Committee hears about issues with meat inspections at UK border

Politicians have called for funding to be maintained for meat inspections after hearing evidence on the scale of products being seized at the border.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee examined biosecurity measures for animal and plant imports to the UK. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is responsible for product of animal origin imports. 

The committee has written to Sue Hayman, Defra Minister for biosecurity and borders, to request a timeline of the agency’s response to the Jan. 10 report of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in Germany.

In evidence given as part of an inquiry, it was revealed that a government IT system took six to seven days to implement restrictions on German imports. Witnesses told MPs it was possible for meat and dairy products from Germany to enter the UK in this period.

Politicians asked Defra when the decision was made to ban the import of relevant goods from Germany, when border control posts were informed and when the IPAFFS (Import of Products, Animals, Food and Feed System) was updated and operating as intended. 

Another issue raised was funding for African swine fever (ASF) controls done by Dover Port Health Authority (DPHA). MPs said the current level of support only allows DPHA to provide 20 percent of coverage to deliver checks for illegal meat entering the country. This funding is due to stop at the end of March, and the Committee urged the government to maintain it to ensure biosecurity.       

Concerns raised about meat imports
The evidence session heard the government agency Border Force seized 70 tons of meat in 2023 to 2024 and 22 tons in January 2025.

Lucy Manzano, head of port health and public protection at Dover Port Health Authority, said the agency removed almost four tons of products in the first two days of February.

“If we are not there, this stuff is going out on the shelves. This is not stuff where traditionally it would be hard to get hold of. This stuff is appearing in shops, on high streets and in markets. You may well be going out for dinner in normal-looking establishments and be consuming meat that has not been correctly processed,” she said.

Manzano said the systems are resulting in tons of illegal meat coming through commercial channels.

“That is the exact channel where all of us as consumers were reassured this would not happen once the border target operating model (BTOM) was implemented, and it is happening. It is happening because the systems are enabling it to happen. We are now seeing illegal meat from banned and restricted countries actually able to come in via the official route,” she said.

“That is why we are confident and have presented evidence very clearly to Defra, and indeed to the Food Standards Agency, to demonstrate that the systems in place to safeguard this country from a biosecurity point of view, the absolute cornerstone of import controls – keeping the bad stuff out – is not working. We have to action change. It is not acceptable to continue along the lines of simply saying: ‘We are maintaining biosecurity. There are robust systems in place’.”

Helen Buckingham, an environmental health practitioner and regulatory consultant, spoke about Defra funding given to Suffolk Coastal Port Health Authority, which looks after Harwich for port health, to stand with Border Force for a project to look at what was coming in.

“Of course, the project only ran from Monday to Friday in the mornings. What did the criminals do? They waited until the weekends and brought it through.”

Buckingham also spoke about the so-called “white van smuggler.”

“The white van smuggler can be just one van on its way to already known customers who seek a particular Romanian pork, because that is what they are used to and that is what they want. It can be one van going to one place, or it can be, as Lucy is seeing, articulated vehicles with mixtures of stuff that has been notified and stuff that has not, because they do not think they are going to be checked, so they might as well drive on in anyway,” she said.  

“You do not go into this job for the money. You go in because you care, and here we are, with the biggest threat to food safety we have had for a long time. We have to get to grips with it.”

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Source: https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2025/02/committee-hears-about-issues-with-meat-inspections-at-uk-border/