unambiguous explanation by the Department as to how import checks will be rolled out from April 30.”
Defra response to Dover queries
The Committee has also published the reply from Defra Minister Lord-Douglas Miller to its letter of 26 March, in which it asked for a response to concerns raised by Dover District Council (DDC) about the new SPS import checks and border controls at Dover.
On funding arrangements for the cost of ASF checks, Lord Douglas-Miller acknowledges that ‘there may well be challenges’ for Dover Port Health Authority to achieve ‘full cost recovery’, by charging traders for inspections, but states that Defra ‘does not agree that cost recovery… will be entirely impossible’. The letter states that ‘Defra is proposing funding precisely intended to meet any cost-recovery shortfall’. The Department’s says that it is ‘open to discussing funding requirements with DDC’.
Regarding illegal imports of meat, the letter says that suspect vehicles ‘will continue to be stopped and dealt with by Border Force at the point of entry to the UK, not sent to a BCP’.
On concerns around moving all commercial imported food controls 22 miles inland to a border control post (BCP) in Sevington, the letter states that ‘robust, data-backed enforcement options’ will mitigate the risk of legitimate commercial loads not attending for inspection at Sevington.