For a number of years, those representing farmers, vets, the meat sector and, perhaps most tellingly, on the front line of keeping potentially infected meat out of the country, have been warning successive governments about the gaping holes in our border controls.
All these concerns have now been distilled into two excellent but deeply concerning reports published by the cross-party Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) committee on successive Mondays in September.
The reports highlighted numerous flaws in our controls in relation to commercial imports, personal imports and the rapidly growing volume of illegal meat imports – and made a long list of urgent recommendations for government.
“We are calling on this government to get a grip on what has become a crisis,” EFRA chair Alistair Carmicheal said.
The stakes, as Mr Carmichael stressed, could not be higher. “It would not be an exaggeration to say that Britain is sleepwalking through its biggest food safety crisis since the horsemeat scandal.”
He highlighted the ‘very real risk’ the country faces of a major animal disease outbreak, pointing out that the single foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) case in Germany this year, most likely caused by illegally imported meat, cost its economy €1bn.
Dover District Council described the reports as a ‘reset moment’, while the NPA and British Veterinary Association (BVA) also pleaded with the government to act before it is too late.
Illegal meat imports
In its report, Biosecurity at the border: Britain’s illegal meat crisis, the committee concluded that ‘alarming amounts’ of meat and dairy products are now being illegally imported for both personal consumption and sale.
Nationwide, 235t of illegal animal products were seized in 2024 from just 2,600 seizures, compared with 164t from 2,900 seizures in 2023.
Much of this was at Dover and, even with minimal people on the ground, volumes are increasing this year, according to Lucy Manzano, head of port health and public protection.
In the first four months of 2025, 70t of illegal meat products were seized at Dover, compared with 24t in 2024 – and more than 10t was collected in the first two weeks of September alone. This is widely seen as ‘just the tip of the iceberg’.
The committee visited the port in March, witnessing Dover Port Health Authority (DPHA) officers searching a van containing smuggled meat.
The meat was packaged in bin bags, plastic bags, newspaper and unlabelled jars, stored in cardboard boxes and a defrosted chest freezer. The van was Moldovan and its driver Romanian, suggesting the meat had potentially travelled in this condition for more than 1,000 miles.
One worker told MPs they had ‘found an entire pig stuffed inside a suitcase; its legs cut off badly so that it could fit inside’.
DPHA workers described a ‘sense of futility that while they are conducting checks ‘there are literally hundreds of targeted vehicles driving straight past as we do not have the resources to stop and search’.
On some ferries, DPHA estimates there are more than 50 vans containing illegal animal products, with at least 40 of those driving through unchecked. Drivers are sharing information about DPHA shift times online, and will plan their journeys when it is not operational.
The MPs were also ‘greatly concerned’ to see the inadequate conditions of the Border Force facilities at the port, with limited ability to decontaminate inspection areas and no dedicated handwashing facilities.
Criminal smuggling
Criminal smuggling operations are bringing in high-risk products, partly as a result of African swine fever (ASF) trade restrictions in Europe, which have motivated people and gangs to seek alternative markets.
“There is an established market in Great Britain for prohibited, culturally preferred products like pork products from Eastern Europe,” the report said.
Helen Buckingham, a regulatory consultant and chartered environmental health practitioner, told the committee that enforcement weaknesses at the border are allowing ‘more and more of a gateway’ for illicit goods, resulting in ‘a super-highway of meat’.
The committee found that this meat is finding its way to our high streets, farms, markets, restaurants and kitchen tables, with demand driven by the cost-of-living crisis and cultural preferences.
Illegally imported meat and dairy products are being sold online and via door-to-door sales to households and businesses.
Some products found on sale have displayed health marks clearly showing they are prohibited from leaving the country of origin, while the National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) and Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit (SFCIU) reported in 2024 that some foreign meat is being misrepresented as being of ‘British origin’.
They found that ‘intelligence gaps’ exist around this trade, while the committee highlighted concerns that the government is unaware of the scale of the problem.
Meat and dairy products are also illegally brought in for personal consumption by individuals who are unaware of the prohibitions or simply willing to take the risk.
And, ‘alarmingly’, the committee received evidence that some food parcels containing meat from Romania, where ASF is widespread, are destined for workers on British farms. The MPs stressed that even a very small amount of contaminated meat or dairy could infect livestock.
POAO strategy
The committee found there is currently no identifiable or effective ownership of the issue of illegal meat smuggling within government, and called on Defra to create a strategy for product of animal origin (POAO) smuggling, in collaboration with the NFCU and SFCIU, port health authorities, inland local authorities and Border Force.
A taskforce for illegal imports of animal products should be established by November 2025, led by the minister for biosecurity, to provide oversight of the strategy’s design and implementation and to drive improvements. Featuring key people with an interest in the issue, it should report annually, the MPs recommended.
They said it is ‘unacceptable’ that there is no clear, publicly available data showing the scale and nature of the illegal meat entering the country and its destination – and called on Defra to address this.
They also highlighted the lack of obvious deterrents for people bringing illegal meat into the country and called on Defra to deliver a plan to immediately start prosecuting and fining offenders.
The report stated that ‘public awareness of animal disease risks is low’ and called for broader communication and public awareness campaigns from the government, particularly on its personal import policy.
