Efforts to keep meat potentially knocked out by the United Kingdom diseases are compromised by post-Brexit border controls, said a senior health official.
The boss of the Dover Port Health Authority said that illegal meat, which has not been via good health checks, was now available in the “streets most of the highs” in the United Kingdom.
European epidemics of deadly animal diseases in recent months have left the health authorities, the leaders of Whitehall and many in the agricultural industry concerned by the threat they constitute for the United Kingdom.
But the government has already insisted on the fact that the new post-Brexit border verification system which entered into force in April of last year is capable of keeping the United Kingdom without illness.
As part of the post-Brexit system, checks on commercial vehicles do not take place in Dover itself.
Instead, drivers are ordered to travel 22 miles (35 km) for a border control station in Sevington.
But criticisms have warned that many trucks fail to come to checks, due to a lack of application.
The Parliament’s selective environmental committee has now launched an investigation to find out if the system works.
Lucy Manzano, head of the Dover Port Health Authority, told the Committee deputies that the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) had overvalued the efficiency of the system.
She said: “Defra has continuously said that there are robust controls in place. There are none. They don’t exist.”
She added that the department had not provided “a confirmation of how food is checked when it happens, or more important, between its arrival and the installation of inspection accessible to 22 miles in diameter “.
Ms. Manzano said she had presented evidence to the government “to demonstrate that the system has set up to protect this country from a biosecurity point of view … does not work.”
DEFRA refused to respond to a recent request for freedom of information from the BBC Countryfile Program, asking how many vehicles did not appear at Sevington checks.
Ms. Manzano said illegal meat has now become much more common in street stores – and that it becomes increasingly difficult for consumers to spot the product they buy has undergone good health checks.
It is understood that the view inside Defra is that post-Brexit checks work as they should.
Earlier this week, figures showed that nearly 100 tonnes of illegal meat were seized at the port of Dover last year.
Defra said that the government “will never vacillate in its duty to protect the biosecurity of the United Kingdom” and insisted that it worked effectively with application agencies.
A BBC News survey last year revealed that unprecedented crisis levels had aroused fears of a more organized criminal activity.
A health control establishment similar to that of Sevington exists on site in Dover, but it is understood that the government has chosen not to use it due to concerns concerning the queues of potential traffic at the border.
Ms. Manzano said that the decision was “not based on biosecurity” and added that “the very objective of import controls is to keep bad things and contain it at the first entry point”.
Last month, the British government introduced strict restrictions on the importation of German meat, following an epidemic of foot disease.
But Ms. Manzano said that the failures of the computer system introduced from Brexit meant that the products that should have undergone checks were allowed to enter the United Kingdom freely for “at least six days”.
When the current system was introduced last year, the government also financed to Dover Port Health Authority to carry out ad hoc controls on small vehicles directly on the border.
The figures show that the vast majority of illegal meat entered in the United Kingdom is captured through these punctual controls.
But Ms. Manzano said that funding should run out in seven weeks and that the government in cash, checks should stop.
Government discussions are underway on the best way to finance border checks.
It is understood that the decision to put the checks in Sevington probably had a direct negative impact on the amount that the money goes to the Dover Port Health Authority.
A DEFRA spokesperson refused to comment on current spending decisions.
