A senior health official has warned that potentially diseased illegal meat is being sold in UK shops.
Lucy Manzano, head of the Dover Port Health Authority, says the produce has not been through the necessary health checks, and is now available on “most high streets”.
Ms Manzano told MPs: “DEFRA have continually stated that there are robust controls in place. There are not. They don’t exist.”
She added that the Government had not provided “any confirmation of how food would be controlled at the point it arrives, or more importantly, between the point it arrives and the inspection facility that is accessed 22 miles across”.
The official also said that she had presented evidence to officials “to demonstrate that the system brought in place to safeguard this country from a biosecurity point of view… is not working”.
It comes after the Government insisted that the new system of post-Brexit border checks, which were activated in April 2024, will ensure that the UK is kept disease-free, the BBC reports.
New regulations mean that checks on commercial imports do not occur in Dover, but 22 miles away at a border control post in Sevington instead.
But a reported lack of enforcement has led to concern that many lorries are not turning up for checks.
An inquiry has been launched by Parliament’s Environment Select Committee into the new rules and whether the required tests are being carried out.
Outbreaks of deadly animal diseases in Europe of late have meant health authorities, Government officials and agricultural officials are worried about whether they could arrive in the UK.
Earlier this week, data showed that nearly 100 tonnes of illegal meat was seized at Dover last year.
DEFRA has said that the Government “will never waver in its duty to protect the UK’s biosecurity”, and insisted that ministers were working with enforcement agencies.