Dover funding row
The MPs urged Defra to address the many issues at the Port of Dover, including restoring damaged relations with DPHA, after the ‘unacceptable breakdown of trust, communication and cooperation’ under the previous government.
The committee has recommended that POAO enforcement powers and funding be transferred from Border Force to port health authorities.
Defra provided £3.1m to DPHA for 2024-25 and 2025-26 and stipulated that DPHA cannot use it to fund official veterinarians (OVs). The committee agreed with DPHA that the 20% operational coverage this permits for anti-meat smuggling operations is ‘insufficient’.
So, it stressed that emergency funding should be provided to ‘at least double DPHA’s operational coverage at the border’ and allow for the use of OVs, who it said are ‘evidently an asset to its enforcement capability’.
It called on Defra to address the unsuitable space and facilities at the port and recommended the ‘repurposing’ of the Bastion Point facilities at Dover to enable more effective work in tackling the huge illegal meat import trade.
BTOM flaws
The second report, UK-EU trade: Towards a resilient border strategy, took a wider look at the government’s border controls, with a big focus on the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) covering commercial imports, which it described as ‘flawed’ and ‘inadequate’.
MPs heard that the system is failing to provide a robust, risk-based regime of inspections and is imposing excessive burdens on law-abiding businesses and local authorities, and may be creating opportunities for criminals.
It echoed DPHA’s concerns, for example, that the location of the Sevington inland border control post (BCP) 22 miles away from the port of Dover ‘provides opportunities for exploitation by criminals’.
The report also highlighted flawed IT systems and data gaps as reasons for weak enforcement of the rules, alongside varying inspection rates at ports that have ‘created a system that can be gamed by people seeking to dodge costs or import illegal goods’.
The committee heard that after the government introduced a ban on German meat imports in January in response to an FMD outbreak, prohibited products were able to continue entering the UK for a further six days because of the use of the digital ‘timed-out decision contingency feature auto-clearing’ (TODCOF) system.
The report said ‘it is essential that present arrangements are reviewed and bolstered’. Key recommendations included:
- A review of the BTOM’s implementation, with findings published by January 2026.
- This should include assessing the scale of non-compliance and outlining steps to address it.
- Addressing flaws in the IT systems underpinning the controls.
- Publicly clarifying its intentions regarding the future of Sevington BCP.
The MPs noted that the agreement of an UK-EU common sanitary and phytosanitary area in May offered the opportunity for government to reset its relations with UK stakeholders and the EU.
Time to act
Giving evidence to the inquiry, NPA chief executive Lizzie Wilson warned the government would be ‘complicit’ in the event of a notifiable disease outbreak ‘if it has not stopped the illegal meat – which it is entirely aware of – from coming into this country’.
She said the reports ‘lay bare the government’s inadequate steps to protect UK livestock from potentially devastating notifiable diseases like ASF and FMD’.
“We know that lots of people within our industry and the agencies involved are taking this threat very seriously and doing all they can to tackle the risk. Now it’s time for the government to finally do the same – to absorb the findings of this report and act comprehensively and without delay to implement its recommendations in full.”
BVA junior vice-president Rob Williams described the reports as ‘deeply concerning’ and said the findings should, alongside a recent National Audit Office report, ‘act as a wake-up call to government to urgently deliver a coherent and properly resourced national strategy to tackle illegal meat imports and safeguard the UK’s biosecurity’.
He called for better support for government vets involved in this work through a ‘data-driven and risk-based system that is fit for purpose’.
Ms Manzano welcomed the findings as ‘a vital wake-up call to the realities at the UK’s borders,’ and said they align closely with what DPHA has been seeing on the ground and repeatedly warning Defra of since 2022.
“This is our reset moment. Defra must act on EFRA’s recommendations, so we can restore trust, credibility and control at the border,” she said.
Defra response
But will Defra respond in the way so many feel it needs to, in the face of the strength and breadth of all this evidence?
Recent history suggests we shouldn’t hold our breath. Many of the issues have been raised before and successive governments have, in recent years, seemed oblivious to them and utterly unwilling and/or incapable of doing anything about them, despite intense lobbying from concerned parties and significant media attention.
The government’s initial official response to these reports was short. It pointed to its long-term £1bn investment in a new National Biosecurity Centre and said the BTOM was designed to protect livestock, crops and the food chain from dangerous diseases while minimising disruption to trade.
This was accompanied by some ‘background’ points that, at best, partially addressed some of the issues raised.
These included an insistence that it is ‘not complacent’ about illegal meat smuggling and is ‘working closely’ with the Home Office and the Food Standards Agency to tackle it.
It said it will ‘consider’ the recommendations about how it can improve access to data on seizures of illegal animal products and the recommendations regarding working with port health authorities.
It pointed out that anyone caught importing food into GB illegally may be prosecuted and fined up to £5,000. It said it continually reviews its enforcement approach to the BTOM and insisted that the risk of legitimate commercial loads not attending Sevington is ‘mitigated by robust, data-backed enforcement options’.
It refuted the suggestion that prohibited products from Germany were able to freely enter the UK in January, as the relevant bodies were told to hold affected consignments at BCPs and traders were notified of the controls.
But none of the above really scratches the surface of the reports’ conclusions and recommendations.
The government will be required to issue full responses at some point. Only then will we learn if it really has the will, resources and expertise to make the changes required to protect our livestock sectors.