The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has been engaged in a wide range of activities to get ready, and to help industry get ready, for the new UK import requirements which, as the Deputy will be aware, have now been deferred into 2022. We will be continuing these activities to meet the newly announced UK timelines.
There has been extensive engagement with all stakeholders in the supply chain through trials, testing, information webinars and training sessions. The Department is also implementing an extensive additional staff resource plan to support the increased demand for export health certification, and IT systems and infrastructure have been upgraded across the country to support the provision of export health certification to businesses.
A key element of the Department's preparations has been the extensive engagement that has been undertaken by local veterinary supervisory teams with individual food business operators. This local engagement is, and has been, critical to allow businesses and the Department to refine business processes in order to support the provision of export health certification, and to align the demand for certification with available resources.
The Department has engaged with the company named as part of this process, and I understand that good progress has been made in putting in place the resources and refined business processes that will support this company's trade with the UK.
This task is challenging for all food business operators. It will require ongoing engagement, especially at local level, between Department veterinary supervisory teams and the management of these plants, as we work towards the new UK timelines I mentioned earlier.
More generally, the Department also continues to engage regularly with the UK’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to press for decisions and clarity on outstanding issues which will make the export certification process operate more efficiently, including on UK plans for Border Control Post infrastructure, and the procedures which will apply at British ports.
