A committee of MPs has called for the government to take action to address the flow of illegal meat imports into the country, including taking into account the disease risk when considering funding decisions.
The Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) recommendations in this area were part of a wider report published today on the UK’s resilience to animal disease threats that concluded that the government is not adequately prepared for the most severe animal disease outbreaks.
The cross-party committee found that government would find responding to major outbreaks ‘extremely stretching’, with over a quarter of local public services not confident in their outbreak capabilities.
The PAC’s inquiry heard that Defra and the Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA) have worked hard to manage the current five-year-long outbreak of bird flu and the past year’s outbreak of bluetongue.
However, resources have been diverted away from other work to prepare for future outbreaks by the ‘semi-permanent response mode’ government has moved into as a result. In addition, the post-Brexit loss of access to the EU’s animal diseases intelligence system has caused a reduction in vital surveillance to help detect new and re-emerging disease threats quickly and stop their spread.
A further concern is APHA’s struggle to recruit and retain enough vets, with a vacancy rate of 15% in September 2025. Issues driving the shortage include mental health issues relating to activities such as culling animals; pay and conditions; and working hours. The PAC’s report calls for a veterinary workforce strategy to be produced in the next year to address the shortage.
Defra has recently announced funding towards the new National Biosecurity Centre at Weybridge, which MPs note is critical to the management of threats from animal diseases. But they say it is in poor condition, presenting significant interim risks as the facility continues to age, with its £2.8bn redevelopment not set for completion for a decade.
The PAC is calling for a 10-year plan for the Weybridge Centre’s redevelopment, given its strategic importance and the existential risk that a major failure there could pose to an emergency response to an outbreak.
Insufficient import controls
The PAC’s report published today, follows two damning reports by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee into the failings in the UK’s disease preparedness and its border controls.
The PAC also expresses alarm at the situation, finding that border controls to prevent a new disease arriving in the UK as a result are insufficient to address the level of risk. It notes that Dover Port Health Authority currently only receives funding to allow it to complete proactive illegal meat checks 20% of the time. Future funding allocations are subject to the Department’s upcoming business planning processes.
“There has been a fifty-five-fold increase in the seizures of illegal meat imports from January 2023 to January 2025, but government does not know whether this is due to an increase in actual imports, or better enforcement,” the report says.
The PAC recommends that the government should:
- Undertake research to understand the reasons for the apparent increase in illegal meat imports to the UK to inform future policy and funding decisions.
- When determining the resources made available to DPHA and Border Force at Dover to tackle illegal meat imports, it should weigh this against the significant costs a major disease outbreak could have if introduced through the port of Dover.
- The Department should set out what more can be done to educate travellers not to bring illegal food products into the UK and that high fines are imposed on those that do.
Vaccine shortages
The report also expresses concern that Defra has no strategy to tackle shortages in animal vaccines, and the PAC recommends that one should be developed over the next year.
It highlights that there have increasingly been supply shortages of animal vaccines in the past two years, affected by global market issues and limited incentives for the private sector.
It calls on Defra work with the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, which has published a ‘Statement of Intent’ to address the problem, and other stakeholders to develop over the next year a long-term strategy and plan for securing adequate animal vaccine supply to the UK.
Severe threat
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “The bill for the major foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 ran into multiple billions for the public and private sector.
“Serious animal disease outbreaks pose a severe threat to wildlife, and the farming sector, and in the case of zoonotic diseases, to human health. Our latest report should therefore be of the deepest concern to all of us.
Hard work has been done to respond to the current outbreaks of bird flu and, amongst sheep and cattle, bluetongue virus. But the necessity for a semi-permanent response to these current outbreaks has pulled government away from vital preparations for future threats – which have to be treated as a matter of when, not if.
“Government needs to act now to prepare a full strategy to ensure preparedness for such events in the future.”
Industry reaction
NPA public affairs manager Tom Haynes said: “This report is the latest in a series of reports which confirm what we already knew about the state of our national biosecurity and capacity to manage disease.
“The issues at our border have been made plain to see with DPHA alone reporting a fifty-five-fold increase in the seizures of illegal meat between January 2023 and January 2025.
“We wholeheartedly support the committee’s recommendations for government to build a greater bank of evidence about what is driving this illegal trade and to then allocate funding to those at the border in recognition of the significant costs a major disease outbreak could have in the UK. The report states that the 2001 FMD outbreak cost the UK £13.8bn in 2023-24 prices.
“The report is again clear that APHA are severely under-resourced and we still have major concerns about how the agencies would cope if we were to contract another notifiable disease.
“Once again, our question for government is how long can they keep ignoring this risk?”
Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) chief executive Christopher Price also welcomed report. “The risk of a poor response is particularly concerning for our rare native breeds: many have small populations or are geographically concentrated, meaning a severe outbreak could be catastrophic for breeds that have grazed our countryside for centuries and continue to play a vital role in sustainable farming today,” he said.