The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is seeking new powers to tackle food crime that it says are critical to protecting consumers and businesses more effectively.
The regulator is consulting on a change to the law that would allow officers from the national food crime unit (NFCU) to be lawfully on premises and assist with searches following an arrest by the police. It said recent operational activity has highlighted that not having access to these powers can create a significant disadvantage to NFCU officers.
Part of the aim is to reduce the dependency of support on partners such as local authorities and the police whose face stretched resources and competing priorities. The NFCU currently relies on a partnership agreement with the National Police Chiefs’ Council that provides support as an interim measure. If the NFCU is granted powers of search and entry, the police presence needed in case arrests are required is likely to be much smaller.
The consultation will seek views from stakeholders on whether the power proposed is justified and proportionate in enabling the NFCU to better tackle food crime.
“We’ve launched this consultation as we want to protect consumers and businesses from food fraud more effectively,” said the FSA’s acting head of the NFCU Andrew Quinn. “This additional power of search and entry would be a vital tool to make sure that investigations can be progressed more directly, while also freeing up local police services so their vital resources can be diverted to other priorities.”
To-date the FSA has been frustrated in its efforts to seek wider, enhanced investigatory powers for the NFCU, having held a previous consultation last year. The secretary of state for health and social care, Steve Barclay, has the ability to confer these powers under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 but has yet to do so despite responses to last year’s consultation being broadly supportive of the FSA’s aims.
Responses to the new consultation will determine the FSA’s advice to the health secretary.
