UK High Court rules FSA slaughterhouse charges unlawful
Ruling quashes hourly inspection rates in England and Wales
10 June 2026
2 minute read
By: The High Court has ruled that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has been charging slaughterhouses in England and Wales unlawfully for official controls, according to the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA).
The claim for judicial review was brought by the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (AIMS) and the BMPA, with support from the National Farmers' Union.
The FSA, an independent non-ministerial government department, is responsible for carrying out food hygiene and safety checks — referred to as official controls — at slaughterhouses, and operators are required by law to contribute towards the cost of those controls. The current annual cost of the controls is £64 million (US$86 million). Charges to industry rose 24% this year, an increase the associations said would add to food inflation and endanger the viability of many slaughterhouses in England and Wales.
In the judgment of Mrs Justice Dias, the FSA has been levying the charges unlawfully. The FSA has accepted that the court must quash the hourly rates for both official controls and enforcement, as well as the Cost Data Slides providing information on how those rates were calculated. The judge will now hear further argument on the precise terms of the court's order.
According to the associations, the FSA contracts with private companies to deliver official controls while retaining close oversight of that delivery — a dual management arrangement industry has long argued creates inefficiencies it is then charged for. The judge found that neither element of that arrangement could be charged for. The judgment also clarified what the FSA can lawfully charge for, both in terms of relevant activities and the personnel whose time can be charged.
"I have been telling the FSA for many years that they were charging industry unlawfully but for the last two years they have totally refused to engage saying they had to follow their Board's instruction to focus on reducing the discount," said Peter Hewson, veterinary director of AIMS. "The judgment makes clear that the FSA Board had got it horribly wrong, FSA has been levying unlawful charges on the industry, and the discount was not a subsidy but cover for that unlawful tax."
"The judgment must now mark the beginning of a complete reset in the relationship between the regulator and the meat industry, founded upon legality, proportionality, transparency and scientific risk-based regulation," added Jason Aldiss, executive director of AIMS.
"The BMPA welcomes the judge's findings which recognise and have exposed long-standing weaknesses in the FSA's charging policy," said John Powell, CEO of the BMPA. "We will now work closely with the FSA to ensure a fairer and more transparent system for the delivery of official controls can be quickly implemented going forward."
