High-risk German meat imports continued to flow into the UK “for a week” after the alert was sounded over a foot and mouth disease outbreak last month due to IT failures in the government’s post-Brexit border tech platform, border authorities have confirmed.
Potentially contaminated meat and dairy goods from Germany managed to get clearance to enter Britain “for at least six days”, despite restrictions being in place to stop the spread of foot and mouth disease, border and port health authority representatives told the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) Committee on Tuesday.
Damning testimony from the head of Dover Port Health Authority, Lucy Manzano, and chartered environmental health practitioner Helen Buckingham, revealed a glitch in a government import control platform failed to flag consignments that should have been checked, despite the government introducing a ban on German imports in the wake of the outbreak, MPs heard as part of the Committee’s wider enquiry into the efficiency of the UK’s post-Brexit border controls.
British authorities received the outbreak announcement from Germany on 10 January and implemented import restrictions on the following day, according to Buckingham.
But an update to the government’s import of products, animals, food and feed system (IPAFFS) – where importers notify authorities of goods entering the UK and file the respective paperwork – “took another seven days”, she said, adding “things got through in that time”.
“I was getting calls from inland authorities saying, ‘hang on a minute, I’ve just got some German product turning up, what do I do with it?’”
Read more: German meat & dairy exports banned after foot and mouth disease outbreak
This was due to a glitch in the auto-clearance function on IPAFFS, Manzano explained, where “for at least six days German products in scope of the FMD controls were able to auto-clear the very systems designed to detect them and remove them”.
The auto-clearance function, which allows commercial food imports that are not considered high-risk to enter the UK without being pulled for checks to ease trade flow, can “be manipulated by Defra to control what is and isn’t looked at or directed to a border control post” and is now “no longer enabled” for German products, Manzano confirmed.
IPAFFS was initially launched in 2019 but only fully rolled out in 2023 as a replacement for the Procedure for Electronic Application for Certificates (PEACH), the imports log system used by the EU and which was in place in Britain before Brexit.
But its rollout has been ridden with IT glitches, with customs operators and businesses often complaining that IPAFFS’s regular tech meltdowns lead to delays and hold-ups of consignments at the borders.
Officials also told ministers of a lack of communication and guidance from Defra that contributed to confusion for the teams on the ground.
“We are responding to the foot and mouth outbreak in Germany – it’s been over three weeks – and yet, alarmingly, we have had no direct contact with Defra” regarding “what is happening at the frontline and what controls we are carrying out”, Manzano said.
“And that remains the biggest obstacle to delivering biosecurity that we currently face.”
The recent FMD outbreak in Germany “really opened the doors to the vulnerable state we’ve got, because we’ve not got enough clear communication coming down the pipe from central government about what to do”, Buckingham added.
“My border control post colleagues will tell you that the guidance about what to do and how to deal with this stuff didn’t come through quick enough.”
Read more: Foot and mouth outbreak: industry urges better border control amid growing farmer concern
When asked by Committee members if there had been any efforts made to understand if Britain was exposed to the highly contagious disease – which spreads amongst cattle, sheep, pigs and other cloven-hoofed animals and can survive in meat and dairy products for months at a time – during the six-day gap, Manzano said that was “a question for Defra to answer” but that “another flaw in the system is that when goods do go inland, there is no system of control”.
Border and health authorities warned ministers of the potential impact of allowing the spread of diseases such as foot and mouth and African swine fever on British farmers, referring to a FMD outbreak in 2001 that cost the sector around £8bn.
They urged for better funding and stricter border controls to prevent such incidents from happening. “No extra cash” had been given to border teams responsible for identifying potentially contaminated goods despite the recent rise in threats, Buckingham said.
She added: “We know the devastating consequences of it. No one wants to see that happen again, and we can keep it out with the right tools in place.”
The Grocer has reached out to the government for comment. Defra previously said it had “robust contingency plans in place to manage the risk of this disease to protect farmers and Britain’s food security, which means using all measures to limit the risk incursion and spread of this devastating disease”.
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