Where have all the food police gone?

EU negotiators have warned that if the UK leaves both the customs union and single market, this will automatically lead to additional border checks on food and animal health. Striking new international trade deals for food will mean we have to provide additional assurances when sending our produce to the EU, and also checks on imports to ensure they meet our standards.

However, domestic regulatory agencies have experienced swingeing cuts to both staff and budgets since 2010. Some agencies have experienced budget cuts of up to 51% and insiders are warning they will not be able to cope with the additional tasks.

Sustain’s analysis has revealed:

• Defra, the Government department that oversees many of our food and environmental agencies will see its budget slashed by £1bn (since 2010) by the time we get to Brexit day on 29 March 2019.
• The Food Standards Agency, whose staff uncovered serious food hygiene breaches at the Russell Hune meat packaging firm, has seen its budget sliced by over a quarter since 2011.
• The Trading Standards Institute who advise on and enforce laws on consumer safety, labelling and animal welfare estimate there has been an enormous drop of 57% in staff working to protect British consumers.
• A big drop of 22% in Local Authority Food Law enforcement officers (from 2,531 in 2012/3 to 2,105 in 2015/6)
• A worrying (47.4%) of respondents to a Chartered Institute of Environmental Health workforce survey stated that resources "were only just adequate to provide a basic statutory service, left no contingency and that any further cuts would compromise service delivery". At that stage (2015), local authorities were reporting a real-term drop in budgets of 6.8% and were predicting a further drop of 30% over the following three years (2015-2018).
• British Veterinary Association President, John Fishwick, recently briefed his members that the volume of exports requiring veterinary certification could increase by as much as 325% and that many more vets were required. However, the UK is largely dependent on veterinary graduates from overseas, with as many as 95% of abattoir vets coming from abroad, mostly from elsewhere in the EU.

Currently, as a member of the EU, Britain's food standards are covered by European regulatory agencies such as the European Food Safety Authority, the European Fisheries Control Agency, European Maritime Safety Agency, European Chemicals Agency and European Environment Agency.

These shared European agencies do things like investigate emerging risks to health in the food chain (such as additives), pollution by ships, and industrial pollution. They also develop and share knowledge in their fields as well as scientific or technical know-how.

However, Sustain’s analysis indicates that far from being ready to assume additional monitoring and regulatory responsibilities from EU agencies when we exit the EU, the UK agencies who keep our food, fish, farms and waterways safe cannot possibly have the staff or resources they need.

Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive of Sustain, said: “Our food safety is critical and yet it is clear that as a nation we are hopelessly underprepared to exit the customs union and single market. Regulation has been a dirty word of late, condemned as ‘red tape’ that holds the industry back, but when it comes to food safety, we need strong rules and inspections. We all expect the food on our plates to be safe. We need fresh commitments from government to give the people who keep our food safe the proper resources they need.”

Budget

	Defra	FSA	Environment Agency	Trading Standards	Maritime Management Organisation
Budget 2010/11	£2.9bn	£114.1 (2011/2012)	£846.7m	£213m (2009/10)	£32m
Budget 2016/7	£2.3bn (£1.9bn by 2019)	£84.5m	£744m	£124m	£15.5m
Budget + -	-£600m	-29.6	-102.7m	-£89m	-16.5m
Percentage change	-20%	-26%	-12%	-41.7%	-51.5%

Staff

	Defra	FSA	Environment Agency	Trading Standards (E & W)	MMO
Staff total 2010/11	2516	1943	13, 583	5500	250
Staff total 2016/7	1,839	1,526	11,610	x	299
Staff + -	-677	417	-2008	x	+49
Percentage change	-26.9%	-21.4%	-14.5%	-57% (TSI fig)	+19.6%

This story was covered in The Times and Farmers Guardian