Goodbye FSA – Hello new food regulator?

Since the late 19th century, local government authorities in England have been almost exclusively responsible for ensuring that food sold and supplied in their areas is safe, genuine and properly labelled. The system has survived two world wars, rationing, pandemics (human and animal), major local government reorganisations and political upheavals.

However, no system, however long-lived, is immune to change and in our modern, data-driven world, questions are being asked about whether the local government model remains appropriate, or whether standardised, national level oversight represents the future of food safety and trustworthiness.

As part of its economic growth agenda, the government recently invited the FSA to produce proposals for better use of data, intelligence and emerging technologies, and a new national approach to regulating large food businesses in England. Stated aims include the securing of a “… more proportionate and effective regulatory system.“.

A new national food regulator?

A move to national-level food regulation, even just for larger food businesses, would involve significant change.

While the FSA is often thought of by many as a national food regulator for England and Wales, that is not really its proper role.

Outside of its specialist role in abattoirs and meat plants, the FSA’s functions are mainly advisory and supervisory. Advisory in the sense that it has the scientific and policy-making expertise to help ministers design new food policy and make new food law. And supervisory in the sense that it has a legal duty to oversee the actions of local authorities in England and Wales to ensure that those local authorities are properly enforcing food law in their areas.  That is a long way short of being a national food regulator for England and Wales.

Even if the FSA wanted to expand its remit to carry out routine local level food safety inspection and enforcement, it lacks the legal powers to do so.

Major legal and operational changes would be needed to legally empower and equip the FSA to take on a more day-to-day inspection and enforcement role. It would need to employ many more environmental health and trading standards officers than it does currently, deploy those officers locally, and maintain the ability to carry out inspection, enforcement and prosecution work in all four corners of England. Unless the costs of its new functions are to be recovered from industry, whether by levy or charges, major public expenditure would also be needed.  The organisation that emerged from these changes would be a radically different FSA from the one that exists today.

Arguably, what we would have is a new, national food regulator with modernised, data-driven inspection and enforcement functions.

What’s the background?

The November 2025 budget included an invite to the FSA to streamline food standards and hygiene regulation for large, compliant supermarkets and to develop a consistent national approach in England for regulation of these large businesses.

The minister for public health, the Rt Hon Sharon Hodgson MP, has now written to the FSA to set out five growth goals. Among these were two significant goals, each of which calls for a fundamental rethink of the current food regulatory framework in England. They are to develop proposals:

• strengthening the use of data, intelligence and emerging technologies, including AI, to target regulatory effort more effectively and respond more quickly to risks; and
• for a new national approach to the regulation of large food businesses that reduces unnecessary burdens while maintaining public confidence, playing a key role in driving a more proportionate and effective regulatory system.

How is the FSA responding?

The FSA has announced a new “Future of Food Regulation Programme”. The Programme is likely to consist of six workstreams which involve the following:

1. looking at whether the current ‘registration only’ model for new food businesses remains appropriate (alternatives might include a licensing scheme, permit to trade, or some other more rigorous arrangement governing the setting up of new food businesses and an assessment of the competence and suitability of the individuals running them)
2. developing new regulatory roles and responsibilities for businesses operating in different parts of the food ecosystem (e.g. national food businesses, local food businesses, and online/technology-platform food businesses) and assessing the role of primary authorities and third-party assurance schemes
3. modernised enforcement (this could include greater use of civil sanctions and improvement notices instead of the current, predominately criminal law, framework)
4. redesigning the Food Hygiene Ratings System (the “scores on the doors” system, which relies on local premises inspection by local environmental health officers and would obviously need to change for food businesses regulated nationally)
5. new approaches to the provision of food regulatory guidance
6. examining system sustainability – both in terms of affordability and in terms of human resources and skills shortages

The FSA has committed to meaningful stakeholder engagement with food businesses, government departments (including the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and intends to set up a senior advisory group comprised of stakeholders from across the food system. A stakeholder engagement and communications plan is expected, with a view to ensuring that Programme outputs are informed by those with the necessary skills, knowledge and experience of the food system.

Our thoughts

The FSA has attempted a number of regulatory redesign projects over the years. In the main, these projects failed to achieve the vision set for them, with the fundamentals of food regulation – local authorities delivering food enforcement in local shops, restaurants and factories – remaining largely unchanged.

If real change in the food regulatory system is to be achieved, greater ambition on the part of government is needed. As a non-ministerial department, the FSA lacks a presence around the Cabinet Table and all that goes with it. Meaningful discussions about funding and, crucially – space in the annual programme of Bills before Parliament – is the preserve of those departments with a seat at the Table.   The FSAs ability to shift the dial on anything of substance is therefore limited and it often finds itself at the back of the queue when seeking major legislative and funding changes.

Some of the reforms anticipated by the Programme, such as a move to national level regulation for certain food businesses, will require primary legislation. The Food Safety Act 1990 and Food Standards Act 1999, which set the basic legal framework for local authority inspection and enforcement, as well as the current, largely supervisory, functions of the FSA, would require significant revision, perhaps repeal. That represents a major undertaking in both policy-making and legislative terms. Taking a Food Bill through Parliament requires a significant commitment of time on the part of both officials and ministers, as well as considerable political resolve. Will that time and resolve be there, we wonder?

And then there are at least three important and open questions affecting the Programme. One is the desire of the Rt Hon Andy Burnham, widely expected to become our next Prime Minister, to devolve more power to local government, not less. A centralising shift towards national level regulation is clearly at odds with the philosophy of more regionalised government.

Another is the impact of any Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) deal which the UK negotiates with the EU. A regulatory model in which one government body (the FSA for England and Wales) performs the role of central competent authority responsible for national-level coordination of other enforcement authorities is a current requirement of EU food law. The UK is likely to be bound to follow the EU model and that might, itself, represent a brake on ambition so far as substantive regulatory change is concerned.

And, third, the position of the devolved administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland. The FSA is not a creature of Westminster alone – it answers to governments in the other two nations of the UK. It is far from clear that those governments will automatically share the view of English ministers that food regulation should be used as a lever of economic growth, distinct from its role as an important aspect of public health protection.

These are important and difficult questions. They affect a great many people and are constitutionally and economically significant. If we are to witness the birth of a new food regulator for England, it should not happen without proper policy development, public engagement, liaison with the devolved administrations, and robust scrutiny and debate in Parliament. These are the means by which good policy is made and long-lasting, beneficial regulatory changes are achieved. Let’s hope that the Westminster government agrees and is up for the challenge.