Chapter 5: Staff
EU Veterinarians
126.Dr Christine Middlemiss, Defra’s Chief Veterinary Officer, acknowledged that “within the food chain, a vast majority of vets working are of non-UK origin”.152 The British Veterinary Association (BVA) added that the majority of these vets were from the EU.153 Restrictions on the right of EU citizens to live and work in the UK could therefore have a significant impact, as the Equine Disease Control and British Equine Veterinary Association pointed out:
“A shortage of vets will have an adverse effect on disease surveillance, disease control measures, risk of disease incursions, control of an exotic disease emergency, domestic food safety, loss of high quality reputation for exports and animal disease research. This at a time when the potential loss of harmonised disease controlled trade movements between EU and the UK will increase the need for veterinary checks and certification to maintain our biosecurity.”154
127.The BVA argued that “it will be vital that an appropriate number of veterinary surgeons can be recruited from overseas, whether from the EU post-Brexit or from outside the EU, to ensure that essential veterinary work continues”.155 Dr Simon Doherty from the BVA agreed: “We have asked for vets to be restored to the shortage occupation list and for the veterinary profession to be prioritised in any future immigration policy.”156
128.In response to the concerns we raised over the UK’s veterinarian workforce in our Brexit: agriculture report, Defra Minister George Eustice MP told us in June 2017: “The Government has announced its intention to commission advice from the Migration Advisory Committee to better understand the reliance on EU migrant workers across the economy.”157 The Migration Advisory Committee’s report on EEA migration in the UK has since been published,158 but makes no direct reference to the veterinary sector.
129.In our report Brexit: agriculture, we brought the Government’s attention to the overwhelming reliance of the agricultural sector on EU citizens providing official veterinarian services. These veterinarians also play vital roles throughout the process of maintaining the UK’s biosecurity. We call on the Government to take steps as a matter of urgency to ensure that both the public and private sectors are able to retain or recruit qualified veterinarians to maintain the UK’s biosecurity post-Brexit.
Public sector capacity
130.Brexit will also affect the staffing of public sector bodies. The British Ecological Society were “concerned with the UK’s ability to deliver an effective IAS strategy given the diminished budget of Defra by over a half over the past decade”.159 Prospect Union agreed:
“Government agricultural and environmental bodies are not facing Brexit in the best of health. Despite 80% of Defra’s work being ‘framed’ by the EU, staffing levels have fallen by around a third since 2010 and, in real terms, its resource budget has been cut by a third since 2010/11 … Even though the Treasury has granted Defra more funding to help with Brexit work, this additional amount is less than the cut to its funding announced in the 2015 Spending Review.”160
131.Dr Doherty concurred: “There is no doubt that over the last number of years there has been a reduction in the resource made available to the Animal and Plant Health Agency in relation to the surveillance for animal diseases.”161
132.Defra Minister Lord Gardiner informed us: “We have recruited 1,250 additional staff across the Defra group. I cannot give precise numbers as to the varying parts.”162 In its written evidence Defra asserted:
“The Government has a full suite of specialists deployed to ensure strong biosecurity arrangements. This includes scientific specialists, inspection and assurance teams in the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA); the Food Standards Agency (FSA); and the Forestry Commission. Taken together, this provides an exceptional capability, in terms of knowledge, skills and delivery, across the animal and plant health, invasive-non-native species and food biosecurity field.”163
133.Public sector capacity is also an issue for the devolved nations, not least because of uncertainty over the precise division of responsibility between central and devolved authorities. The Scottish Government told us:
“Withdrawal from the EU will require significant resources to replace functions currently delivered by the European Commission and risks exposing Scotland to disease incursion due to the potential loss of timely notification of incidents, information and expertise. At present it is unclear who will carry out this work.”164
134.The Environmental Law Implementation Group at the Irish Environmental Network raised similar concerns:
“In Northern Ireland the previous Department with responsibility for the Environment in recent years has undergone a number of significant cuts prior to its incorporation or amalgamation with the Department with responsibility for Agriculture and Rural Affairs … DAERA has additionally lost over 400 staff as result of a Voluntary Exit Scheme. Of particular concern is the loss of significant expertise and experience, and scientific knowledge which are critical to effective engagement on complex matters such as biosecurity and IAS, and where actual practical experience in dealing with or avoiding issues can be invaluable.”165
135.We welcome the recent recruitment within Defra to help ensure the Department is prepared to take over responsibility for both delivery and policy formation from the EU. But despite this increase in resources witnesses remained concerned about Defra’s capacity to maintain biosecurity standards post-Brexit. We call on the Department to ensure that enough appropriately-trained staff are dedicated to the issue of biosecurity.
136.The Government must clarify and secure agreement on the division of biosecurity responsibility between central and devolved bodies, in order to enable the devolved administrations to plan effectively and recruit the necessary staff.
Biosecurity specialists
137.According to the Royal Society of Biology:
“Following Brexit, the recruitment of staff with specialist skills to the UK workforce could become more difficult, for example in the fields of toxicology, taxonomy, ecological and landscape management, pathology, epidemiology, animal welfare, and carcass and food hygiene inspection. In some sectors, non-UK nationals comprise a high proportion of the current workforce.”166
Border inspections
138.The additional inspections that are likely to be required at the UK border post-Brexit will need staff to carry them out. Prospect Union argued that “there will most likely need to be large increase in Plant Health Import Inspectors to manage certification and physical checks on imports. This could include the establishment of new permanent facilities at ports and other locations only currently staffed on an occasional basis.” They also highlighted that a shortfall in inspectors might lead to “significant quantities of material given free uninspected access to the UK”.167
139.Dr Matt Elliot from the Woodland Trust echoed this point: “I have said a few times that we need investment in personnel. I believe that we have somewhere in the region of about 20 or so plant health inspectors at our borders. They have to check all the consignments, as compared to something like 700 in New Zealand. That is the kind of level we need to get to.”168
140.Without adequate plant and animal health inspectors at the border, it will not be possible to maintain the UK’s biosecurity. We recommend that the Government review the skills required to maintain biosecurity, and publish its findings, and its plans for addressing any gaps, as a matter of urgency.
Training
141.Prospect Union was concerned that new staff might not be properly trained:
“In effect, there will be neither the staff nor the time to train new staff to current standards. APHA appears to have already decided the future training will focus on online rather than current face-to-face training. This change is being driven by capacity and budget constraints not best practice … Increasing the pressure on inspectors, without the resources, and moving to online training, could mean unnecessary delays to goods as trainees adopt a more precautionary approach and hold materials for further laboratory tests.”169
Wildlife and Countryside Link shared this concern: “We are concerned that Government will not invest sufficiently in the … training required to ensure biosecurity standards are strengthened post Brexit.”170
142.It will be challenging to train newly-recruited biosecurity inspectors to the necessary standard by the date the UK leaves the EU. It is therefore vital that the UK’s post-Brexit immigration system allows EU nationals to continue to play a role in delivering biosecurity services, and we call on the Government to enable this.
154 Written evidence from Equine Disease Control and British Equine Veterinary Association (PAB0015)
157 Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs, Government response to the House of Lords EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee report into Brexit: Agriculture (June 2017) p 12: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-committees/eu-energy-environment-subcommittee/Brexit-agriculture/Gov-response-Brexit-Ag.pdf [accessed 13 August 2018]
158 Migration Advisory Committee, EEA Migration in the UK, (September 2018): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/741926/Final_EEA_report.PDF [accessed 2 October 2018]
165 Written evidence from Environmental Law Implementation Group at the Irish Environmental Network (PAB0045)