Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has already questioned the effectiveness of the Government’s measures for protecting biosecurity as it introduces new import checks, and now Ministers face the threat of legal action.
In a letter to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Committee expressed serious concerns about planned funding cuts for spot checks for products of animal origin at the Port of Dover.
MPs are also unhappy at the location of the new facility for physical checks at the Dover border crossing, at Sevington.
Committee Chairman Sir Robert Goodwill said: “The inland border facility at Sevington will require vehicles to travel 22 miles unsupervised across Kent, presenting potentially serious biosecurity risks, but also compromising compliance.”
Now the Dover Port Health Authority (DPHA) and Dover District Council have warned the Government that its plans break their legal duties to keep the UK's food supply safe and that they might have to take the issue to the High Court for a ruling.
The Council has complained that Defra’s plans would mean that local council tax payers would have to meet all the costs of providing vital national port health services, including essential biosecurity. Currently, the council receives funding for Port Health services which Defra plans to withdraw over the next two years.
The Council will have to maintain the service at its own expense.
It has also been in dispute with the Government for some time over the plans for a new commercial food-checking system at Sevington, near Ashford. The DPHA estimates that at least 3500 consignments of produce a month, on lorries arriving by ferry and needing to be verified as safe, would be allowed to leave the port unescorted.
