Border Target Operating Model: Food and Biosecurity

Debate between Neil Hudson and Natalie Elphicke

Wednesday 13th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Elphicke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is exactly right, as ever, in bringing out the very serious issues with the management of the Northern Ireland issue. Controls have to be modern, proportionate, effective, and fair to business. He makes that point very well.

What we have seen on the Dover border is rancid meat, seeds with dangerous levels of pesticides and meat that could contain livestock-infecting diseases. All of these have been detected coming through Dover from the EU.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. It is fitting that the debate is taking place on Back British Farming Day. Biosecurity is pivotal to protecting UK farming. As she has mentioned, infectious disease is coming in. We know the implications of foot and mouth disease and African swine fever. Does she agree with me that getting this targeted border operating model up and running and working is critical to the nation’s biosecurity, animal health and welfare and public health, and that pivotal to all that is to ensure that we have the Animal and Plant Health Agency resourced and staffed so that it can monitor the borders properly, and also to upgrade the facilities at Weybridge in Surrey, its disease HQ?

[Mrs Elphicke]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is incredibly knowledgeable on this issue, as we have just heard, and he is exactly right. We cannot wait any longer. I will be explaining how, at the Dover frontline, we have had a ready-to-go, state-of-the-art facility mothballed for 18 months. It should be put to work straightaway to protect our nation. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to put these facilities and these new measures in place urgently.

What are we finding at the moment? With global food disruption and increased costs of production getting worse because of the war in Ukraine, threats to food safety are on the increase. It is not just food. Farm animals are threatened by the diseases carried in infected meat. We need to be very clear about that. This is not the odd rogue import. Dover Port Health Authority has found it happening on an industrial scale—tonnes of this stuff. It has formally warned the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about the increased risks and findings.

This meat does not meet our—or even Europe’s—required standards for slaughter, storage or import. It is not just unhealthy, but dangerous. The danger is not just to humans, but to our livestock and therefore to the livelihoods of our farmers and food producers. That is because this rancid, illegal meat can contain live viruses of some of the most serious threats to our animals. As we have heard, diseases such as African swine fever have steadily spread from eastern Europe to Germany and now France. The NFU has said:

“A breakdown in biosecurity is one of the most serious risks we face as a nation.”

I agree with that.

It is welcome that the Government have, at last, published the border target operating model. However, the long delay and continued uncertainty around the new arrangements is worrying. Concerns have been raised with me by Kent-based import-export businesses, national food and drink trade bodies, the British Poultry Council, the NFU and the Dover port health authority. As I mentioned, it is some 18 months now since Dover’s ready-to-go, taxpayer-funded, state-of-the-art post-Brexit facilities were mothballed, awaiting the publication of the proposed target operating model for the border. At the time, the model was expected in some weeks. In the end, it was published just a couple of weeks ago, on 29 August 2023.

Almost a year ago, last October, I led a debate in Westminster Hall on this subject. The then answering Minister said that for traders, the target operating model

“will explain what must be done upstream of the border before goods arrive at it, and what must happen at the border—including border control posts”.—[Official Report, 18 October 2022; Vol. 720, c. 271WH.]

We finally have the border target operating model, but in relation to the short straits, which means the port of Dover and the Eurotunnel, we have no confirmed border control posts even now.

The target operating model says that a decision will be published soon and that facilities will be operational in April 2024. However, as I have outlined, the Dover facility has been ready to go for some 18 months. April 2024 would represent a delay of some two years from when the facility was due to be made live, during which time the operating environment for food and biosecurity has significantly deteriorated, as DEFRA has been told time and again.

Given the importance of these issues, the delay is unacceptable. The state-of-the-art facility at Dover needs to be opened right away. Dover has the expertise needed to secure our borders, but it is not being supported as it should be. Dover needs to be backed in its vital role in keeping our country’s food and farming safe. Government action is needed now to ensure that we are properly protected from dangerous food and diseases coming into the UK. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm when the new Dover facility, which is so obviously needed, will be opened.

I would like to address why things have taken so long and what needs to happen. There are three issues. The first is the dreaded phrase “cross-governmental working”, which, in layman’s terms, means that no one person is in charge and the buck does not stop anywhere. As I have before, I make the case for a Department for the border to draw together all the border-related functions, as many other countries do, including America and Australia. It would be a single window under a single Department responsible for order at the border. From customs to trade, and from biosecurity to visa entry and migration, there is an urgent need for a single Department in charge of setting policy, overseeing operations and—importantly—taking responsibility for what is happening at our borders.