Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many prosecutions have been secured as a result of intelligence gathered by the National Food Crime Unit since its establishment; what offences those prosecutions were for; and what the outcome was of each such prosecution.

The National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) is an intelligence unit which does not currently have the remit, resources or powers to conduct its own investigations or prosecutions. Intelligence gathered and analysed is therefore disseminated to partners, primarily in local authorities.

The NFCU became fully operational in early 2016. That year it disseminated 503 individual pieces of intelligence to partners making a further 595 disseminations in 2017. As local authority and policing partners are responsible for deciding what enforcement action is appropriate, the NFCU does not routinely receive feedback on the outcome of these disseminations. We are aware that in 2017 NFCU intelligence led to the first conviction in the United Kingdom for the illegal sale of toxic chemical 2,4 dinitrophenol for consumption under food safety legislation.