Committee publication · Correspondence · 4 November 2025

Correspondence to the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland following the evidence session on 21 October, dated 4 November 2025

From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee

Summary

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee thanks the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland for their 21 October 2025 evidence session on Animal and Plant Health. The Committee requests detailed follow-up information on AI tools for food risk monitoring, loss of EU networks post-Brexit, areas of organisational de-prioritisation, and the resource and timeline implications of implementing a potential EU SPS agreement.

Key findings

FSA and FSS use AI tools to scan and scrape information from websites on food risk; Committee seeks technical details on operation and integration into risk assessment
UK has lost access to EU networks, databases, and institutions; Committee requests inventory of these losses and assessment of which are most valuable to rejoin
Both organisations have de-prioritised certain work areas, including avoiding further divergence on market authorisation unless food safety-critical; Committee seeks full scope and operational impact
SPS agreement implementation would require substantial resources and effort; Committee asks for complexity assessment, headcount and budget estimates, and timeline to full dynamic alignment by 2027

Tone

Procedural

Topics

food-safetyanimal-plant-healthpost-brexit-alignmentregulatory-capacity

Key actors

Katie Pettifer, Geoff Ogle, Alistair Carmichael, Food Standards Agency, Food Standards Scotland, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee

Notable line

“Your insights into the regulatory landscape, particularly the evolving responsibilities of the FSA and FSS post-EU exit, were invaluable.”

Key Quotes

“Your insights into the regulatory landscape, particularly the evolving responsibilities of the FSA and FSS post-EU exit, were invaluable.”
— Alistair Carmichael · thanking witnesses for evidence session

“It was mentioned in the session that you use "AI tools that scan and scrape information from websites on food risk."”
— Alistair Carmichael · requesting details on AI tools for risk monitoring

“It was raised in the session that implementing an SPS agreement would be a "technical, laborious, long process."”
— Alistair Carmichael · requesting resource and timeline information for SPS implementation

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Source · parliament.uk record ↗