UK food standards bodies warn ministers over checks for EU imports

Food standard watchdogs on Monday warned the UK government that it must not delay the introduction of post-Brexit border checks on food coming from the EU, citing the risk of safety incidents.

In their first joint annual review, the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland said the failure to establish import controls for high-risk food from the EU had reduced the UK’s ability to prevent unsafe products entering the country.

This follows warnings from farming, veterinary and meat industry groups that the delay on post-Brexit checks was an “accident waiting to happen”.

While there was no evidence that standards of food imports had fallen, FSA chair Professor Susan Jebb said risks of a safety incident were rising.

“Establishing full UK import controls on food by the end of next year from the EU is a priority,” said Jebb. “The longer the UK operates without assurance that products from the EU meet our high food and feed safety standards, the less confident we can be that we can effectively identify potential safety incidents.”

Last month, the Financial Times revealed that the FSA had warned pig farmers of illegal “white van” shipments of pork meat coming to Britain from Romania, which has been battling a surging outbreak of African swine fever in its animals.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Brexit opportunities minister, in April announced that the UK government would for a fourth time delay full border checks on food products entering from the EU. In a statement, the government said it would review the necessary level of border checks and publish plans for a new controls regime this autumn based “on a better assessment of risk” using data and technology.

James Russell, senior vice-president of the British Veterinary Association, said at the time that the move “flies in the face” of commitment to preserve high levels of animal and human health. 

Minette Batters, National Farmers’ Union president, also called the decision “astounding” and “unacceptable”, adding that the border checks were “absolutely crucial to the nation’s biosecurity, animal health and food safety”. 

In an interview with the Financial Times, Rees-Mogg said postponing the checks pending a consultation with industry would save consumers £1bn a year and ridiculed some of the EU’s own stringent checks on food imports, arguing they would have increased the price of fish fingers by 1 per cent.

Rees-Mogg’s allies have said that they hope physical border checks — barring some spot inspections of animals — will never be needed and that a new digital trade system is due to come into operation in 2024.

The FSA and FSS said in their report that the introduction in January of new requirements for EU exporters to notify authorities about all high-risk food of non-animal origin and low-risk animal by-products being brought into Great Britain would help them and local authorities respond to food safety incidents. They added that they had strengthened their surveillance capability and capacity but “do not believe” these measures were a sufficient replacement for robust import controls.

Stricter safety controls are applied to high-risk food, live animals and animal by-products imported from non‑EU countries, which must enter Great Britain through border control posts.

The Cabinet Office said the UK had regained the right to manage its borders “in a way that works for Britain” as a result of Brexit and that controls introduced in January 2021 on the highest-risk plant and animal products were in place to safeguard UK biosecurity.

“Our new borders strategy will focus on technology to reduce unnecessary costs and delays — which will help businesses and consumers across the UK,” it added.