Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 3 September 2025.
Neil Hudson
Shadow Parliamentary Under Secretary (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the increase in Food Security Agency charges for the 2025/26 financial year on small and medium-sized abattoirs.
Ashley Dalton
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) conducts and charges for official controls, inspections, in abattoirs, which help to ensure that food hygiene and animal welfare standards are met. The controls are an intrinsic component in our food system which provide reassurance for the wider food industry and consumers, as well as trading partners to facilitate meat exports. Information on the 2025/26 charge rates is available on the FSA’s website at the following link:
https://www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/charges-for-controls-in-meat-premises
As in previous years, the impact of charges is offset by a taxpayer-funded discount which provides the greatest proportional support to smaller businesses. The impact of the support on different sized food businesses in England and Wales for 2025/26 is set out in the Cost Data Slides which the FSA has published at the following link:
The FSA is currently conducting an evaluation of the support provided via the discount and will assess the impact of any changes it might propose in the light of this evaluation.
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