Huw Irranca-Davies MS, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Members of the Senedd will wish to be aware that I have given consent to the Minister of State exercising a subordinate legislation-making power in a devolved area in relation to Wales.
The Minister of State for Biosecurity, Animal Health and Welfare, Baroness Sue Hayman, sought my agreement to make a Statutory Instrument (SI) titled the Official Controls (Extension of Transitional Periods) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 (“the 2025 Regulations”) to apply in relation to the United Kingdom.
The above titled SI was made by, Baroness Hayman, in exercise of the powers conferred under article 144(6) of, and paragraph 2 of Annex 6 to, Regulation (EU) 2017/625 of the European Parliament and of the Council (‘the OCR’).
Consent has been given for the UK Government to make this instrument as a result of the agreement on the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) between the three governments in Great Britain to introduce a coherent and consistent sanitary and phytosanitary regime for goods imported into Great Britain to protect biosecurity and ensure food safety standards are maintained.
The purpose of 2025 Regulations is to extend the implementation period of import checks on certain sanitary and phytosanitary (‘SPS’) goods entering Great Britain (‘GB’) from certain countries, until 31 January 2027. This will allow sufficient time to transition to a permanent legislative basis for the BTOM. .
The Transitional Savings Provision (TSP) provides for four key areas of flexibility to ensure outstanding BTOM policies are implemented in a controlled way. These are prenotification, certification, (enabling the running of the certification logistics pilot/scheme) location of checks (i.e. away from a BCP), and frequency of checks. If the TSP expired on 1 July 2025, any outstanding policies that had not yet transitioned to a permanent legislative basis under the BTOM ‘would default’ to the current controls required by the OCR. In this eventuality, the current provisions of the OCR would apply and SPS checks would be imposed on imports arriving into Wales.
The 2025 Regulations were laid before the UK Parliament on 29 April and will come into force on the 20 May 2025.
The 2025 Regulations do not diminish or undermine the powers of ʶ Ministers in any way, and they do not create, amend, or remove any functions conferred on the ʶ Ministers.
I would like to reassure the Senedd it is normally the policy of the ʶto legislate for Wales in matters of devolved competence. However, in certain circumstances there are benefits in working collaboratively with the UK Government where there is a clear rationale for doing so. On this occasion, I have given my consent to these Regulations for reasons of efficiency and expediency in future policy change and adherence to international obligations, cross-UK coordination, and consistency.