Committee publication · Correspondence · 25 March 2025
Correspondence from the Minister for Biosecurity, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, relating to foot and mouth disease controls and funding for Dover Port Health Authority, dated 21 March 2025
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Inquiry: Animal and plant health
Summary
Baroness Hayman responds to MP Alistair Carmichael's 11 March letter on the government's foot and mouth disease response to Germany's outbreak and funding for Dover Port Health Authority. The minister defends the delay in updating the IPAFFS import system, stating manual holds at border posts were the primary control and IPAFFS was updated within 6 hours of commodity list confirmation on 16 January. She confirms one non-compliant pork consignment from 12 January was intercepted and destroyed. For Dover PHA, Defra offers £3.1m for 2025/26, pending wider spending review outcomes.
Key findings
- Manual holds and Port Health Authority notifications to Border Control Posts on 10 January were the primary FMD control mechanism, not IPAFFS system updates, which occurred 16 January.
- One pork consignment from Germany (12 January) was identified as non-compliant and referred for destruction; over 1,100 commodity lines were affected by the import restrictions.
- Defra completed preliminary outbreak risk assessment on 13 January, rating FMD incursion risk to UK as 'medium'.
- Dover Port Health Authority offered £3.1m for financial year 2025/26 to support Border Force safeguarding checks on illegal animal product imports; multi-year settlement deferred pending Spending Review outcome.
- Following FMD confirmation in Hungary on 7 March, manual holds were instructed within 4 hours and IPAFFS updated same day using the previously compiled German commodity code list.
Tone
ProceduralTopics
Key actors
Baroness Hayman of Ullock, Alistair Carmichael MP, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Dover Port Health Authority, Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), Border Force, Ashford Borough Council, Food Standards Agency
Notable line
“Given the above, it is not correct to equate the later updating of IPAFFS with a delay in the implementation of controls.”
Key Quotes
“As soon as Germany confirmed FMD on 10 January 2025, official veterinarians there were unable to certify any exports to Great Britain (GB) of live animals or products for which FMD territory freedom is a requirement.”
“A combination of these measures means that no prohibited goods should have entered GB between the 10 January 2025, without the appropriate action being taken, and the date that we updated IPAFFS.”
“Between 10 January and 16 January officials had to assess which individual commodity codes were affected by the import controls. This entailed looking at thousands of commodities – ultimately more than 1,100 commodity lines were affected.”
“From the point this list was confirmed, we updated IPAFFS within 6 hours. This reflected the scale of the changes required and the need to test that they did not have a significant impact on the system function.”
“… following confirmation on 7 March 2025 of a case of FMD in Hungary, near the Slovakian border, Defra again instructed PHAs and local authorities to hold goods in line with our procedures that same day within 4 hours of being made aware of the outbreak.”
“Following the one- year Spending Review that determined allocations for 2025/26, and due to the seriousness of biosecurity risks, I have offered Dover PHA up to £3.1m for the financial year 2025/26 to support BF in conducting safeguarding checks on the illegal import of products of animal origin.”
Source · parliament.uk record ↗