Beef from cattle given growth-boosting hormones could enter the UK food supply if standards are sacrificed as part of a post-Brexit trade deal, a new report has warned.
Such standards declining after the UK leaves the EU might even provoke a boycott of beef in and from the UK, the authors warn.
New research by the Food Research Collaboration highlights how British consumers could be left in the dark about "hazardous" hormone-treated beef if a weakened UK makes food trade deal concessions.
As the UK prepares to leave the EU, there are signs that some government ministers would be willing to sacrifice food standards to win trade agreements with non-EU states such as the USA.
The new report by food policy experts Profs Erik Millstone and Tim Lang, from University of Sussex and City, University of London, shows that if standards were lowered, meat will not be labelled to say how it had been produced.
Meanwhile, hormone-produced beef would remain unlawful in the EU, on what the paper calls "sound scientific grounds".
'Bargaining chip'
The report calls on ministers to ensure that food safety standards in the UK will never be weakened, especially not as a bargaining chip in trade talks.
The authors also urge UK farmers, supermarkets and butchers to make "explicit commitments" to consumers never to produce or sell hormone-treated beef.
Erik Millstone, professor of science policy at the University of Sussex said: “The idea that, once the UK leaves the EU, it will become a rule-maker, not a rule-taker, is illusory. Exporting to other countries requires accepting their standards. The choice is: Which rules to take - the EU’s, the USA’s or the World Trade Organisation’s?
“If UK products don’t match their standards, they won’t buy them. Trade requires shared rules and minimum standards. Food standards in the EU are far higher than those in the USA, and US standards are far higher than WTO standards.
Mr Millstone added: “The UK should at least stick to EU; the only changes allowed should be to make food safer, never less safe.”
Hormone use is permitted in cattle rearing by US, Canadian, Mexican and Australian authorities but beef from hormone-treated cattle has been banned in the EU since the mid-1980s.
The report warns that Public Health England, the Food Standards Agency and Environment Agency, whose role is to protect standards, will require a significant increase in funding to cope, something which no minister has committed to so far.
