Answers to Questions about Border Force officials and the confiscation of illegal bush meat products at ports of entry to the UK since 2019; where and when the confiscations occurred; which species were confiscated a) bushmeat b) other illegal, non-compliant or contaminated meat products – and linked questions.
In January 2024 Crossbench Peer Lord Krebs told the House of Lords that “there are still ongoing imports of bush meat from Africa—which is completely unregulated—that could carry major disease risks“; and what action the department has taken to mitigate these risks; that it is known “from the experience of Dover Port Health Authority in October 2022 that there are major consignments of illegal meat coming in from eastern Europe” ; while Chris Elliott, Professor of Food Safety and Microbiology at Queen’s University Belfast and founder of the Institute for Global Food Security said in June 2024 that a series of threats to food security are converging to create “absolute chaos” because “it’s now much easier to get food that is not of the same quality and standards into the UK, because we don’t have the same checks and measures, or the same network of exchange of information” and what action the department has taken to improve border checks and information sharing.
Professor Elliott, added “There are lots of reports about dodgy meat turning up in Felixstowe, for example” while the European Journal of Wildlife Research reported in April 2023 that “Seizures of illegally imported wildlife reported by European Union (EU) member states are reportedly increasing, rising from 5644 records reported in 2017 to 6441 in 2019, most of which were reported by France, Germany, the UK, Spain, and the Netherlands (TRAFFIC 2020, 2021). However, it is known that bushmeat trade into the EU is occurring on a large scale, including primates, but the exact figures are not currently known”; and what steps it has taken with EU partners to quantify the problem of importation of bushmeat and end it.
The Food Standards Agency should say whether it has updated its estimate reported in 2005 in the Journal of Law that “more than 1 million tonnes of meat products are smuggled illegally into the UK each year, mainly from Africa and the Middle East” and what their most recent estimate is of the weight of such smuggled meat products.
1. Lord Krebs, CB 18 Jan 2024 House of Lords
Biosecurity and Infectious Diseases – Hansard – UK Parliament
3. Insights into the primate trade into the European Union and the United Kingdom – PMC (nih.gov)
4. (PDF) Food Crime and Food Safety: Trading in Bushmeat—Is New Legislation Needed? (researchgate.net)
Replies To Questions
Baroness Hayman of Ullock, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL3281):
Question by Lord Alton of Liverpool:
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the comments by Professor Chris Elliott of Queen’s University Belfast in June that a series of threats to food security are converging to create “chaos” because it is “now much easier to get food that is not of the same quality and standards into the UK”; and what steps they are taking to improve border checks and information-sharing to mitigate these threats. (HL3281)
Tabled on: 09 December 2024
Answer:
Baroness Hayman of Ullock:
The Government published the UK Food Security Report 2024 last week and remains committed to protecting our biosecurity and will maintain the appropriate level of controls to achieve this in accordance with the Border Target Operating Model. Please also see the Border Target Operating Model web page on gov.uk for detailed information on the rationale for border controls (at Final_Border_Target_Operating_Model.pdf).
Date and time of answer: 20 Dec 2024 at 14:50.
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Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, the Ministry of Justice, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL3279):
Question by Lord Alton of Liverpool:
To ask His Majesty’s Government how many successful prosecutions there have been in respect of the importation of (1) bushmeat and (2) other illegal, non-compliant or contaminated meat products since 2019. (HL3279)
Tabled on: 09 December 2024
Answer:
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede:
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of prosecutions at criminal courts in England and Wales between 2018 and June 2024 in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly: June 2024.
However, offences relating to the importation of bushmeat or other illegal, non-compliant or contaminated meat products cannot be specifically identified from the Court Proceedings database. This information may be held on court records but to examine individual court records would incur disproportionate costs.
Date and time of answer: 20 Dec 2024 at 12:14.
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Baroness Merron, the Department of Health and Social Care, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL3280):
Question: by Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask His Majesty’s Government what is their most recent estimate of the quantity by weight of (1) illegal bush meat products and (2) other illegal, non-compliant or contaminated meat products, illegally imported into the UK each year. (HL3280)
Tabled on: 09 December 2024
Answer:
Baroness Merron:
The Food Standards Agency does not collect the inland data required at a commodity or establishment level to be able to estimate the quantity by weight of illegal, non-compliant, or contaminated meat products, illegally imported into the United Kingdom each year. Local authorities in England and Wales hold primary responsibility for acting against businesses identified as importing, trading, or selling such products. As such, data on these seizures is held by each individual local authority.
Date and time of answer: 19 Dec 2024 at 11:21.
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL3282):
Question by Lord Alton of Liverpool:
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the paper, ‘Insights into the primate trade into the European Union and the United Kingdom’, by Svensson et al, published in the European Journal of Wildlife Research on 25 April 2023; and what steps they will take to quantify the illegal importation of wildlife into Britain and to end it. (HL3282)
Tabled on: 09 December 2024
Answer:
Baroness Hayman of Ullock:
We have made no formal assessment of the paper by Svensson et al.
All primates are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), ensuring any international trade in these species is sustainable. Each year thousands of illegal products containing endangered species are seized by Border Force. These seizures are quantified in the UK’s annual illegal trade report to CITES and made available in the CITES Illegal Trade Database.
The UK is committed to combatting the illegal wildlife trade (IWT), including through our Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund and through the National Wildlife Crime Unit’s Strategic Assessment for Wildlife Crime which aims to support UK and Global enforcement responses to IWT.
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Date and time of answer: 17 Dec 2024 at 17:39.
