§ Mr. Peter AinsworthTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to record centrally(a) the number of people employed in border inspection posts and (b) where they are deployed. [13275]
§ Margaret Beckett[holding answer 8 November 2001]: The inspection services at the border inspection post (BIP) are the responsibility of the local authority and it is for the appropriate local authority to deploy inspection staff at the BIP in response to the volume and nature of products imported through the BIP. For this reason the exact number of inspectors engaged in checking imports can vary from day to day. Any centrally held figure would therefore be accurate only on the day it was collected. Central Government have no powers to instruct the local authority over the number of inspectors.