Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 10
Eighth Report - Seafood and meat exports to the EU
Published 29 Apr 2021
Paragraph 47
Addressed to Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Seafood and Meat Exports to the EU All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
As the problems that faced exporters in January highlighted, groupage is an important part of the export process especially for smaller businesses. With the new requirements for Export Health Certificates and other red tape when exporting seafood and meat to the EU, it is vital that groupage can be conducted efficiently, ideally without additional handling. Distribution hubs, where consignments are collated for groupage and can also be certified for EHC purposes, are an opportunity to help smaller businesses. We welcome Defra’s positive approach to hubs to date. Given the particular importance of groupage for SMEs exporting seafood and meat to the EU, Defra should continue to act as facilitator and proactively encourage collaboration between stakeholders. It should establish a ring-fenced fund that is used to help establish hubs in circumstances where the private sector will not otherwise provide. Defra should also explore with stakeholders the scope for non-hub models of groupage.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Eighth Report - Seafood and meat exports to the EU (HC 1189), paragraph 47, 29 April 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 12 July 2021 (deadline 29 June 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government states that it is "fully committed to supporting meat and seafood exports", but declines or has "no plans" on several recommendations, including a public certification service and extending the Movement Assistance Scheme to EU exports.
- On the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, it says the SPS chapter puts in place a framework to reduce SPS controls, and that frictionless trade "would require regulatory alignment with the EU", which it says would undermine regulatory autonomy.
- On certification, it says it has "no plans" to change the commercial Official Veterinarian market. Rather than publishing a comparative report, it is engaging with other countries. It has no current plans to ask the RCVS to admit vets to the temporary register for export health certification roles, but will "monitor the situation".
- On support schemes, it does "not consider support schemes for meat exporters are needed" on current market conditions, but says this "will be kept under regular review". It has "no plans to extend the MAS scheme" to exports to the EU or non-EU countries.
- It sets out phased import controls from October 2021, with physical checks at Border Control Posts from January 2022 and further checks from March 2022. Defra "will continue to report to the Committee" on progress.