"Potentially dangerous" meat could appear on UK store shelves if the government does not adequately fund food security checks at Dover port, the Conservatives have warned.
Criticising the government in a heated back-and-forth in the Commons, shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins accused that the government of spending “more than the entire Defra budget to surrender the Chagos Islands”.
Atkins hit out at the Government for “taxing British farming families for dying, slashing winter fuel payments for rural pensioners, and hiking taxes on rural businesses”.
“The head of port health at Dover warned the select committee this week that if funding is not secured within seven weeks, then food security checks at the border will be stopped.
“This will mean unchecked and potentially dangerous meat appearing on supermarket shelves and in restaurants, at a time when foot-and-mouth disease is in Germany. When will the Secretary of State protect out borders and confirm this funding?”
Responding to her queries, environment secretary Steve Reed said, “The NFU and other interested parties have quite rightly raised their concerns about the situation with foot and mouth that was discovered in Germany.
“We are relieved that there has not been a further spread of that outbreak, but we are taking all appropriate measures at the border to ensure that this country remains safe in terms of biosecurity, and we will continue to monitor the situation and take appropriate action, to ensure there can be no repeat of what happened around 20 years ago when foot-and-mouth outbreak in this country devastated farming and cost the economy a total of £14 billion.”
Atkins further asked Reed to clarify when will he confirm this funding.
She said, "Compare this relaxed approach with the Prime Minister’s seeming desperation to pay more than the entire Defra budget to surrender the Chagos Islands.
“Now, does (Mr Reed) really support taxing British farming families for dying, slashing winter fuel payments for rural pensioners, and hiking taxes on rural businesses to pay £9 billion to a foreign government on some dodgy legal advice from Labour lawyers?”
Environment minister Daniel Zeichner meanwhile told MPs the Government is aware of challenges at Dover.
Zeichner said, “The issues at Dover are significant, they’ve been long running. The funding was not resolved ahead of the general election, it is an ongoing discussion.
“We are very aware of the challenges that are faced, we are on it, and we will make sure that we are talking to the Dover Port Health Authority.”
