Britain is struggling to cope with food regulations more than two years after Brexit, with delays, confusion, regulatory divergence and staff issues dominating the landscape. A shortage of vets to monitor food safety and animal welfare in abattoirs, toxicologists to assess food risks and chemical safety vets weighs heavily on how food regulation is being managed.

Also, the investigation reveals the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) will not have full import checks on high-risk food imported from the EU until the end of 2023. 

The recently published House of Commons Public Accounts Committee investigation makes for stark reading. It paints a picture of below-par operations in how Britain is handling food regulation, providing quality checks at the border and generally keeping up with its regulatory responsibilities since leaving the EU. 

One example is how the lack of vets could significantly impact the meat industry, which, under current regulations, cannot place meat on the market in the UK or export it without veterinary oversight. Any divergence in this procedure would require legislative change. 

Losing access to vital data and shared systems is also a crucial issue. 

The FSA has also lost full access to the EU’s Rapid alert System on Food and Feed (RASFF), which provides member states with information on food safety incidents, increasing the time and effort it takes to deal with food safety incidents. 

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) no longer has access to the chemical safety data underpinning the EU’s Registration, evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations. 

Industry has estimated it will cost £800 million (US$901 million) to replicate this data in the UK REACH system. 

“The regulators are taking action to mitigate these issues, but in some instances, the alternatives are more time-consuming and are likely to increase costs over time. We are disappointed that no progress has been made in taking these issues forward, despite the regulators’ willingness to do so,” reads the HoC report. 

The UK’s quality checks on goods entering the EU via the Ireland-UK border have already been blasted as “not fit for purpose,” with increasing concerns that some items do not comply with regulations. 

Regulatory divergence
On leaving the EU, UK regulators took on a range of new and expanded responsibilities previously carried out by the EU and its institutions. 

The FSA has an expanded role in the regulation of food imports and regulated products; the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is expanding its role in competition enforcement and taking on new functions, and the HSE is operating an independent chemicals regulatory regime.

However, there are a wealth of issues for each body and the challenges of trying to reform over the last two years.

There is already some divergence in regulatory approach between the UK and EU. One example is the EU recently banning titanium dioxide as a food additive, while the UK has not introduced a ban, and the FSA is carrying out its own risk assessment. 

The report also mentions that the HSE currently operates separate biocide and pesticide regulatory regimes. However, given that all pesticides are biocides by definition, there could be scope to regulate them differently and more efficiently in the future.

But once again, most of the time, regulatory reform will require legislative change, and the scope and timetable for this remain unclear.

Gene-editing
Another example of regulatory divergence – which could seriously impact how businesses deal with different markets in the future – relates to gene-editing. 

The UK has been re-examining gene-editing over the last few years, pushing for a new law tailored to allow food producers to use genetic technologies to speed up traditional crop breeding that would otherwise take years or decades.

But the EU currently takes a rigorous approach to regulate gene-edited crops and food that effectively bans their introduction. Previously Britain was subject to these rules, but since breaking away from the EU, the country can push its own agenda.

“In areas like gene editing, it is not yet clear whether a common approach will be agreed. There is a risk that, over time, regulatory divergence (both between the UK and the EU and between the four nations of the UK) may lead to increased costs for businesses and consumers through the administrative burden and regulatory costs. We are concerned that these costs may have a disproportionate impact on smaller businesses,” flags the report. 

What’s next?
Exiting the EU has had a significant impact on UK regulators who have taken on new and expanded roles. Still, the development of long-term regulatory strategies post-EU exit has been slow, and the future direction of regulation remains unclear. 

That is the key takeaway from this investigation which is full of further recommendations which are tantamount to “more needs to be done,” and we’ll check in again in six months.