§ Mr. SteenTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what resources he plans to make available to inspect imported off the bone beef to ensure it meets the same standards as domestically produced meat; and how many people will be employed in this work; [23271]
(2) what plans he has to introduce spot checks on beef imported to the United Kingdom to ensure it meets the same standards as United Kingdom produced beef. [23272]
§ Mr. Rooker[holding answer 15 January 1998]: All fresh meat produced in the UK, and imported into the UK from other EU Member States, must be produced in accordance with harmonised Community rules laid down in Council Directive 64/433/EEC. Fresh meat imported from third countries must come only from approved establishments in countries which are authorised by the European Commission to export to the Community. These controls are designed to ensure that the meat satisfies production requirements equivalent to those applying within the Community.
The Government's new unilateral controls to ensure that certain food and feed products do not contain and were not derived from specified risk material (SRM) require products to be certified as such in their country of origin by national veterinary services. Products produced before 1 January and products derived from animals born, reared and slaughtered in Australia or New Zealand, provided they are certified as such, are not subject to the SRM-freedom requirements. All consignments imported into the UK from third countries are checked at designated Border Inspection Posts. EU Single Market rules permit only random spot-checks at destination for imports from member states. Consistent with those rules, a daily sample of randomly selected consignments from EU member states is checked for conformity with the new unilateral controls.
Other checks carried out at places of destination are made by authorised officers from a number of different bodies, including local authorities. It is not, therefore, possible to state precisely how many people are involved in this work at any one time, except at disproportionate cost.